Prepping for 2008: Awards, Bandsaws, and Perspective

[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.