Becoming Competitive

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ichlieberoboter

...
What we're trying to figure out now is how to expand and organize our team, get more funding, and get the people involved being productive. Sorry for how rambling this post is, but we just really want help to make our team more competitive next year. Thanks for any advice you can provide!!

Threads like this tend to be dominated by advice for improving on-the-field ranking/results.

But your post included the several other topics (education, increased participation, serving others, ... cultural change) that are the primary reason FIRST exists. I'm thrilled by the well-rounded attitude your post reflects.

And I have a couple of questions for you. They are similar to some of the questions other folks have asked.

• If you separate Robot performance from the other topics, are you
  • asking how to make a better robot; or
  • asking how to create a team that is an excellent FIRST team that, OBTW, has building a sweet robot as one of the rewarding and inspirational things the team does each year?
• If you are asking about building a better robot,
  • is it because you think it will be fun, rewarding and inspirational, regardless of how the tournament(s) unfold; or
  • is it because you think that the current robot-building part of your team's activities can be more efficient without drowning out all of the other good stuff you do; or
  • is it more because you just want a banner/trophy because winning every once in a while is a nice dose of positive feedback; or
  • is it because of some other reason?

My prejudice is to steer you away from being seduced by cloth banners and plastic trophies, and instead steer you toward weaving communal tapestries/banners from changed lives, and building a changed culture that becomes your trophy.

In less sappy terms, be a movement, not a pit crew.

Sure, build the best danged robot you can each year, judge the result using whatever criteria you set for yourselves, take that robot to a competition, and enjoy all the dimensions of being at a FRC event (including driving your robot like you stole it). Do it with a clear understanding of why you are doing it, and where that part of being a team stacks up against all the other parts that you (and the Chairmans Award evaluation criteria) mentioned.

With this in mind, you might want to create a new thread with a more precise title, or want to submit a clarified question(s) into this one.

Blake
PS: Researching this broad subject by reading the many years of CD threads the Search function will help you find, can be very enlightening.