Quote:
Originally posted by Warren Boudreau
Personally, I consider the football analogy to be the most disgusting thing in this whole issue.
Football and Gracious Professionalism are mutually exclusive philosophies.
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What does this mean? Football is a contact sport, yes, and a rough one, and so will this game be, but there is nothing inherently graceless or unprofessional about either of them.
The essence of engineering is to take what is given in a situation, and make the best possible solution out of it. If my job requires me to build a robot to help an astronaut, wishing that I could build a
giant car crushing robot instead doesn't get me any closer to my goal. Similarly, whining and complaining about a percieved loss of elegance does nothing to advance either your solution to the problem or the game in general. Granted, I haven't been around the game as long as many of you - last year was my first - but the spirit of FIRST is unchanged from last year. We are still out to teach high school students what engineering and professionalism are all about, and there is already too much whining and negativism in the workplace. We don't need to perpetuate it by showing examples of this behavior in response to a game.
Know now that everyone's robot will have at least one crisis during the competition. You can either fix your robot and help those teams that need the help fix theirs, or you can stand around and wish that you could take the robot back home and fix it in your shop. One course of action will allow you to keep competing, and one will not.