What Makes a FIRST Team Successful?

[Bharat Nain]

A team can define success for themselves in many ways. If a team has most of their team graduating into science and technology universities and colleges, the team is successful in promoting the notions of FIRST(Most teams, hopefully). If a team is good at promoting themselves, they are successful at that(E.g. MOE for green). If a team is good at winning, they are successful with the game(E.g. 71 Beatty). I think every team needs to decide what they want to be successful at. It is not likely that there will be a team that is good at EVERYTHING. Therefore teams needs to analyze what they are good at and capitalize on it. Because not all teams are lucky and are bounded, they should at least embrace the values of FIRST and promote science and technology. But then, Everyone makes mistakes. New ones every year. But they learn through the process and pass on the knowledge to other teams and the community. To me, any team that operates sanely or insanely(thats 95%) is successful. They just need to operate consistently. Here in team 25, thats our focus. As we say in RINOS, "We build FIRST to last".

[techtiger1]

In my opinion, what makes a team successful is not necessarily winning. I think it's how much they do for the community and how much the team inspires there students to learn. Most mentors aren't in FIRST just to win, they are in it to teach and inspire students to do the best they can. Don't get me wrong everyone likes being #1 but I think that #1 is relative. I also think that a team has to be organized and everyone has to know there place and spots on the team, and veterans should help the rookie members to know what they like and teach them to stick to it.

My thoughts,
Drew

[Arefin Bari]

This is totally my opinion about what makes a FIRST team successful... (adding to Koko Ed's post)

- When there is no conflict between the members of the team.
- When members are dedicated enough to wake up at 4 a.m. Sunday morning to go do fundraise for the team.
- When the members on the team work as they are a family.
- When that team's members volunteer at any robotics/tech event (offseason, FLL, fundraising) and have the most volunteer there.

on the above 4 points, it's a story of one successful team I have seen growing for the past 2 years.

[dhitchco]

The only thing that makes a team "successful" is when you have fully met the values and goals that you have set forth in your team "mission statement".

WHAT??? You say that your team doesn't have a mission statement? How can you have a TEAM if you don't have a common objective in mind.

Every company starts with a mission statement so that every employee is marching to the same beat. A good FIRST team mission contains:
a) who you are (description)
b) who is your customer? why are you doing FIRST robotics
c) what makes you different than any other team?

Once you have answered these questions, they csan be used to judge your own success at the end of each season. Only when you look in the mirror can you determine your own level of "success". It's self-imposed, not in the eyes of others.

[phrontist]

At a much more pragmatic level, organization is what seperates a team full people with really cool unrealized dreams and a team that is trying to figure out it's alliance picks.

[Church]

Pride. As has been mentioned over and over, it's not about winning. It's about being able to show up to competition proud and go home even prouder, no matter how you scored.

I've found that once you have pride in your team, you can start winning. Not the other way around, although that seems to make more sense.

[MinaAino14]

In my own opinion the success of the team is not how many awards you win, or who you beat but rather what you get from the experience. To me what makes a successful team is diversity. When there are different people working together all wi8th different ideas it tends to make a greater, more grand outcome. Really the best way i can put it is you don't see the person working next to you as a team mate, you see them as your freind.

There is so much to be leanred in a short amount of time. With the many different minds more ideas can spread which equals more learning. in adition to that working with other teams and exchanging more ideas just adds in a whole to the FIRST experience.

I consider my team very successful because through the short 6 weeks we are able to pull together and do everything and help out other teams as well. (^-^)

[MattB703]

I have always defined success in FIRST as "contributing to the excellence of the organization"

I know we all love FIRST, I love FIRST, but there are many opportunities out there for a dedicated mentor to have a positive influence on a handful of students. FIRST needs to be more than that. As mentors we need to expand our thinking beyond how will I influence the students on my team. In FIRST we have the opportunity to influence 10's of thousands of people. We are try to change a culture.

Keep contributing the excellence of the organization and we will all succeed!