Another Culture Change

[BandChick]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

There are a lot who boo and I heard it at WPI.

I could never decline and offer because there was better teams! That is amazing that you would do that!

Art, Chris, Brendan, etc. Just to clarify, it was a bit of both in NJ.
I took the crowd's reaction as just shock of "oohs", but it was my student (and a few others) who came off the field and said he heard booing as well.

And thank you for the compliment. Our scouting team and head coach had a long discussion before we sent our alliance captain down to the field. We debated what the right decision was, because we didn't want to burn any bridges. It came down to a matter of trust. I trusted my scouters and the data they collected, they trusted my judgment, and our coach trusted the team to make the decision that was right for this year's machine. Ultimately, we believed we could build a stronger alliance as a captain, and we had a great run with 1647 and 102 in elims.

2180 is a great team, and we certainly look forward to working with them in the long run. And no, their team was not part of the crowd that chastised my captain.

[/end tangent]

[Elliot191]

Originally Posted by Cory

You're completely misrepresenting my position. I specifically said when AT the competition, we are there to win, because it is indeed a competition.

I never said that the whole point of our team is to win. Those are two totally different things.

You also specifically said that FIRST was at it's heart a robotics competition.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Elliot191

You also specifically said that FIRST was at it's heart a robotics competition.

That's because it is, hence the name FIRST Robotics Competition.

[Grim Tuesday]

I just want to say that this is an amazing thread, and should probably be stickied. Actually, on second thought, if it gets stickied, then noone will read it, so don't.

Regardless, there are immature people in this world, and unfortunately there are some who choose to join FIRST teams. What astounds me, is that I noticed nothing of these goings on at FLR. Or in fact, were there any mentioned beyond NJ and WPI regionals. Everyone should remember just how good every single other regional was, because they were.

[Elliot191]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That's because it is, hence the name FIRST Robotics Competition.

FRC is a division of FIRST in which we participate. It's not the mission. Like i said, the competition is a byproduct of the mission. FIRST-For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. No where do i see the word competition.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Elliot191

FRC is a division of FIRST in which we participate. It's not the mission. Like i said, the competition is a byproduct of the mission. FIRST-For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. No where do i see the word competition.

Okay, FRC Team instead of FIRST Team then. He used the term interchangeably and the argument about terminology is kind of pedantic.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Elliot191

FRC is a division of FIRST in which we participate. It's not the mission. Like i said, the competition is a byproduct of the mission. FIRST-For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. No where do i see the word competition.

FRC: the C in FRC is competition.


Competition doesn't mean rudeness, though. I certainly don't see that mentioned anywhere!

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Regardless, there are immature people in this world, and unfortunately there are some who choose to join FIRST teams.

If FIRST isn't here to transform the minds of these "immature people" into gracious professionals, inspired by competitive robotics to pursue STEM education, I don't know what it is for.

The goal isn't to keep the "bad" kids out. The goal is to take the "bad" out of kids, thereby transforming OUR culture.

[Elliot191]

FIRST existed before its competitions did. And it will continue to exist after they end. To say that competition is at the center of FIRST is to completely overlook all of the other things they do to inspire students.

[JVN]

So back to the topic...
Can we change the culture within FIRST to where it is no longer okay to make mean remarks about a team on YouTube just because you're jealous of them?

How can we teach teams to use their jealousy to raise the bar instead of try to lower the ceiling?

How do we instill a culture of professionalism?

[Jonathan Norris]

I might not be adding much to this thread, but I want to add my support for 1114 and all they do.

When I started my FIRST experience back in 2004 and 2005 I heard the same voices that criticized 1114. I quickly got to know the students and mentors involved in 1114 and figured out no its not that they are doing anything the wrong way, its just that they work harder and are more professional then we are. That was really my turning point in FIRST, thats when I figured it out, 1114 has inspired me throughout the years to build better robots, and build a better team. I've got to know alot of the people involved in 1114, and once you get to know them you wonder how can anyone hate this group of people?

I've known for years that 1114 has haters, I've heard the haters complaining about them year after year at GTR. This year I hope the FIRST community will help us take a stand against the negativity thrown their way (and the way of other powerhouse teams), and appreciate how much we can learn and be inspired by them.

[lscime]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I just want to say that this is an amazing thread, and should probably be stickied. Actually, on second thought, if it gets stickied, then noone will read it, so don't.

Regardless, there are immature people in this world, and unfortunately there are some who choose to join FIRST teams. What astounds me, is that I noticed nothing of these goings on at FLR. Or in fact, were there any mentioned beyond NJ and WPI regionals. Everyone should remember just how good every single other regional was, because they were.

Please don't imply that Pittsburgh is the "bad" regional. Such an assumption isn't fair to all of the teams and participants who WERE graciously professional. Pittsburgh has just been chosen as an example to enable a discussion of a larger issue.

Thank you,
-Luke

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Elliot191

FIRST existed before its competitions did. And it will continue to exist after they end. To say that competition is at the center of FIRST is to completely overlook all of the other things they do to inspire students.

FIRST uses competition as a tool to inspire students. Otherwise it would be FIRST Robotics Expo and we might see some cool bots doing some cool stuff but it would be just like another science fair. But don't take it from me:

Originally Posted by Dean Kamen-2008 Kickoff

I would ask you to please focus just for a couple of moments on something that i think is really, really important. Why we do this.

From the beginning, we put FIRST together because of a couple fundamental principles.
We believe that in a free society you get what you celebrate. And we could see, when we started this thing 15, 16 years ago, we celebrate sports. Nothing wrong with it, we celebrate entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that.

