Prepping for 2008: Awards, Bandsaws, and Perspective

[ebarker]

Piping in with some random thoughts ...

Definitions:

Leadership - the ability to get someone to do something that they would not do under ordinary circumstances.

The magic rubiks cube is learning how to lead others in a useful direction so that they will learn something about engineering, technology, themselves, and about life, in a way that is subtle and positive.

Focus on making sure everyone has a good experience and stays engaged. Focus on good manners and behavior. Focus on neat work habits. Focus on doing a good job. These are the basics. Master the basics and the awards will take care of themselves.

Question - What is a significant difference between robotics and school ?
Answer - In school you are required to participate. In robotics you make a choice to participate.

An illustration - Recently we spent two long Saturdays in safety training. ( in industry this class would have put adults to sleep ). A teacher commented to me that "I cannot believe 'sam' is attentive and taking notes.", "I have 'sam' in my class and can't get anything out of him". A major difference is 'sam' chose to go to this class on Saturday, unlike the mandatory school. Our next hat trick is to get 'sam' to wake up and get him motivated in class.

If it makes you feel any better, I too will admit to apprehension about the upcoming season. Will the crowd get motivated ? Will the newbies get jazzed up ? Has our team building exercises this fall been adequate ?

Right now is a critical point for many teams because in a few days will be the first time many of them will be working together under pressure.

Repeating myself, master the basics and the awards will take care of themselves.

One final thought. We have done a lot of exercises these past few months. The one thing I wished we had done is the simple trebuchet exercise that MOE 365 does in the fall. It is fun, exciting, and harmlessly destructive.