The Stereotyping of Successful Teams

[Gdeaver]

Did some one step on the Daisies? Don't step on the Daisies. For several year's now our team has been having many problems. In search for solutions we looked to the successful teams in our area for the model and plan for our survival and growth. 2 teams that have been unbelievably helpful and responsible for not only our survival but, our growth are Miss Daisy (341) and MOE (365). If you get to know these teams you will not find superstars but a group of rather normal human beings that are dedicated and committed to the ideals of First. They work year round to maintain their teams. They dedicate way too many hours to the effort. In stead of being envious of their success, one would be better off getting to know them and see what lead to their success and work those concepts into your own program.

Please, Please do not step on the Daisies.

[Ben Martin]

For each successful team, someone or some group of people on that team had to work really hard to build the team to its level of success. Is it fair to demean the hard work that someone put in because of personal jealousy?

From my experience, team competition success seems more to be a function of the paradigm of the team as opposed to funding, number of members, or anything else (I won't list examples, but there are a number of teams I know of with $30,000+ budgets who achieve low to medium success each year). If one has a team culture of working hard and takes advantage of the talents of its members, one can leverage one's resources to produce the best possible season result.

Miss Daisy is a great program. I know our team learned a lot from them while on their alliance at Chestnut Hill. Great members all around, I made a ton of friends during that district event.

[Clem1640]

Our team made a similar decision 5 years back; dissatisfied with never winning anything. When we made this decision, we really had little understanding of what we needed to do to actually become a better, more competitive team (and at the same time to bring more value to our students). So we looked for role models. Fortunately, we didn't need to look very far.

Teams 341 (Miss Daisy) and 365 (MOE) quickly became my references on how a well-run team should operate. Students and Mentors of both of these teams are very open and helpful. I have learned volumes from Daisy and MOE and have become a better mentor as a result. Our team has become a better, more competitive team as well.

It's easy and satisfying to denegrate the successful, but it's far better to emulate and learn from them!

I agree with Gdeaver: Don't step on the Daisies!

[team4384]

The first time I saw Miss Daisy was in Atlanta 2010 championship and was amazed to see them receive Chairman's award and their video submission. They were one of the inspiration for me (personally) to do outreach programs. I missed to list them in one of my earlier post on Chairman's award submissions and award recipients.

On the sidebar, I don't like to call any award recipient as winner, they are awarded for what they do. Everyone that does things like community ourtreach etc are already winners and the judges determine who has done a little more or little differently, so there are no losers, which means there are no winners either). Just my take, please ignore if you don't agree with this.

[Nuttyman54]

First, this is one of the most inspiring threads I've read on CD in a while, thank you Alan for giving us all some insight into how your team is run.

I had the pleasure of spending champs with my new FRC team, 1983 Skunkworks Robotics. I've known them for a long time, having gone to school with several former students and now engaged to one of their mentors. Being a highly successful team in the Pacific Northwest region, they've also seen their share of the stereotyping, especially since they came out strong their rookie year and haven't slowed down since.

Like 341 and many other top teams, the have-nots assume "elite" teams just have money handed to them. Skunkworks has started to do sustainability workshops and provide other guidance to local teams about how they run their program, and how hard the students work to get their sponsors, maintain their sponsors, and fundraise 12 months out of the year to support their program. As a direct result, they're starting to see the attitude towards them change, as other teams start to realize that nothing is given to them for free, and the effort required to sustain the program.

The other team I'm involved with, 971, also had major hurdles to overcome this year. Many people do not know that we lost our main fabrication sponsor, Berger Manufacturing, last summer when they closed down. Berger had been a huge supporter of the team since 2006. The students and mentors both scoured their leads and worked tirelessly to get enough manufacturing capabilities lined up for the season to produce a competitive robot, and continue to work to give back to our sponsors, thank them for their support and show the impact they've had on the students. It just goes to show that things can happen to any team, no matter how young, old, struggling or established. The difference between continuing to be competitive and folding is how hard the team works to maintain their community relationships and establish new ones.

Teams need to hear these stories. They become inspired from this, because rather than feeling like they can never reach that level because they don't have the sponsors, they start to understand that they too can achieve that success by putting in the effort. It's eye-opening for a lot of teams. Thank you Daisy, for being a role model and an inspiration to so many teams.

[sanddrag]

At our regionals this year, several people came up to me and said "Wow, you have a lot of sponsors, you guys must have a lot of money" or "Wow, you have a trailer, you must have a lot of money" or "You guys have a CNC? Your school must be rich." We do okay, but in reality, it's not as much as anyone thinks, and plenty of teams with mediocre robots and pit areas are running larger budgets than ours. If we happened to qualify for Championship, we wouldn't have been able to afford to go. If any one of our major sponsors dropped out, it would be a real hit to our budget. I was mostly okay with it, because most of the people making these comments were nice about it, and saying it in a more complimentary fashion. However, it does show that speculation forms without having the facts.

