Prepping for 2008: Awards, Bandsaws, and Perspective

[Sunshine]

WOW,

As a mentor for a team that had success their first season, I really appreciate your message.

I have been struggling, trying to put into words what you have so eloquently said. Thank You!

I, along with most of our students, walked away from last season with a permanent buzz. It had nothing to do with winning an All-Star Rookie Award. It had nothing to with making it to Atlanta. It was all about the growth we saw in each other. It was about the relationships. It was about finding a place, a mission, a goal that satisfied a thirst that none of us knew we had.

Now we start our second season trying to explain to new members what we learned and what we discovered along the way. We want to explain what this feeling is that we have each and every time we see and work with each other.

You started this important journey for us by sharing your feelings. Thank You!!

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Every year I remind our students that:

This is a compitition, and the objectives of a compitition is to win. However, it is what you do to achieve that objective that defines the measure of the person.

Thank you Rich, you are spot on.

[sanddrag]

To quote Andy Baker

FIRST *is* about winning, and it has made many of us winners.

I hope I'm not stealing the meaning of what he is trying to say but to me I believe that he is saying winning a competition shows not only how good your robot is, but how hard your team has worked to make it that good.

The bottom line here is that this is a competition not an exhibition. When we compete it makes us:

• Strive for higher goals
• Form friendships that can last a lifetime
• Put more time into our work
• Hold an overall higher value of quality
• Devote our lives to this
• Care

Rich, I understand the point you are trying to get across and how chopping your trophies in half would do it, but in a way it might send the wrong message. I think a winning team more often than not is winning in more ways than their robot's performance. While some teams have have trophies handed to them for no reason at all, I think the act of chopping them in half is somewhat insulting to the teams who work hard for years to get them.

In my eyes a shelf full of trophies does more to inspire new students than a trash can full of trophy parts.

[Sunshine]

I believe that the point he/we are making is that the most important part is the journey and what you take away from it. It's not winning but feeling that you are a winner, because you accomplished more than you thought possible.

Many walk away from a competition as winners without getting a prized trophy.

I agree, it is about:

* Striving for higher goals
* Forming friendships that can last a lifetime
* Putting more time into your work
* Holding an overall higher value of quality
* Devoting your lives to the values and lessons you have learned along the way
* Caring

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

I agree, it is about:

* Striving for higher goals
* Forming friendships that can last a lifetime
* Putting more time into your work
* Holding an overall higher value of quality
* Devoting your lives to the values and lessons you have learned along the way
* Caring

Core values.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Rich, I understand the point you are trying to get across and how chopping your trophies in half would do it, but in a way it might send the wrong message. I think a winning team more often than not is winning in more ways than their robot's performance. While some teams have have trophies handed to them for no reason at all, I think the act of chopping them in half is somewhat insulting to the teams who work hard for years to get them.

In my eyes a shelf full of trophies does more to inspire new students than a trash can full of trophy parts.

Exactly correct and it's why I didn't fire up the bandsaw. It's all about remembering what the trophies are really all about, which can be difficult at times.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Exactly correct and it's why I didn't fire up the bandsaw. It's all about remembering what the trophies are really all about, which can be difficult at times.

At our Showcase for potential new students this year, our team set out our table and the robots for display/demo. Our teacher was not able to attend and we didn't set up the big display that we have done in the past. Students took over with a 2nd year in the lead and all of a sudden - all - the trophies that had accumulated over the years started traveling up the stairs and landing on the table. It looked rather like a yard sale. I laughed and stood back and suggested that - a. if the teacher could see this, he would not be happy and b. could they maybe dust a few?

And I waited. Our student leader is a 4th year whose brother was on the team 4 years before her. She was participating in a brief performance with the choir and then would come join the team. Sure enough, she showed up, took one look at the table, and said, 'no, no, no, not this one, not this one' - and started handing back the trophies to the new members to return to the classroom. When she was finished, we had a few trophies and plaques and a technical notebook that members of the team had written, to talk to potential students and parents about. We also had one of our smaller robots there on the table to talk about and we had last year's FIRST robot to demo. It was one of the moments that I was privileged to witness, watching a veteran team member teach the newbies. Very cool.

[Stephi Rae]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

WOW,

As a mentor for a team that had success their first season, I really appreciate your message.

I have been struggling, trying to put into words what you have so eloquently said. Thank You!

I, along with most of our students, walked away from last season with a permanent buzz. It had nothing to do with winning an All-Star Rookie Award. It had nothing to with making it to Atlanta. It was all about the growth we saw in each other. It was about the relationships. It was about finding a place, a mission, a goal that satisfied a thirst that none of us knew we had.

Now we start our second season trying to explain to new members what we learned and what we discovered along the way. We want to explain what this feeling is that we have each and every time we see and work with each other.

You started this important journey for us by sharing your feelings. Thank You!!

Team 1983 had a VERY similar experience. Our team has more than doubled in size for our upcoming second year. It is difficult to explain to them that while it was exciting that we won, it is not what this is all about. When recruiting, or simply talking about FIRST it is hard to find the words to explain how FIRST changes you. I'm sure the freshmen are getting extremely tired of my answering their questions, or trying to explain and simply having to end with: "You don't know yet. But you will. But you won't know while it's happening, you just look back one day and say, WOAH! I used to be like that?!" You're a winner when your life has been touched by FIRST and you turn around to help FIRST touch someone else's life and when you work together and grow to know and appreciate those around you.

Our coach is a very soft-spoken guy. It was hard to understand him as a teacher before spending a season with him, and with FIRST. Now it is so clear that all he wants is for us to reach that eureka, where we understand what it is we are doing, and where we are proud of ourselves for figuring it out on your own with simply the guidance from an experienced individual. This is what FIRST is about. Learning about yourself, and your surroundings, and the engineering, and when you are yourself one of the experienced individuals, you turn around and guide someone else.

I very much agree with you Rich Kressly in saying that there needs to be a little bit more awareness and control of the crappy mainstream behaviors. I will admit it was difficult at first for our coach to get our team to leave those behaviors behind. Now that they are, however, the value is very well understood and will be passed to new members with pride. I thank you for your challenge, and encouragement in your list of things to do this season. I will be sharing this with our team very soon. Maybe it will give some of those newbies a little bit more perspective on what I've been trying to explain. Or at least the answer will be different than "you'll see young one."

-Stephi Rae

[EricH]

My two cents worth:

At college, we have a program, sort of similar to FIRST, called CAMP. CAMP (I forget the full name) has ten competition teams that participate in such events as Baja SAE (formerly Mini Baja), Formula SAE (Mini Indy), SAE Aero Design, Clean Snowmobile, and Human Powered Vehicle. All do well routinely, but the project is not the primary focus.

At this point, you're probably thinking, What did he say?? Well, it's true. the CAMP teams focus more on building the team. Building the team members and building the team as a team. It's no coincidence that the motto for CAMP is "Teams building." Because the focus is on working as a team, the projects do well.

So, you can go out there and win without a team, but what do you learn? Not much. But if you go as a team, even if you don't win, you have learned teamwork and responsibility. You have new friends and old coming together. Get your team together. Get your priorities straight. Get busy having fun. See you on the field.