The Stereotyping of Successful Teams

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

The concept of "sustained excellence" partnered with the concept of "you can do it too, if you set your mind to it" flat out doesn't work. If every team is sustaining excellence then what is excellent? You can't have a system where every team is awesome because then awesome would be average. This is a sign of a broken or soon to be broken system.

I guess I don't understand what your point is. Are you suggesting that teams should not try to achieve repeated year-after-year success?

Some teams are born with a silver-spoon in their mouths. I should know, I'm on one of them. GM wanted to get involved in FRC, started our team, and pretty much gives us everything we need to succeed. Does that guarantee our results? No! I'm sure there are plenty of teams GM helps, that aren't nearly as successful. Our students, mentors, teachers, parents, and alumni work very hard to continue to achieve our goals both on and off the field. Should we stop this, because teams feel we have an unfair advantage?

Other teams are not and/or were not so well off when they started. They made a decision to work even harder, and continue to improve to achieve their goals. Example - 341

The message of if you set your mind to it, you can do it is 100% correct. Anyone can if they really want it. It may take longer for some and shorter for others, but we can all achieve whatever success you want to define.

If you want to know how we do it and what makes us "supposedly special", just ask. I've spent the last couple weeks answering repeated questions about our shooter. I have no problem with this. Eventually, I'll make a Tech Notes on this years robot and publish it. Outside of the build season, we have very little secrets that we would not be willing to share.