But in our culture somehow they became so big they were crowding out particularly for lots of kids and particularly women and minorities, they were crowding out the opportunity to celebrate science, technology, inventing, creating, thinking, solving problems.

It was crowding out for these kids the opportunity to be prepared by developing the skills and getting an education that will allow them to be the next generation of people that will create solutions, cure diseases, solve energy and environmental problems.

And we said we've got to compete for the minds and hearts of kids with a culture that is just sort of gone awry.

But we stole from the books of the world of sports because it's so powerful and we said we're going to create a competition that is every bit as exciting and rewarding and every bit as accessible as bouncing a ball or standing on a stage.

As you can see by our growth, it's worked. But sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for because you get it. And as we all know, the world of sports and entertainment have trappings with them that we don't want to have. Winning at any cost. The kind of behavior we see from a lot of our sports role models. The kind of behavior we see from the world of entertainment and some of our Hollywood role models.

It's not what we want.

So how do we balance the fact that every year our sporting event gets better and more exciting and tougher? How do we balance the fact that we want to compete by making things so exciting that we are the ultimate sport, but that we never end up with the trappings that I think are so unfortunately associated with those other things?

And maybe it's by every year reminding ourselves that unlike other sports, we have a much bigger picture to deal with.

You've heard some of the people talk about some of what that is.

But FIRST sort of wants to be what the NFL or the Olympic committee is to those kinds of activities, we want to be that common ground and coalition for an activity that, frankly, has way, way, way more serious and important consequences than how well we bounce balls.
So in a few minutes you'll start this new season. You're going to see an incredibly exciting competition. You'll be focused on building great machines. You're going to lose a lot of sleep. You're going to be hating me, and Dave, and Vince, and Woodie, for diabolical, frustrating things.

But I would ask everybody, no matter how much you get into the robotics of it all, to remember that again unlike other sports, we're really not about how many points you get.
The end game in basketball is how many points you get. That's what matters. That's whatever -- you have a skill set of whatever is that particular sport bouncing a ball. There is not a lot of other collateral places you can use that ball-bouncing skill. Winning matters.

In FIRST, the skill sets you develop, the ability to understand problems and how to solve them, you begin to understand the power of mathematics and reasoning and logic, analytics, the consequence of participating in FIRST you start to think about career opportunities, you start to think about how you can change the world. That's way more important than whether this robot bounced the ball or didn't bounce the ball.

So I’m literally begging everybody that participates to remember the big picture of FIRST.

The robots, no offense, are just a vehicle. FIRST isn't about robotics, it is not about building that machine or that much. It is about building an understanding of what is possible for people that are prepared, that have the power and tools, science and technology and thinking. FIRST is about building relationships between kids and serious adults.

People have created our standard of living, quality of life. It's about creating hopefully the next generation of kids that will keep raising the bar and making the world a better place for everybody. The robots help make it fun and attract people but unlike other sports, our mission is way, way bigger than the points and so I hope no matter how intense it all gets, you all remember that as Woodie always says, imagine your grandmother is watching everything you do.

Remember, it's about gracious professionalism. Remember that what we're doing here in five or 10 or 15 years may be what inspired somebody to cure cancer or build an engine that doesn't pollute. In that year nobody will remember which robot won or lost but I hope in that year everybody that ever participated in FIRST will remember back to the whole experience and remember back to the relationships we've all created and really believes that everybody is a winner if we do this right.

(Courtesy of NASA) (Full Transcript - http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/first/08transcript.php)

It is about celebrating one of the few professions that CREATE value rather than just shuffling it around. This event isn't about who wins or who loses, it isn't about who built or designed whatever. This is about showing students what a real engineer does because most of them, as strange as this may seem to us, have never met one.

If you still think that student run teams are better there isn't much more I can do to tell you how wrong you are other than say that FIRST has had this issue for at LEAST the 8 yrs I've been in FRC and done nothing about it. Give it up, every team is run differently, stop saying your way is better than any other way.

[Qwertyu8]

JVN,

I also have witnessed the lack of professionalism. To keep things simple at a regional competition i witnessed a strategy aimed at disloging a minibot by ramming from a host robot. I have no problem with this strategy, however the teams conduct afterwards was where they to me lost their professionalism. After the minibot was dislogged the they started moving as if they were to continue blocking, but decided that a G48 was in order. They then stopped their defence and started scoring. Thankfully the team was able to partially mend the minibot from what i could tell, but the incident affected deployment of that minibot for the rest of the competition. This is hypocracy because the team had freshly started a Gracious Professionalism Campaign.

I am truely sorry that 1114 had to suffer what it did. I guess there are those who can not handle the pressures of FIRST in a productive way. I personally can not wait till more video is up of the beautiful robots produced in Team IFI.

Qwertyu8

[davidthefat]

The first thing Mr Amir said to me when I went up to him to ask him about their autonomy was that the robot was coded by his students. I said to myself in my head, "how many times does this man get accused of doing everything that he has to say that out of impulse?" I am a very analytical guy and I catch on subtle things such as those. Sure I never said that I did not believe that his students did not program it, I merely just asked how they did it, whether it was line trackers or some other way.


I know how it feels to get hated upon. During our rival game, I went to the rival's side of the stands and I over heard the people saying that they lost because our team was half Juniors. I personally was ticked off by that statement. First because I was a Junior on JV, and the other thing was that people tend to find an excuse or a scapegoat for their failures. I can say that all you can do is blame yourself.