Supporting the FIRST organization through growing pains

[Clayton Yocom]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

I'm starting to get a feeling that FIRST is turning into another robotics competition, and it's kind of saddening. Winning is not everything. People say we are all winners to lift spirits, but honestly, I do believe that those that participate in FIRST are winners. I see a lot of people losing the real meaning of FIRST and participating in it as another competition. It's a whole lot more than that....a whole lot.

Please don't look at the complaining as a part of the competition. Its how we can make it better. Ask us how we feel after this season and I'm sure we'll say we're very happy with it. Even to the "powerhouse teams", and even when they are in a slump after a long competitive streak, we don't hang our heads and cry about the season. We try to find out how next year can be better. We all can agree that regardless of how the competition season goes, we learn much too much to say that we didn't love it.