Raising the bar...or lowering it?

[Jedi Padawan]

Originally Posted by ngreen

I have to defend the rookies. Last year I personally saw more rookies who could stack than veteran teams. Veteran autonomous was generally better though, even though my team miss getting up the ramp only twice during the championship (once we got ran into by a veteran alliance member, and the other using a loaned battery with a bad cell). As rookies last year my team was able to win 4 awards at LSR (championship, rookie all-star, quality, and team spirit) and national all-star. Granted my team had several great mentor teams and very devoted mentors, even though only two of the eight were engineers. Rookies have the ability to do some of the things that even veteran can't, thinking outside the box and this competition. My team hosted a robotic LEGO daycamp for elementary students a couple Saturday ago and on of our mentor mentions tonight how it was great to work with them because they don't know about the box. I think the 225 rookie team will have something to show this year, and if not, I count on all the veterans to be their to help.

Rookies will surprise you is common this year our team just got a ton of new members and brought in a few elementary kids with them (who we teach legos, etc.) one of the designs this year was submitted by an elementary kid who had all sorts of ideas (one including a ball shooter that defied physics but that's whats meant by thinking outside the box) the funny thing is about thinking outside the box is that it tends to be contagious (at least with my team) so that if you get one good outside the box idea that it tends to grow and that tends to lead to good things and that's what I like about working with the younger ones, they have as one mentor put it "unrestrained imagination" which I think we could all gain from.