Another Culture Change

[Kimmeh]

I'm completely disgusted to find out that this happens. I never in my wildest dreams would dare to say a robot is mentor built. We've had a year where the mentors have done more than probably should have, and quite frankly, it didn't help us much. Next year, we had more student involvement and incidentally, we did better from a competitive standpoint.

I also find it sad that numerous teams, especially the powerhouses, have their build season/methods completely transparent and are still accused of, well almost anything you can think to accuse them of. Personally, JVN's build journal, RUSH's rookie toolkit, and all of the NEMO papers out there were invaluable to another mentor and myself when we took lead over a team. The FIRST community is a much better place because they share what works, and doesn't work for them. To then turn around and have teams call them out on it? I'm floored.

Originally Posted by Karthik

So how do we stop it? We cannot tolerate it. If you see/hear someone acting this way, call them out on it. Don't just laugh awkwardly and ignore it, squash it. If we passively ignore this type of behavior, it becomes acceptable. Too often people just say "oh, you should take it as a compliment, it means you're good." I'm sorry, but we can do better than that. We need to take a stand at teams who are doing this, directly.

Karthik brought up the point that I wanted to make. We've brought it to light now, how do we stop it? Even more so, how do we do it positively? Negatively calling a person out causes resentment, which will only fuel them. IMO, one of the best places to start is talking to them. Ask them how they reached their judgment. Make them back up their argument. But at the same time, don't be rude about it either. Be prepared to give your own evidence to counter theirs. It never hurts to remind them that FIRST gives students a chance to work with professionals from "The Real World". Not using them as the valuable resources they are can do more harm then good.

Potential dialogue:
"Team #### sucks! Totally mentor built!"
"Really? What makes you say that?"
"*Insert reason here*"
"Do you know this first hand? You're probably taking away credit from the students. Have you talked to the team about their design? No? Let's go talk to them."

In closing, I'm reminded of one of my mother's favorite phrases: "If it's not nice, don't say it."