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Do NOT forget that this is a competition. Of course it is much more, BUT it is competition that brings out the best in people....
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"at some point in the next six weeks you are going to start feeling like you are involved in a robot building contest. Then you are in serious trouble" -Dean Kamen at last years kickoff meeting.
The competition between teams is only for the purpose of completing the engineering design cycle - it gives teams a chance to see how they have done, compaired to other teams with the same limitations, goals and objectives.
The 'contest' between teams is only the foundation on which we take the students through an engineering design cycle - it makes it more interesting, but its not what FIRST is all about
when you think you are here to compete against other teams, thats when bad things start happening:
-adults yelling at students on the playfield after a bad performance in a match
- students off in a corner at a regional, in tears
- adults getting angry with each other over disagreements about the robot or team
- students making comments to other teams like, "your robot is a pile of junk!"
- adults or students quitting the team in the middle of the season.
Ive seen all these things happen over the last several years.
The competition is a friendly / gentalmens sort of sport - never taken seriously - with the understanding that it is only a forum to put our machines to the test, and see how well we did against what WE set out to do
not to see which team can build the best robot.
If you have to build the best robot to be inspired then we end up with one winning inspired team, and 999 losers.
That is not the spirit of FIRST.
The awards may or may not come...but the real trophies are the students. - David Brinza [more] 
20-10-2003, 15:16
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