My favorite was "How do we make our team be like your team?" That's the sort of question everyone should be asking of these so-called "elite" or "powerhouse" teams.

[Kidney]

Wow. I just wanted to say thanks for making this thread. It's surprisingly inspirational and nice to see the "real" side of things on "elite" teams, especially a hall-of-fame team.

Your post really puts things into perspective. My team won its first FRC regional this season and it took us six years to finally do so, and to hear 341's story is quite eye-opening to me. Thanks for posting.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Al & company: Thanks a ton for what you do for teams in the Philly area and in the world. You are THE local inspiration for 3929 and are our standard of excellence in terms of sponsorships and robot quality.

Thanks for this thread.

Us too. "What would Daisy do?" We ask it in our shop. We ask it in our strategy. Ok, really, we ask it anytime we want something done better.

To everyone out there (and to Daisy, if you don't know), this is not an isolated incident. Not for Akash, not for 1676, not for us. I can walk by pits at MAR districts and hear people saying "what would Daisy do?" (Or if they're there, "we could ask Daisy!")

They and MOE 365 are who people in this area turn to to see what's "right". We don't do it to complain, we don't even do it to worship in awe. We do it because we know we can do it to. Because they're not magic, they're not "rich", they're entirely accessible--and they'll help us!


I'm completely comfortable saying that MAR as a region would not be what it is today without both 341 and 365.

[MisterG]

In my own experience it was largely an education issue.

2011 was my rookie season and my first regional was Wisconsin. There were many good robots there and one phenomenal one (went on to win worlds). In my ignorance and frustration I gave in to the dark side, swallowed some silly rumors and did some hating of my own.

Two seasons and lots of education later I like to think that I am largely cured.

I have seen first hand how the great teams are not only the ones that are pushing the sport forward, they are the ones making it happen period. Many many many of the volunteers that make events happen come from experienced teams.

I think we need to constantly remind ourselves, our students and each other, that we need to look externally for inspiration and internally for goal setting. As FIRST there are more things that unite us than divide us so lets get focused on the positives.

-al

[PVCpirate]

I think all consistently good teams inspire others to be better. In our initial design meetings for Breakaway, we were trying to decide where to shoot from, and were considering being a striker or maybe shoot from the middle. Then our head mentor was like "Hang on a second, 40 is going to be scoring from across the field, why can't we?" (referring to the late great Team 40 from Manchester NH). We pushed ourselves and made a robot that could score at will once at 100%. 40 had a great robot, but we were right there with them, and came home with our first regional win.

[NXTGeek]

Thank you so much for this- after making Einstein this year, my team found out how the intense effort of developing strong programs for community outreach and engineering, as well as the incredibly long hours through build season and beyond pays off. It was a pleasure talking with you guys on Newton, always a delight to find another team on the same page as us.

[NXTGeek]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

I think all consistently good teams inspire others to be better. In our initial design meetings for Breakaway, we were trying to decide where to shoot from, and were considering being a striker or maybe shoot from the middle. Then our head mentor was like "Hang on a second, 40 is going to be scoring from across the field, why can't we?" (referring to the late great Team 40 from Manchester NH). We pushed ourselves and made a robot that could score at will once at 100%. 40 had a great robot, but we were right there with them, and came home with our first regional win.

Lol what a great 341st post

[Kevin Ray]

Ditto--GREAT POST!!!

My only personal experience with Miss Daisy is the evening of their winning the Championship Chairman's award. We happened to be in the same hotel and ran into them in the lobby in the evening. Instead of gloating and basking in the glory, 4 of their mentors spoke with us (we had been there for the chairman's as well) for over 1/2 hour telling us tips and tricks they've learned over the years. In 14 years of competition, that was the most useful time I've ever spent with another team!. We have used most of what they told us and are genuinely a better team as a result.
This post explains their team concisely and those who lambast their team are probably upset that they have not found a (nonexistant) shortcut to success.

[jamierose]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

We have a very small lathe, a small mill, and a cut-off saw. That is it.

I went to 341's pit this year at CMP, and the robot had some very nice sheet metal parts. How do you make sheet metal with only these tools? Do you have a sheet metal sponsor?

[MooreteP]

One of the easiest ways to see if a successful team has a mentor built robot is to visit them in the pits and see who has their hands on the Robot.

You name 'em. 148, 118, 1114, 254, 1717, 177, etc..... their kids are deeply involved.

As described by the OP, Miss Daisy is an exemplar.
Move past the stereotyping and be inspired.

Great Post.