UNgracious UNprofessionalism

[Ian Curtis]

I think the first 70 posts of this oldie-but-goodie "Dealing with disapointments [sic]" are worth reading. (gets off topic after that)

Originally Posted by Madison

Don't lie to your students. Your robot lost because the other teams WERE better than you and your team's work wasn't good enough. Full stop.

This is my outlook on life too. At the same time, I think it is important in how you phrase it. Disappointment can come in many different forms. For some teams, not winning a regional is the disappointment. For other teams, being a quarterfinalist is the disappointment. For some, not making the big dance is the disappointment, and for some having their robot barely move is the disappointment!

For the teams that miss out on the regional win, "We weren't good enough" is likely a great motivator. For the teams that struggled to move, that's probably rubbing salt in an open wound, and your gang of teenagers may be seconds away from giving you a death glare normally reserved for their parents.

For 1778, last year the kids were in the "struggled to move" bucket, and that is no fun for anyone. This year, we were in the "disappointed to miss the big dance" bucket but the team made huge strides. We put a working robot in the bag for the first time in living memory, and had scored more points 7 seconds into autonomous mode of our first match than we had the entire preceding season! Attached is the graph I made of our progress by CCWM (extrapolation is never dangerous )

We weren't good enough. You never can be. But I'm very excited about next year, and you can bet we'll be better.

Originally Posted by Vince Lombardi

The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price.

The magic trick is figuring out how to motivate people to do the hard work before success comes knocking.