The Stereotyping of Successful Teams

[Ivan Malik]

OZ_341 I missed the dual meaning of excellence that you meant and didn't think of it as personal growth, but rather as the "you can be just like us and win all the time" type.

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

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?

No... You are looking at it from a very different perspective than I am, hence why I said I'm looking at it from an FRC wide type of view and not an individual team view. Each team should always try and "sustain their excellence," but the larger system of FRC should not be designed so that the same teams can stay excellent. There should be some sort of factor that destabilizes things. Right now it very much so is designed so that teams that are ahead can stay ahead, if they don't have unforeseen factors like losing sponsors or build space, etc. This would be fine, but FIRST is also trying to enact cultural change and inspire not just its participants, but everyone. You can't do that if there is a natural division among the tools that are doing the inspiring, aka the teams. Other wise, the lesser teams eventually get so focused on wining that all culture changing avenues are ignored, GP and coopertition get thrown out the window. The concept that there is this semi-permanent group of upper echelon of teams and this lower group of teams, and that this is accepted, creates that division. In order for FIRST to achieve both its goals, of cultural change and establishing itself as a sport of the mind, there needs to be turnover of what teams are on top. I have nothing against the current top teams, they do awesome things and are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. This destabilizing factor can be an official thing from FIRST in the form of a game element or something else, it can be an idea that a group of teams decides to do, it can be a culture shift among the entire community of the FRC, etc. It really doesn't matter what it is, there just needs to be something that forces this turnover regularly. I thought that the FiM/MAR structure would do more of this, and it has. However the question of whether this is a change in sample size or a change in stability is the question. We shall see when the borders are removed.

I was a part of a team that went through both the stages of ripping into powerhouses and of being a powerhouse. I have talked to a ton of former FRC students. I understand both sides of the argument and why both sides see what they see. Now that I left FRC and am now looking back at it from an outsider's view with inside experience, I can see that something isn't quite right. That there is some factor missing to make it all work more efficiently.

I am really bad at explaining ideas like this through text so I am sorry for the long posts and horrible explanations. I'm working on communication skills.

Akash, I'd advise you to take a look at world systems theory. It explains some of what you are pointing to, if you understand it fully. (it is a really hard concept to grasp as it has many layers and applies more broadly than it seems, I don't even get it in its entirety) I have factored into this teams that have risen by the inspiration of the powerhouse teams, but those teams only help to accelerate the core's development leaving the periphery in the dust and creating the animosity. The teams that have risen are the semi-periphery, the powerhouses are the core, and the lesser teams are the periphery; using the terminology of world systems theory. All I am doing is applying a very basic anthropological concept to FRC, there is no opinion. I actually hate the fact that this works as elegantly as it does. It means I have to listen to my profs gloating about me doubting them in the near future