Dealing with disapointments

[Rob]

I would say that the first thing is to not feel guilty about being disappointed in an on field performance. Everyone strives to do well and this is a competition. People enter a competition to win after all.

I would suggest 3 methods to help:

1) Make lots of friends on other teams. They can help root for you when you do well, you have friends to cheer for when they do well. It gives you a good support network of people who have been on both sides of the coin.

2) Try to manage your expectations. It is really really hard to do well. 5-2 against some of the best that FIRST has to offer is something to be proud of. It is hard to get noticed even when you do well because there are so many good teams to look at. You could have made a potential division winner out of teams that were not even selected on the Newton field (off the top of my head 1155, 846 & 1511 would have been very competitive). This is just part of the nature of the champioship event.

3) Try to set a non-competition related goal for yourself or your team. Maybe something like a list of specific people to meet, maybe compile information on certain teams designs that you like, maybe some social event where your team hooks up with another team. Something like that can be rewarding as well.

O yeah, and also have fun!