Sippin' on the haterade

[PayneTrain]

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

[Weinberger]

Martin

Our team strategically denied your invite to coopertition bridge balance in the late quali rounds at P'tree Regional this year. This round was frought with great excitement because we were allied with 1311 against your bot and we played some great defense against you.

The team's strategy was that by playing defense against your scoring and balancing (we'd win the match) and not upset the standings between you and 1311, which was down to coopertition points.

This would harm our overall standing (ending up in 10th rank with 0 CP vs. 4th or 5th had we earned CP) but would make us more likely to be chosen by a top seed. Like a 1771 or 1311 or 2415.

The strategy was clearly marred and left us unsuccessful in the elimination matches I would agree with several threads here at CD, that MORE coopertition balancing is the one KEY to advancing in this year's game.

Our team does share a healthy jealousy of the top's team's (team #'s listed above) success at the local regional. It makes us work that much harder to be competitive against/with you. In, 2010 for instance you helped take us to Regional winner. But any haterade toward you is definately cut with a dose of respect for the engineering solutions that you consistently show up with year after year.

I wish you and your team continued success and good luck with that fundraising. We'll see you at the competition!!

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

Aw shucks.. I have to 'spread more rep around'.

Thank you for this post!

Jane

[Garret]

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

I honestly thought you were doing fine up until you said this. If you believe that not having a regional victory or awards discredits someone you need to get your priorities straight. It doesn't matter who has more awards (it doesn't in my mind), you should at least remain civil and respectful; I have said a couple times now, even if you are offended you should always show GP.

About this thread though. Its disappointing that your team would have to deal with that type ungracious hating.

My team used to be and to an extent still, is one of those "hater" teams; we have fixed that at the tournaments as far as I know. Our team has really improved over the past couple seasons going from almost last seed to being a reasonable competitive team. However when you lose repeatably to the same team it can be very frustrating and can make some students begin to try to justify in their minds why they lost. Its not like our students are any less intelligent or don't work as hard, its just that they don't have access to the wealth of knowledge (mentors) that those teams do.

I will also say that my experience with the good teams have been less than positive, we could call it reverse-hating. I have found several of the mentors on the "super" teams at our regional to be outright rude; some of them have made comments to my team members that were quite hurtful (essentially making fun of some of the athletes on the team). Other mentors have come up to our team and talked about how bad a particular drivetrain is (mecanum) when we were using that drivetrain. My problem with some of those teams is not the students (I will never hold anything against the students), my problem is with mentors from certain teams. I don't know if this is the norm, maybe my team just has really bad luck (wouldn't be surprising), but we have not had positive experiences with many of the "super" teams we have interacted with.

This whole thing made me remember something that my team has been talking about recently. Our issue is how there is literally no recognition from FIRST for teams that do not win. FIRST used to give out medals to all teams now all we get is a pin. For a team member who has put in countless hours of work this pin is in my opinion a joke. When team members were given medals they could always show them off at school and get some recognition from their peers and feel good about what they did. This is just something I have been thinking about, I don't know if it makes sense.

I apologize if my post is offensive, inflammatory, or doesn't make sense. I do not mean it to be offensive, I just thought I would play the devil's advocate to an extent by giving my teams experience. These opinions are mine and should not be held against my team.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Garret

My problem with some of those teams is not the students (I will never hold anything against the students), my problem is with mentors from certain teams.

The fish rots from the head down. It does seem like a lot of negative behavior is initiated / driven / supported by the adults whether they be mentors, or parents just dragging in attitude like you might see at a SEC conference game. It is up to the adults and student leaders to set the standard, set the tone, and create the culture inside the team where trash talk isn't tolerated. What happens is teams allow a negative culture to thrive in their shop 51 weeks of the year and there is no quenching it during competition week, no matter how hard they try. The students are just following the adult / student leaders example.

Originally Posted by Garret

For a team member who has put in countless hours of work this pin is in my opinion a joke. When team members were given medals they could always show them off at school and get some recognition from their peers and feel good about what they did.

Rule #1 of volunteerism : never do anything seeking gratitude, you will surely be disappointed. Find your own intrinsic reasons, follow your internal compass, and be satisfied. If someone else recognizes what you are up to, then all the better.

