Why Losers Lose?

[Karthik]

As opposed to answering the poorly formed literal question posed in the thread title, I'll go with a more generic "Why do teams fail to succeed". For the purposes of this exercise, let's define success as "producing a robot with competes at a below average to average level". Many teams have higher goals, while some teams have completely different goals, but this is a good basis to form a question of success around.

This is just snapshot of some of the more common reasons, many of which have been touched upon already in this thread.

- Building before strategically designing and analyzing the game: "How can you build a robot if you don't know what it's supposed to do"
- A failure to honestly and realistically evaluate one's resources (resources in this context are defined as time, experience, fabrication abilities and money), thus making you think you're capable of doing more than you can do.
- A failure to properly design around one's resources
- Over complicated robots: "The jack of all trades is the master of none"
- Lack of effort/desire/focus
- Lack of practice
- A failure to strategize

[David Brinza]

Giving up. Quitting. Placing blame rather than finding solutions.

FIRST is about problem-solving. Problem-solving requires persistence and an open mind.

If you lack those traits, losing comes easy.

[davidthefat]

I think another aspect is the attitude and perspective. I would personally call this season a failure for me, but others on the team think that it was a tremendous success. Now, we both had the same season, but yet, how can we have such polar opinions? It is a matter of perspective. I have failed on a personal level. I saw this season as a failure because of several reasons.

First, we relied too much on luck. Luck got a fairly far, in fact, the farthest we have gotten in 11 years. But that is why I consider this season a failure. Disregard all numbers and ranking. I, personally, did not do all I can do to insure a better robot. I did not acquire the trust from the mentors to allow me to implement any autonomy into the robot. In fact, I had only uploaded code only once during the competition. Mentors did not trust code. I call that a failure because I failed to gain their trust.

Another reason was due to the more obvious. I had failed to control the arm efficiently enough. My personal record was 2 tubes during any given match. I considered that a failure. I promised a logo, but due to technical difficulties, the arm was not given the limelight. Perhaps it was not all in my control, but I bare the blunt of the blame.

Lastly, one of the biggest reasons were "diplomatic" reasons. Perhaps, I have made a few enemies in the team. I am very outspoken and opinionated. Which in itself is great in my honest opinion, but the flaw was in the execution of those opinions.

[lemiant]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I think another aspect is the attitude and perspective. I would personally call this season a failure for me, but others on the team think that it was a tremendous success. Now, we both had the same season, but yet, how can we have such polar opinions? It is a matter of perspective. I have failed on a personal level. I saw this season as a failure because of several reasons.

First, we relied too much on luck. Luck got a fairly far, in fact, the farthest we have gotten in 11 years. But that is why I consider this season a failure. Disregard all numbers and ranking. I, personally, did not do all I can do to insure a better robot. I did not acquire the trust from the mentors to allow me to implement any autonomy into the robot. In fact, I had only uploaded code only once during the competition. Mentors did not trust code. I call that a failure because I failed to gain their trust.

Another reason was due to the more obvious. I had failed to control the arm efficiently enough. My personal record was 2 tubes during any given match. I considered that a failure. I promised a logo, but due to technical difficulties, the arm was not given the limelight. Perhaps it was not all in my control, but I bare the blunt of the blame.

Lastly, one of the biggest reasons were "diplomatic" reasons. Perhaps, I have made a few enemies in the team. I am very outspoken and opinionated. Which in itself is great in my honest opinion, but the flaw was in the execution of those opinions.

Wow, sounds EXACTLY like my season.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Karthik

As opposed to answering the poorly formed literal question posed in the thread title, I'll go with a more generic "Why do teams fail to succeed".

I was hoping someone would recognize this.



Jane

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Karthik

- A failure to honestly and realistically evaluate one's resources (resources in this context are defined as time, experience, fabrication abilities and money), thus making you think you're capable of doing more than you can do.
- A failure to properly design around one's resources

This is the one thing that I see kills more teams than any other.

Lots of people asked why we used wood this year and I expect they were looking for some elaborate technical answer but the bottom line was it was a quick available and free resource.