Stop The Madness

[Amanda Aldridge]

I'm sure everyone in FIRST has probably experienced a call or other situation that they thought could/should have been handled differently, whether it was against their team or another. Yes, it can be disappointing, sad even, especially when that situation happens in a place or manner so as to dramatically change the possible outcome of a match, or even an entire event. It is important to remember, however that it is the nature of the beast. Bad calls get made sometimes - the refs are human, and even when they try to the best of their abilities (and the refs at FIRST events are, in my 5+ years of FIRST involvement, very able) to make every call fair to every team, they can't always make everyone happy. Sometimes they have to just make a judgment call, and stick by that call. This makes these volunteers (yes, the refs are volunteers, if you didn't know that) very unpopular sometimes. You can comment on it to your friends or teammates if you like, you don't have to like it. But Josh is right. Posting about every single little perceived slight or transgression on this board is not only not graciously professional, it's counter-productive to our mission.

Obviously, really large issues need to be addressed, and if you feel there is a huge problem, by all means, go ahead, if you can be polite, productive, and graciously professional, address it. See if you can come up with a solution. Many a problem has been solved on this board. But needlessly complaining about a call that the refs made, not because they don't like you, or they were out to get you, but because they were simply trying to do their job - their demanding, unpaid job - is not necessary and won't get you very far.

As for the other accusation of not being picked because you are not popular enough: I don't think so. I'm sorry to be blunt, but if you have a good robot, and you can perform your task efficiently and consistently, you will (most likely) be picked for the finals. A unique machine will further increase your chances. Most veteran teams have at least one person, if not more, watch each and every single match from Thursday morning through the last Q match on Saturday, and take notes on the features and abilities of the robot, the drivers skills, etc. Alliance selections are not popularity contests - the picks are carefully selected by each team to best complement their robot's features. Team X may be team Y's sister team, and they might be really good friends off the field, and even on, but if team X has a robot that is not going to help team Y's cause in the elims, team X is not going to get picked by team Y. Period. Promoting your robot is good - it lets other teams know what features you feel are really important, and lets them know what to watch for them in the matches. But there is no substitute for performing your tasks to the best of your abilities, consistently in the Q matches.

Whew, this has been a looong post. Longer than I've posted in a long time. But when I saw Josh's post, I had to reply and put in my $0.02, because this is something that has been bothering me lately. I've noticed a real lack of gracious professionalism lately. I don't know if it is because the games have become more aggressive, or because of a "changing of the guard" among teams - more and more new teams, and a turnover in not only students, but mentors and such among old teams. All I know is that GP seems to be becoming less of a reality and more of an abstract concept - everyone talks about it, but nobody really knows what it's all about. I don't like that. I'm not sure what the solution is. Maybe FIRST really needs to go back to its roots. Time for a history lesson maybe?