[Rich Kressly]

No offense intended, so I won't quote folks above, but ...

Looks like some are focused solely on extrinsic motivators and not looking at the intrinsic. It's pretty easy to look at this as "what FIRST wants" and "they need to provide more feedback to get people to do this" but, if that's where the conversation ends it all seems kind of cheesy to me.

I firmly believe that FIRST "wants" us to do this because it's important to work at positive culture change. Why aren't more teams looking "inside themselves" in this pursuit? I mean, I'll flat out tell you, I personally feel no different in these efforts with 1712 than I did when I was a Hall of Fame member with 103 performing outreach and working hard at the same thing. Yes, the recognition is very nice and other people view it as a credibility thing on occasion, but when I go to bed at night, how I feel about myself and the efforts 1712 has made without the award itself feels EXACTLY the same way it did when I was at Palisades.

Lower Merion is a very different community and we've developed a very different approach to outreach, etc but at the end of the day the positive change is palpable and the satisfaction of a positively changed community is where it's at.

I'm frightened by the thought that someone wants to reduce all of this to a point system somewhere, in fact, it really makes me feel sick. I like the fact that its somewhat open ended and I don't want any judge checking boxes in this case instead of talking, reading, learning, understanding.

As for students being "wired" differently and the implication that they can't/won't/shouldn't be altruistic ... I just don't buy it at all. I just spent a weekend in Dallas with some incredible 20-somethings (along with many older folks as well) who were all there on their own dime, giving back to an effort they first learned as FRC team members. I also see it every day in the students we work with and I see it in their actions and decisions they make on their own long after they leave us. Is it hard? You bet. Is it frustrating? You bet. Does it run completely counter to what modern American selfish culture teaches them? Oh yes.

Kinda like the unfairly difficult nature of the robot thingy part of what we do, maybe we need to do this because the most meaningful efforts we can make in life are the most misunderstood, unrecognized, and thankless - but oh so incredibly necessary.