Gracious Professionalism

[J93Wagner]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Some kind folk from Team 93 went and machined a new roller and shaft for us. It ended up weighing a few ounces more, but it was not a problem at all, and they helped us even when they had a match with us. They still ended up winning thanks to a stupid mistake on my part, though.

I knew that my team is one of the most gracious professional teams in WI or MN, but I had NEVER heard about that. Even I'm surprised to a point. Being by the Inspectors station was very convenient for all the teams I know we ended up helping over the weekend. I also know that one of the biggest reasons we ended up going to 10000K Lakes in the first place, was because of all the rookie teams there and the need for a long standing team to help them out.

A great example of that was on Thursday, and a team had NO programming done for the robot because they only had about 10 kids on the team. So our awesome software team, in about two hours wrote a program from scratch and had them competing all weekend. They also did that for several other teams OVERNIGHT until about 3' o clock in the morning.

Another great example from one of our mentors is that he was at his first FIRST Robotics Competition, and suddenly our team apparently started chanting "Fondy Fire" over and over again. He was completely and totally surprised because in our area for other sports, we sorta dislike the Fond du Lac High School sports teams. So his daughter just brings him out of it and gets him chanting. That was his first experience with GP.

[LLM]

At this year's Greater Kansas City Regional, our team's trailer was unhooked from the Suburban and stolen. Thankfully, this happened about 10 minutes after unloading the robot and most of our tools/pit supplies. Like most KC area teams, we struggle annually to meet our financial responsibilities, and the loss of a $2500 trailer was definitely not in our budget.

We were humbled on the last day of competition when over 20 teams at the regional presented us with their $100 MasterCard gift cards. It was truly a mentor tearfest.

The donation was very appreciated. Our trailer has been replaced. Our faith in human-kind restored. As we told MasterCard, "Computer hardware....$500. Single-axle trailer.....$2500. FIRST and Gracious Professionlism....Priceless."
So rewarding to be part of something that nurtures such generosity of spirit.

We build so much more than robots in FIRST and I am proud and humbled to be a part of that.

[delsaner]

My friend on our team helped re-wire another teams entire electrical board.

Members on my team still maintain an excellent relationship, even when we have large arguments.

My friend and I want to teach members from another teams how to build an efficient robot and team.

My same friend and I are going to try and start teams in different high-schools around NJ.

[Molten]

Could we avoid patting ourselves on the back too hard? It just seems that I've read a lot of posts here of people bragging about their GP or something. I'm more inclined to enjoy a story of how a team helped you, rather than a story of how you helped a team. The latter kind of makes it sound like a charity or something.

BTW: Complimenting your own team apparently has a similar effect. Though not quite as much of an effect.

[delsaner]

Originally Posted by Molten

Could we avoid patting ourselves on the back too hard? It just seems that I've read a lot of posts here of people bragging about their GP or something. I'm more inclined to enjoy a story of how a team helped you, rather than a story of how you helped a team. The latter kind of makes it sound like a charity or something.

I do understand that this post does sound like bragging, but to me, some of the GP acts we have done may inspire other teams to do a similar act to another team. Its like a chain-reaction, one team would inspire two teams, those two teams would each inspire two teams, and two more teams after that. Imagine how quickly GP could spread by FIRST teams.

[Phoenix Spud]

This is a story I heard at FIRST Place 4-6 years ago. I hope that they still tell it today.

At one of the first nationals/internationals, when one team walked into their pit they were greeted by a FIRST representative telling them that FedEx had lost their robot! The team was given two options. Either, not compete or tryto rebuild their robot in one day! Amazingly, a bunch of teams pulled together to help this team. They stayed up all night, and while the new robot was not as good, the team (with the lost robot) was able to compete.

This is what GP means to me. This story has inspired me to try to include GP in my life.