Team 217 - Thunderchickens

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by ICanCountTo19

I would like to argue that point. By no means am I going to call their students unintelligent, but I believe that how well a team doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation to the intelligence of the students. Yes a team that does have smart kids is going to do better than with students who are lacking that feat, but if a student from another team was put in a position with as many educational resources (sponsors and mentors who know their stuff) as a thunder chicken student I am 100% confident they would still do well.

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I agree the thunder chicken students are smart, but I think that there are many less privileged FIRST students who are smart, and it saddens me that they don't all get the recognition that students like those on the thunder chickens do.

Michael,

I agree that there are thousands of team with thousands of very intelligent students. My post was based on my first hand interactions with the Thunderchicken students since 2006 as opposed to any success they have had on the field. Each year I meet a more than a handful of them who dazzle me with their intellect. I normally wouldn't have pointed something out like this, but in light of the implications of the original poster I felt that someone needed to point out the outstanding abilities of these students, despite of claims/implications to the contrary.

It would be great if we could recognize every student in this program, but thankfully not every team needs their reputation boosted a bit after being tossed baseless insults in a public forum like 217 was tonight.