Competition and Jealousy

[John Wanninger]

Do I admire (and envy) the resources of time, talent, experience and funding some teams have? You bet I do …. almost as much as I admire their energy, commitment and the help and the inspiration that they provide, the wow factor, and the excellence that they model for all of us.

Great teams are fun to play with and against (or to just watch and be awed). Sure, because these teams are so good they are going to be tough to beat. They keep raising the bar, which means in order to be competitive you will need to accomplish more. The challenge these teams provide us drives us to improve, and pushes us to try things and to do things we never before thought possible. And whether or not we are awarded in the course of the season, at its end our team will look back, and we’ll look at one another, and we will wonder how we were able to accomplish what we did.

And while accomplishment is not always measured by wins and losses or by award totals, sustainability may be. One difficulty that I’m sure many of you can relate to occurs, when after an Event, a friend, coworker or sponsor who isn’t intimately involved in FIRST asks, ”How did you do?” Because whether we’ve won or lost, any explanation I might offer would never be able to tell the story of what we got out of that event, or the season.

In the short attention span world we live in, we may have 20 seconds, or 20 words, to tell our story and to convey our accomplishments. For our sponsors and supporters who must communicate with the less enlightened outside world, it is much easier for them to gain support for our program when they can use those 20 words (or seconds) to talk about victories and awards. Even though we all may be “winners”, like it or not, awards certainly do help to validate a team's achievements for the purpose of attracting (and retaining) sponsors, mentors, and team members.

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by sgreco

I wouldn't say entering a competition to win is the wrong reason to enter.

...

Going back to how I agree with most of your post...It's important that the values and goals of FIRST are not lost in the desire to win, but I feel like this certainly is not the case at this point. If it becomes the case further down the road, I'll be more than happy to skeptically look at over competition, but for right now, I see no problems.

Originally Posted by lil'est lavery

As easy as it is to compare FIRST with most sports, there are a lot of major differences between the two. Although there definitely are people who are involved with FIRST for the wrong reasons, there are also people in modern sports in it for the same wrong reasons and, in my opinion, plenty of people involved with FIRST for all the right reasons. I personally, think that the competition only adds to the challenge and the fun of the game, but I can see how it would take away from the experience for some.

This isn't necessarily my opinion, but its a point that someone once brought up:

Its called a "competition". Therefor, people are going to compete. This means that they will try to win. That's the purpose of a competition. To win. So teams are going to use their resources to do just that. Win. Accept it and move on.

Like I said, not necessarily my opinion.

But a more Katie-spin, I do agree with most of what that person said. That's how it works. Yeah, I've been jealous that other teams had the money, sponsors, students but at the same time, I like my team A LOT. I don't think I'd change them for anything. I like our robots and I like how we make them. I like how they look, and I'm just proud of seeing that hunk of metal do something cause I helped make it.

[Bharat Nain]

I'd like to think that FIRST is a microcosm of the real world. There are lessons we learn that can stay with us forever. As a student, I used FIRST as a training ground to mold myself into the person I am today. Over the passage of time, here are a few lessons I have learned:


You cannot be stuck up about winning. In real life and in competition. If you want to be a true winner, you have to learn to have an internal reference point. What I mean is you have to learn to compete with yourself and not with the outside world. As others have stated, FIRST is not a level playing field and teams have various levels of resources and there is no way every team build a championship winning robot. However, what you can do is ask yourself "With the resources available, have I done the best I can do? Have I out-done my previous performances?". If the answer to that is Yes, I am happy. This has helped me tremendously in my professional development and taught me a lot about working under pressure and limited resources.

I believe Gracious Professionalism is one of the most misunderstood concepts these days. If I am going to compete on the playing field, I want to compete against the best possible opponents to challenge me or else there is no room for my growth. How am I supposed to know how good I really am if I am not playing against the hardest/smartest possible opponents? Gracious Professionalism is helping my partners and opponents be the best they possibly can off the field and Gracious Professionalism is competing at my best on the field. You help yourself also by helping your opponents.

Oftentimes, successful (however you define that) teams give very valuable advice to the rest of the community. One thing my team has preached for many years is keeping it simple and working within your resources. If the game requires a robot to perform 3 tasks, you are better off performing 2 tasks very well as opposed to all 3 not-as-well.

What I am trying to get at is - there are comparisons between sports and FIRST. There are similarities and lessons to be learned. Sports teaches some better (competing, winning etc) than others (Gracious Professionalism). In a world of science and technology, principles such as GP can be very valuable. It is what you take from it and it is about keeping things in the right perspective. It can be about winning but the more importantly how you win. What lessons did you learn as you won?

Hope that some makes sense.

-Bharat

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

Actually there are lots of people with a different interpretation.

