Lessons from Mentors

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by rocketperson44

--This is a competition populated by robotics nerds. But knowing more than someone else about robotics does not make you a better person, and may very well be making you worse.
--Be proud, very proud, of hard work that results in the creation of something great. Be prouder of the work than the creation.
--Respect the work of others. Recognize greatness in others, just as you would celebrate greatness within your own team.

There are a large number of people in life who could really take #1 to heart. It's great if you know 8 million things about something, be it robots, or grammar, or history, or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. This does not mean it is the right idea, or even a good idea, to jump in everyone else's conversations and try to shove your knowledge down their throat. I used to be "that kid." If you stop talking lone enough to listen, you just might pick up a new thing or two. (As an aside, a fair portion of the advice on this website comes for other FIRST actives and engineering undergraduates. We aren't always right (or at least, I'm probably not), even if we strive to be. I think its important to keep this in mind )

#2:
Regardless of what you put on the field come Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, you've followed an extracurricular project through from start to finish, and invested more hours and effort into something in six weeks than most people put into anything.

#3:
You probably didn't do everything right. So, that team across the aisle probably did something better than you. Go talk to them! If they did something awesome, say so! Then take pictures and do that thing next year.