2005 NASA Grant Recipients Released

[Matt Leese]

I've been watching this thread fairly closely as it developed and, personally, I'm more concerned, not by the topic, but by how everyone is acting on this thread.

When I read the Chief Delphi forums, I tend to see very little malice and take very little offense from anything I read. Occasionally I see something that bothers me but my assumption is that that wasn't the intent of the original post, so I ignore it. I will posit that very few, if any, people post on here with the intention of offending anyone.

Now, offending someone can happen accidentally. It's important to recognize that it was an accident. There are really three ways to handle it when you take offense: you can ignore it (this should be your first choice), you can kindly and graciously point out that you disagree (this should be your choice if you really feel the need to respond), or you can attack someone in response (you really shouldn't ever do this).

Unfortunately, in this thread too many people choose the last choice. Usually all it takes is one person to escalate the situation and it's all down hill from there.

In this case, I was bothered enough by this thread that I choose the second choice. I was debating whether or not to post to this thread for quite awhile but finally decided that I maybe could add something to the discussion.

Of course, none of this absolves the original writer of a post from any responsibility. It's important to be careful about what you write. If something may be offensive, try and write it in a way that won't be offensive. It's not hard, it just requires thought.

So please, think before you post. I rather regularly will have a post all typed up and then realize that it really isn't adding anything to the discussion and close the window.

If you feel that this post was directed at you, it probably was. Even if you don't feel it was directed at you, you can probably learn something from it (or possibly I think too highly of myself). Am I trying to offend? No. Will I? Possibly. I hope that everyone can take this is the spirit in which it was intended; that is constructive criticism.

Matt

[n0cturnalxb]

Oh. Wow. I've been away from CD for too long..

BUT! Change of tone/message/whatever (sort of):

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped make and approve the selections list for grant recipients. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do something you didn't have to do.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to NASA for providing SO MUCH funding to both FIRST and FIRST teams, for allocating this much money to support something they didn't have to support.

Me.. me.. I'm still elated and shocked and just overly happy because I'd thought it would be impossible for my team to get ANY grant, especially NASA's, seeing as we're a third year team and such. We were $4000 short and would not have been able to participate at ALL this year if we hadn't received the grant... yeah, so what, we now have to raise money for hotel costs - but I'm so, so happy because we get to participate. My friend and I were talking about joining a local team if ours couldn't compete just yesterday (we didn't know about the grant award until this morning) .. we were so worried about not being able to participate in FIRST this year.. but.. yeah.

I've been so excited that I haven't been able to concentrate all day, haha.

Anyway .. yeah. Thank you so much, NASA, for doing this ... and congrats to EVERY single team who received a grant.

[Venkatesh]

Hey! Good luck to all the teams out there that got the grants. A good infusion of cash will be a great help to teams that need it.

I was curious, who is the main NASA contact for these grants? I had a number of questions I wanted to email them about.

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Hey! Good luck to all the teams out there that got the grants. A good infusion of cash will be a great help to teams that need it.

I was curious, who is the main NASA contact for these grants? I had a number of questions I wanted to email them about.

Read back a bit to Dave's post, which will probably answer most of your questions.

[wonsi88]

I'm Russell Wons from one of the teams that received a grant(team 93) and I think I can speak for the team when I say thanks for the luck. We appreciate it and wish you the same.