Everyone's A Winner?

[NoahB4536]

Originally Posted by Tyler_Kaplan

I am going to respectfully disagree with saying that there are three winners at a competition. FIRST is about far more than the outcome of the finals. For example, I would consider the winners of the Chairman's award huge winners, same with awards like engineering inspiration and rookie all star. Being a winner in FIRST is not black and white. It's about what you as an individual and a team get out of the experience. As a mentor, I look at it as what we can do to serve our community, and how to give students tools to succeed in their lives.

Your right that more than three teams could be considered winners but I was mostly referring to the winners of the finals. I also agree that first is about giving people the tools they need for the future and to me one of the tools people need for this world we live in, with a global economy and global competition in the job market, is understanding winning and losing and being able to learn from mistakes. I definitely think that the winners of awards are winners and having fun and getting valuable skills are important however my worry is that we might see those awards become less valued because of the mentality that everyone is a winner. I see from the other posts that most people think that if you learn you are a winner and because the FRC is a program for learning it would make sense that gained knowledge could be (and probably should be) considered a victory, I just don't want first to turn into my elementary school baseball team where if you showed up you got a medal.