[Garret]

Rule #1 of volunteerism : never do anything seeking gratitude, you will surely be disappointed. Find your own intrinsic reasons, follow your internal compass, and be satisfied. If someone else recognizes what you are up to, then all the better.

That is definitely true. My statement was about the students deserving some sort of "official" recognition, like in FLL where all teams get medals. I don't need recognition nor do I care if I get it. I didn't intend for it to come off like I wanted recognition if that's what you interpreted it as.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Garret

I don't need recognition nor do I care if I get it. I didn't intend for it to come off like I wanted recognition if that's what you interpreted it as.

I was just throwing the comment out there. I'm with you. I understood what you said.

I'm in a good place personally. I don't need the recognition and just as happy being invisible.

[Kevin Ray]

I too have to admit that long ago (13 years) I was somewhat of a hater--though I never gave voice to these thoughts. I remember being at the Championships in Epcot and wondering, "How in the world can they expect us to be able to compete with teams like 47 and the like, with their multi-million dollar 5 axis milling machines (naive, I know) while we only had jig saws and cordless drills. I felt that were competing on an uneven playing field. These teams had real engineers helping them--obviously.

Well, it took about one full season of losses and a re-evaluation of the goals of FIRST for me to realize what the problem was--it was my failure to understand the INSPIRATION component of FIRST. After looking at the WOW bots and seeing what they had done with the same KOP that we had received I suddenly realized that Inspiration took on a whole new meaning. Besides the obvious, it now meant that we could be inspired by other teams who did, in fact, have engineers. By seeing what could be acccomplished we would be inspired to build better bots. In sports we don't want our children to only play kids on their level or lower, they'll never grow. We want them to be challenged. We want them to see the professional athletes so that they can have higher loftier goals to shoot for.

If all of the robots looked like our first two years' bots and we had nothing to model after, we would all have suffered. Now, many years later, after being driven to find a major corporate sponsor and to fundraise to buy milling machines, we are competitive. And, we are thankful for having the free expertise of the many great teams who willingly shared much of their knowledge on CD and at competitions. Though we are clearly not amongst the elite teams, we are finally able to give back to the rookie teams and they actually say that they wish that they had the backing that we do.

And incidently...some of our greatest victories in those early years came in the matches in which we beat opponents with the WOW bots on their alliance. A well made robot doesn't always make for a well designed robot (strategically speaking).

[elemental]

Originally Posted by ebarker

The fish rots from the head down. It does seem like a lot of negative behavior is initiated / driven / supported by the adults whether they be mentors, or parents just dragging in attitude like you might see at a SEC conference game.

This is unfortunately true. At a regional I volunteered at, some students related an experience about an adult affiliate of a well-respected, "elite" team repeatedly telling them that his team would "kick their butts".
Whenever I hear of or experience this type of behavior it makes me sad as students, when left to themselves, are usually cooperative and ready to make friends. I suppose one just has to try to not only be role models for students, but for parents, etc.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by wireties

Clearly I got under his skin somehow and I regret doing so. Best of luck in St Louis!

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Madison

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

Much of what you say it true and I apologize. I'll endeavor to be more careful in the future.

Kind Regards

[JaneYoung]

Realizing that the haterade focus in this thread is on the winning teams, I think there continues to be a lot of areas in teams that require some edumacation.

For one, what is a "big boys" team?

I've recently had a young team approach me and talk to me about different regionals and how the impact of individuals makes a huge difference in the attitudes of teams. How sexism in teams in one competition is dealt with swiftly and professionally, whereas sexism and remarks in another competition is never dealt with.

This is a team that is very successful in recruiting and retaining young women on their team. Travel to events creates a lot of opportunity for discussions and, in the end, they are glad that they don't have to deal with that type of haterade, locally.

So - sip away and while you're sipping - be aware of the different flavors and if your own cup is half empty or half full when thinking in terms of team built.

Jane

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

.... how the impact of individuals makes a huge difference in the atittudes of teams

The fish rots from the head down. - The impact of adult and student leadership cannot be understated.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by ebarker

The fish rots from the head down. - The impact of adult and student leadership cannot be understated.

The impact of the adults on the students, the events, and the program, results in the development of the students and the program and what that becomes.

Jane

[ebarker]

Absolutely.