Good sportsmanship exclusive to FIRST? Think again

[Mike Soukup]

I know that Dean & company believe that Battlebots is all about violence and celebrating what's wrong with society, but many people fail to notice the positive aspects of Battlebots. I know people here have encouraged others to do whatever competition they believe benefits them the most, and gives them the best chance to teach / inspire students. But I would like to comment on what I believe is one of the best aspects of FIRST: the sense of community & excellent sportsmanship demonstrated by FIRST teams.

I like the fact that all of us are competing with & against each other, but we still help other teams when they have problems with their robot, or when they need parts or tools. It's also good that the more experienced teams help other teams with technical apsects by publishing designs or simply answering questions in these forums. And I know there's many events where teams get together with each other for social outings or just to go out to eat at competitions.

But when it comes to robot competitions, this wonderful aspect of sportsmanship & community isn't exclusive to FIRST. I've heard previously, but wasn't sure, that the pits at a Battlebots competition are much like a FIRST competition. People are looking to help others if they have problems, willing to lend tools or give spare parts, and trying to fix the bots of people they just defeated or will soon face. For some reason, good sportsmanship seems to follow robot competitions. You can find some examples at this thread on a BB forum: http://www.delphi.com/n/mb/message.a...ech&msg=7236.1

Don't get me wrong, I love FIRST, but I want to make the point that Battlebots is not some evil entity that only teaches people how to beat up their neighbors. Many of the people there have similar experiences to ours, and the same will probably be true of BBIQ.

Now the quality of many of the bots in BB is another matter. Sorry, I couldn't resist a cheap shot