[Bharat Nain]

I'd like to think that FIRST is a microcosm of the real world. There are lessons we learn that can stay with us forever. As a student, I used FIRST as a training ground to mold myself into the person I am today. Over the passage of time, here are a few lessons I have learned:


You cannot be stuck up about winning. In real life and in competition. If you want to be a true winner, you have to learn to have an internal reference point. What I mean is you have to learn to compete with yourself and not with the outside world. As others have stated, FIRST is not a level playing field and teams have various levels of resources and there is no way every team build a championship winning robot. However, what you can do is ask yourself "With the resources available, have I done the best I can do? Have I out-done my previous performances?". If the answer to that is Yes, I am happy. This has helped me tremendously in my professional development and taught me a lot about working under pressure and limited resources.

I believe Gracious Professionalism is one of the most misunderstood concepts these days. If I am going to compete on the playing field, I want to compete against the best possible opponents to challenge me or else there is no room for my growth. How am I supposed to know how good I really am if I am not playing against the hardest/smartest possible opponents? Gracious Professionalism is helping my partners and opponents be the best they possibly can off the field and Gracious Professionalism is competing at my best on the field. You help yourself also by helping your opponents.

Oftentimes, successful (however you define that) teams give very valuable advice to the rest of the community. One thing my team has preached for many years is keeping it simple and working within your resources. If the game requires a robot to perform 3 tasks, you are better off performing 2 tasks very well as opposed to all 3 not-as-well.

What I am trying to get at is - there are comparisons between sports and FIRST. There are similarities and lessons to be learned. Sports teaches some better (competing, winning etc) than others (Gracious Professionalism). In a world of science and technology, principles such as GP can be very valuable. It is what you take from it and it is about keeping things in the right perspective. It can be about winning but the more importantly how you win. What lessons did you learn as you won?

Hope that some makes sense.

-Bharat