Another Culture Change

[Darren Collins]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I started FIRST as a student back in 1998 on Team 188. Our robot was not very good that year. Countless hours were put in by 30 high school students that year, and we made a robot we were very proud of, but frankly we got our butts handed to us at EPCOT. What I remember from that year is being awe-struck by teams like 111, 47, 71, 16 and 126. Their level of excellence and dominance was simply inspiring. I remember thinking "One day, I want to have a team like that. I want to make people's jaws drop they way mine did this weekend." After years of hard work with 1114 we were able to make that happen. It didn't happen overnight, but it sure did happen. It's not hopeless, it definitely is possible to rise to an elite level.

As a mentor, I felt the same way during our rookie year in 2007. We had a slow, tippy robot that we were proud of. However, upon seeing excellent teams at our regional and championships, we were inspired to work harder and learn from others.

When I see a well organized team with an efficient, elegant robot, I am motivated to learn more so that I can provide greater opportunities for my own students. Each year, our students and mentors seek to learn and improve through our own experiences and from the work of other teams. I ask my students to learn from others' robots and team organization and take the good and use it.

Wallowing is self pity and insulting the hard work of highly successful teams is damaging for everyone; Nothing is inspirational about it. This type of behavior should be confronted by all in an attempt to elimate it entirely.