Who do we appreciate?

[JaneYoung]

This is an interesting thread. It makes me wonder what the most important part of riding a bicycle is.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

This is an interesting thread. It makes me wonder what the most important part of riding a bicycle is.

Exactly. I suppose you could ride a bicycle without brakes or handlebars, however the outcome might not be so good!

I think FIRST teams struggle to balance all of their components (positions) and suffer when one or more is ignored (or grossly under-appreciated).

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

I think FIRST teams struggle to balance all of their components (positions) and suffer when one or more is ignored (or grossly under-appreciated).

This is true. Actually, after giving a few minutes of thought to this thread, I was able to come up with answers for all of the categories very easily, which occurs to me as something that should NOT happen.

For my team alone...we should NOT be giving our controls team one night to program the robot (2008: programmer and mentor were up until 3am programming before they had to leave for a trip), and the build group - to me - always seems to think that they have the right to more time than anyone else, which is not necessarily true (*please don't kill me, Q*). We've actually been trying for years to keep a set schedule of when design decisions need to be made, when drawings need to be passed on, when assemblies need to be completed by, etc., but something always seems to go wrong with that; parts get broken, core people get sick and can't work, deadlines aren't met...which always causes someone to end up with the short end of the stick. If everyone were to work together and solve problems efficiently, not procrastinate, and stick to whatever timeframe they're given, everyone can benefit, and nobody ends up with the odd straw.

On the note of mentors, I definitely realized this year how much I've under-appreciated them in the past. This year, we lost two of our core mentors, and as a co-captain, I've been forced to pick up quite a bit of the slack. I had never realized how much those guys did for the team, how much they turned us around, and how much time they spent with us. You really don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.