Team without Spirit???

[Team238-aholic]

I know this is really hard to believe...but I thought I should write something to maybe get help from you guys. I'm totally living vicariously through my two brothers on Team 238, Manchester, NH....we have an awesome robot this year, the best robot I've seen Memorial have....in my four years of high school, we, well, sucked....BUT WE HAD THE BEST TEAM SPIRIT I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE....

This year, they are soooo good, seeded 20th at UTC, won 6 matches in a row...THATS THE BEST THEY HAVE EVER DONE...they finally get support from their school, and have great engineers, and everything is finally going right for our team....but the problem is...the only people on the team that have spirit are the drivers (they are the only people with 4 years of experience), and everyone else sits there like lumps on a log...they don't care about anything, and they have said when they get to disney, they are not going to watch the matches but instead go to parks and ride on rides, cause they don't care about the team.....

I feel so bad for my team....cause they are finally good...and I so wish I was there this year to cheer them on...cause they need it....so i was kinda wondering if anyone else has ever had this problem, or has any advice that I can pass on to my brothers or what not..... (VP238 and 238junior) They would appreciate it, cause right now, they are beyond frustrated with how stupid the team is acting.....

Thanks!!

[Keith Chester]

A simple method- don't let them go to disney. kick them out if they don't do work.
I disbelieve, however, in having try outs for teams, but I do agree that if they don't do the work, then why let them benefit by watching competitions? Get rid of the extra baggage.

[Team238-aholic]

see...they all did work in the 8 weeks or whatever...but now that competition has come...they are all bums and don't care....

[238junior]

i am from team 238 i experience this carlessness in new haven it is ridiculous!!!!! These people need to get a life or something. I mean how can FIRST be boring??? ASk yourself that, I cant understand how it is. But anyways our PIT CREW cares for FIRST and the six of us will greatly make sure our team is noticed in Orlando. But all you teams out there GOOD LUCK!!


238 Wat????

[Keith Chester]

Well 238 you can always count on team 25 to help you out.
If they did their work in the 8 weeks and bummed out later? Okay, that qualifies them for every regional.
Just kick them out of the Nationals then.
Something most don't realize- FIRST is not about the game- it's about the organization.

[Team238-aholic]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TEAM 25 YOU ROCK!

[Keith Chester]

So tell me bout your bot. I've seen so many creative designs this year.

[238junior]

Our Robot is wicked good this year we have a fast robot 15 feet a second so we can get to a goal in 1 or 2 seconds. We have a two drive system that we can alternate any time during the match tracks and wheels. We can pull or push one goal. We can hold about 4-5 balls a time in our ball system and put them in a goal. thats a quick overview of our bot. It is a good dependabl bot no breaks or damages yet through one regional no major problems.



238 Wat???

[Keith Chester]

Weren't you at the Rutgers Regional.
Lol I can't believe I can't remember.

[238junior]

We were at the New Haven regional. But what do you think of our robot??

[Wetzel]

We had most team members work hard during the 6 weeks.
We all cheer when we are up, but lack organized spirit.

/me goes off plotting....

[Team238-aholic]

No no...there is no spirit...it would be great if there was, even if it was not organized....NONE...what so ever!

[Phil Chang]

Team 469, not having taht extreme a porblem, did had the issue of participation not during competition, but during build season. as most teams have, hwe had a core of about 4 kids who worked liked dogs on the robot, me include. those who would pull all nighters and i myself am proud to say that during this build season i was up for 72 hours straight working on the robot. beyond that core there was only moderate and almost no participation from other members. this was a problem but at competitions the enthusiasm of my team exploded beyond what i thoguth coudl happen. there were peopel on the team who worked ont he robot that had rarely laid eyes upon it.
my advice to u is that if the memebrs of your team joined soley for the trip to florida, which was once a problem for my team, keep only those that seems the least bit interested. you may find that memebrs of the team that dont seem to care will find interest and become part of your core build memebrs in the following years. one of our 469's main focus is finding those easily inspired team members and showing them the grandeur of FIRST

[Kristina]

Hey, as you can tell from my signature...spirit and all that stuff is my expertise. We had an organized group lead spirit at the competition because there's always more people than work to do on the robot. I had the group assemble little spirit packages full of fire-ish candy and we put in a cd of some of the classes favorite music. I think once you organize something before hand (say the few weeks between shipping the robot and the competition) you'll follow through and see how great interacting with other teams is. We even made flags and before every single match we had two guys would run across with the banners and try to get the crowd to cheer. Like everyone else, we're on a budget so the things we passed out were inexpensive but memorable. All weekend people were thanking us for the bags and everyone knew our motto...Feel the burn.

Another thing that might help would be try to get those people who want to just go to the park to do other tasks, like scouting. This may seem insignificant at first but maybe the problem is that those kids feel useless on the team since they don't get to be in the control booth. If you let them scout, they're contributing to the team while also checking out some awesome machines. I know very little about all the technical stuff but I was the chief scouter up in Seattle for my team and I felt so much more invovled than usual since the team let me form strategies based on what I observed.

Finally, I would just suggest talking to them. If nothing else works, how bout remind them about these point:
1. You can go to Disney World or Epcot anytime with anymore, but Nationals only comes around once a year and high school years are limited.
2. Team spirit helps you get recognized. Sure a team may have a great robot, but so do so many other teams. Showing team spirit helps you form an identity that people remember (like let's say during alliance picking time). Also, you can get recognition from the judges. We won the judges award amongst many other fine teams in Los Angeles. One of the criterion for that award is that they not only had a great robot but they also exuded spirit.
3. Its fun, where else do you get to act totally crazy with facepaint, banners, etc besides football games?

I hope that helps. While this is long, I still have tons of ideas. I guess it helps I'm in student government where we do this all year long too.

[Jnadke]

Good team spirit makes to competition go a whole lot better even if you win or lose...

In fact, I think we did so well because we we're optimistic (besides having a well-built bot) and were so focused on the event. Everyone had a great time, and couldn't talk for several days afterward...

As for recognition... I think a lot of teams could hear us at MMR... we were apparently the loudest...