Language at Championships

[AndyB]

FIRST is an amazing program which does so much for the world today. We are seen as decent kids with amazing futures. Please lay off on the unnecessary language.

Overall, I must agree, the 2006 FIRST Championships were awesome (as usual). However, I couldn't help but notice more and more people calling things "gay", and using vulgar language so often, it seemed to have been obsessive. Your teachers, parents, mentors, and FIRST all hold you responsible for your actions.

Not only does it make you look bad, but it makes your team look bad, it makes your town look bad, it makes FIRST look bad. Also, in an event featuring over a dozen countries, what kind of image are you leaving of yours?

[sciencenerd]

I couldn't agree more with this. Really, this isn't in the spirit of the competition. This behavior is not gracious or professional at all. As a representative of everything listed in the previous post, I would hope the bright kids of FIRST would have the sense refrain from this kind of behavior, as it is offensive and in most cases uncalled-for.

I understand (although I wasn't able to be there, unfortunately) that the Championships can be very tiring. However, this is no excuse for letting your manners slip.

[Starke]

i agree 100%. the language seemed to be better in years past. i hope that this also applies to some of the songs that were played at championship. i found some of them had foul language and were offensive.

[deficite]

I remember going down the hallway (I called the "stinky hall", everybody probably knows which one I'm talking about) to the arena during quarterfinals and hearing this team just yelling obscene words. It was extremely unprofessional. I've heard a lot of other things that really disappointed me this year as well, but not NEARLY as bad as the f-words coming out of their mouths.

Even language aside, I noticed a lot of people not really being very sportsman-like nor FIRST-like. I've seen people get so upset that they bust their safety glasses into pieces on the floor and yell at their other team members.

I'll close up saying that I was disappointed when I heard all the people laughing when the speech announcing the Chairman's Award was taking place. I thought it was very unprofessional and childish to say the least. I'd like to see any of the people laughing at the speaker (over something as silly as just having a running nose, which is what it sounded like) stand up in front of an international event and make a speech.

[lukevanoort]

I have been known to slip in the odd expletive when I crunch/burn/cut/rip/abrade/solder/puncture/electrocute/smash/etc. my fingers, but only in our shop, use of foul language at a competition is really a stupid idea. A competition is like a massive job orientation, and you don't swear at one of those do you? What you say is great advice and should be taken by every team. (Although it can be hard to enforce a no swearing rule)

[Storcky]

I also agree. the behavior of some teams and members wasn't that great either. I would like to post an apology to team 772 for the behavior of our chaperone when you were saving seats for Einstein. it was not gracious or professional. Sorry

[Beth Sweet]

Personally, I know that on my team, that kind of language is just not acceptable. The kids know that I don't tolerate it and, although they try to find amusing ways to get around the no bad words rule, they are pretty good about not using the language. It's all about what you ask of your students.

[LightWaves1636]

One of the greatest things about FIRST that I absolutely loved that I learned this year as a rookie is all the gracious professionalism. So, yeah, I completely agree that at FIRST, actions and words should be done carefully. Nothing wrong with light critzism but rude remarks are just quite simply rude.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by deficite

Even language aside, I noticed a lot of people not really being very sportsman-like nor FIRST-like. I've seen people get so upset that they bust their safety glasses into pieces on the floor and yell at their other team members.

You'll see less sportsmanship and a little less FIRST-like things at Nationals. Thats why I love Regionals. They are only competitive once the elimination matches begin. It's very relaxed and teams get to know teams better. Relations and FIRST fun is seen more often at a Regional. Getting mad at a regional is stupid and everyone knows it. But Nationals are a lot more competitive because thats where the big awards and big noteability comes from. If I had a FIRST team, the only time we'd go to Nationals is if we won a regional, and intead attend as many regionals as we could.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

If I had a FIRST team, the only time we'd go to Nationals is if we won a regional, and intead attend as many regionals as we could.

That pretty much sums up how our team planned for 2006.

We went to Atlanta last year as first-time regional CA winners, after having really enjoyed both our home regional and Buckeye. Many of us found the Championship overwhelming.

This year we earned an Atlanta slot with a regional EI award, but decided we'd only go if we could get our robot working well enough to be part of a winning alliance at our second regional (Waterloo). So our FRC team didn't go to Atlanta, but two of our FVC teams did.

Team picnic is coming up next weekend, and I'm looking forward to the discussion of goals for next year.

Back to the main topic here: certainly we can all agree that rude language is not GP. If you wouldn't say something in front of your grandmother, you shouldn't say it at a FIRST event.

[KTorak]

Originally Posted by deficite

I'll close up saying that I was disappointed when I heard all the people laughing when the speech announcing the Chairman's Award was taking place. I thought it was very unprofessional and childish to say the least. I'd like to see any of the people laughing at the speaker (over something as silly as just having a running nose, which is what it sounded like) stand up in front of an international event and make a speech.

I also thought it was really unprofessional for teams to be leaving during the speech in order to go the party quicker. It's not like there wasn't going to be enough tables to seat everyone or enough food to feed a small army. The teams leaving obviously didn't realize that there were still tons of teams who had to completely crate their robot and pack up before leaving the dome.

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

I have been known to slip in the odd expletive when I crunch/burn/cut/rip/abrade/solder/puncture/electrocute/smash/etc. my fingers, but only in our shop, use of foul language at a competition is really a stupid idea. A competition is like a massive job orientation, and you don't swear at one of those do you? What you say is great advice and should be taken by every team. (Although it can be hard to enforce a no swearing rule)

That's understandable, and i'm sure many people do that in private. But I agree that it is unaccaptable at an event in front of the public.

[Cody Carey]

I agree, but I also probably don't keep a 100% clean mouth, especially
if Gay is a bad word. I would never go down a hall yelling the F word,
or anything even close to it... but if in the heat of a match I let the big
D out, I can't help it (the big D is not darn). I try to limit these things,
and when I do say them, they are usually under my breath and to
myself because I feel that I didn't perform as well as I should have.
Overall, I couldn't agree more that loudly yelling profanities is a
VERY BAD IDEA.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by Richard

Back to the main topic here: certainly we can all agree that rude language is not GP. If you wouldn't say something in front of your grandmother, you shouldn't say it at a FIRST event.

There it is! Thats what I was trying to remember for this post.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I also thought it was really unprofessional for teams to be leaving during the speech in order to go the party quicker. It's not like there wasn't going to be enough tables to seat everyone or enough food to feed a small army. The teams leaving obviously didn't realize that there were still tons of teams who had to completely crate their robot and pack up before leaving the dome.

I am going to go off topic very quickly to negate this. Many teams left early because the event was running behind and they had to make their flights, their buses...my team had to leave very quickly right after the awards, some teams may have had even less flexibility.

Back on track - it's hard to control cursing at competition. The simplest thing to do is to just deal with it, but if an opportunity comes to fix the situation, take it.

[Melissa Nute]

I only saw one really ungracious moment by a team and that was in which someone threw down their safety googles breaking them into pieces.