Five years ago a group of teams banded together and called themselves the Baltimore Area Alliance (BAA). They have a mission statement, use of a 501(c) 3, a treasurer and a facilitator. Reps meet on a regular basis. They do some joint fundraising. This year they had enough funding to give out grants to teams who applied (including a rookie who was not in the Baltimore area). This year they built a field. They hold a day of workshops in the fall open to any team.

And for the 4th year they are putting on a successful and fun off-season event, the Battle O'Baltimore. http://www.battleobaltimore.com/
Having around 10 teams band together to put on a competition is great team builder on every level and would be difficult if done by an individual team in this area. They do a fine job.

These teams all compete against each other and build different robots. But they try to share ideas, concerns and resources.

Jenny, you might want to share that in the "Collaborations and Alliances" thread, too.

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

They have a mission statement, use of a 501(c)3, a treasurer and a facilitator. Reps meet on a regular basis. They do some joint fundraising. This year they had enough funding to give out grants to teams who applied (including a rookie who was not in the Baltimore area). This year they built a field.

This type of business collaboration is phenomenal, and I am excited to hear that it is going on. It's awesome to hear that students are able to leverage the strength of a larger business and give back to the FIRST community at the same time. I'm curious, where the alliance is formed by many teams, are there any plans to market the various technologies (similar to the swerve drive) and manufacture/sell them themselves?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by lineskier

This type of business collaboration is phenomenal, and I am excited to hear that it is going on. It's awesome to hear that students are able to leverage the strength of a larger business and give back to the FIRST community at the same time. I'm curious, where the alliance is formed by many teams, are there any plans to market the various technologies (similar to the swerve drive) and manufacture/sell them themselves?

This might not be a bad idea for a team with good fabrication facilities. If you build to order certain little trinkets (stuff like gearbox sideplates, tensioners, etc) for a slight profit, that could do a small amount of fundraising for a team.

[delsaner]

I feel that some people pay more attention to the competition then the build season, which could set some people off. Winning is nice once in a while, but I feel that the main experience is during the build season. During build season we are learning about different aspects of engineering, which is what I thought we as FIRSTers should be doing; we should be more focused about teaching engineering to students and learning more, not winning competitions. I am not saying that winning is insignificant, but some people seem to be focused more on the competition, which could be why FIRST changed things up a little bit with this coopertition aspect.

In short, some people should realize that the build season is the more significant portion of the competition. Competition is a place to have fun, meet new people, and celebrate a successful build season (winning would be nice too, but it shouldnt be the main focus).

My personal view.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

How is whining about whining supposed to be an improvement?

If people have gripes, they should be allowed to air them without being told to shut up and drink their Kool Aid. Whether it is 6v0, the definition of “inside”, frustrations with minor technicalities, powerhouse collaborations, a $1k discount linked to a $2.5k KoP shortfall, or a civil request for transparency, each issue raised has some value – even if only for nothing more than letting off steam.

I agree with you, all those threads had their purposes, I even started one of those. But there is a definite difference between constructive criticism of game or competition fundamentals and saying "469 cheated!", "1114's students don't do anything!" or "HoT is unfair!" If there is a legitimate complaint with something controllable or something that we as a community can change via feedback to FIRST or to the community then by all means post it and see what everyone thinks. Those threads aren't the problem. In a way this thread is similar to those. This thread, like those, is pointing out a problem in the community (as described below) and aiming to fix it.

I'm only concerned about people who want to whine about how they don't have the resources or sponsors, or complain how everyone else is better than them. Where do you think those teams started! They need to get off chief if they're going to say that crap. No one wants to hear it. All they're doing is making their team look stupid and earning themselves red dots.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by lineskier

This type of business collaboration is phenomenal, and I am excited to hear that it is going on. It's awesome to hear that students are able to leverage the strength of a larger business and give back to the FIRST community at the same time.

I've had other posts about this so forgive me for repeating and I see there is another thread about alliances. But there are some valuable lessons learned.

Many of these teams were hitting up the same sponsors. Sponsors were more willing to give to a group, rather than supporting an individual team. One company had sponsored various teams over the years, but was happy to give to the BAA instead. It's an easier sell. The state dept. of education was impressed and gave the BAA some funding. The TIME center http://www.time-center.org/ has been a huge partner. One of the members was invited to do a pitch for the MD. Space Business Roundtable and they gave funding. The key elements are: the teams are under this common umbrella and they have access to a 501(c)3 (a private foundation who agreed to help.)

It's been fun watching this group evolve. Like every "team" it wouldn't happen without some dedicated people who stepped up to key roles. Each year there seems to be different challenges. This year it was "how do we fairly give out funding?" It's provoked some interesting discussion. And how exciting it was for the group to see "Baltimore Area Alliance" in many of the sponsor names for Maryland teams.

There is an ebb and flow. Teams have dropped out, joined, taken on more of a role, stepped back.

Who knows what will happen this year?