The Growing Gap in FIRST & on CD, and Our Responsibility to Fix It

[rob_c]

I have to agree with there seeming to be a lack of focus upon the core principles of FIRST, especially with GP. I am currently in my forth year in FIRST, and am a founding member of my team. In our infancy, T.A.T. was a team which tried to promote FIRST as an educational experience where students could come in and learn to appreciate how to use science and technology to solve a problem. In our first two years (somehow) we won first and second place at VCU, respectively. In our third year, we fell apart. There has been much debate amongst our team as to why we were not able to perform at our best for lunacy, and why we did so badly. It has taken me this long to finally realize that its because we, as a team, forgot about the true purpose of FIRST.
Now, in this forth year, we are still struggling with what it means to be a part of FIRST. I was one of the candidates selected by my team for the Dean Kamen Award, and one of the things I was asked by the individuals writing the essay was to "define Gracious Professionalism". I responded:

The entire idea behind the concept of gracious professionalism is to promote the idea that a team doesn’t have to win the competition, and be the number one team to win FIRST. Gracious professionalism is, effectively, the means to prove to everyone that all the participants in FIRST are winners in their own right, and that you don’t need to build the best performing robot to be a winner.

It has taken me 4 years to have it sink in, but FIRST is not about being first at competition, it isn't about winning. FIRST glorifies the fact that by having completed the build season, and by showing up at competition, you have already won. I am currently faced with the task of getting this point across to the rest of my team.
The thing that I find most ironic about this whole thing, though, is that in the opening video to kickoff last year, there was a quote being said, I believe by Dean, that "FIRST is much more than just building robots"... I don't know how many other teams are willing to admit to the fact that they have lost sight of what FIRST is about, but I will firmly state that I prefer FIRST as it is meant to be, focusing on inspiring students to be creative, and to approach a difficult problem using their innovation, as well as the resources technology provides for us today; while at the same time being conscious of everyone else around us, and being willing to help everyone else get to the point of being able to accomplish this difficult task.

I feel that some of this may not come through as I had intended it. If you would like to make comments on this, or if you would like to offer advice, I am open to suggestions and criticism - I would ask that you PM me over posting to this thread, though. I am still learning what FIRST is, but I feel that it is my duty as a highly involved student on my team to try to remind my team what we should be focusing on.

Rob.