Loss of Gracious Professionalism Among First Teams

[Ian W.]

There has been a definite loss of Gracious Professionalism among the FIRST teams.

Ever since I began FIRST (granted, not long ago, Sept. of 2001), it's never been about the robot. The robot has no meaning in FIRST, save for the fact that it's the medium in which SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, the important things, are conveyed. Sure, you could do it tons of other ways, but having a robotics competition makes it exciting, and therefore makes people who would not normally do something with science join. What does this mean? Simply, if your robot doesn't work, it doesn't matter, because the robot is really meaningless, in the long run.

What is the important thing, the reason we're all in FIRST then? To better our understanding of Science and Technology, and hopefully make the world a better place. Yes, it's a very lofty goal. Even more so than my team's robot design this year. Guess what though, that's the reason we're in FIRST, all trying to get the Chairman's Award every year. The Chairman's Award, not winning a regional or Championships, is what is important. If this idea is lost, then FIRST becomes nothing more than Battle Bots. A cool thing to do, but no real values are learned from it. I know I don't want that to happen, nor do many of you who are reading this. I love participating in FIRST, but I don't do it so I can win. I do it because I love programming, I love designing the control system, and hell, I love driving the robot. To be honest, this is what I'd love to do for a living. I would never have found that out if not for FIRST. Now, tell me what's more important. Having a working robot, or picking a lifetime career? I think that answer is very simple to get.

I honestly don't care about making a robot that works. Yes, I love it when it does work, and I cringe when it gets destroyed by bins or other robots in a match. I try to fix it if I can, but if it doesn't work, oh well, I'll bring it back out on the field and do what I can with what's working. If I can alter the score in my alliance's favor by just one point, I've succeeded. Last weekend at Annapolis, my team had major problems with our design, due to a lack of time during the six weeks. We were competing with a minimal system, basically a drive train, that weighed in at about 100 lbs. Nothing else worked. By Sat. afternoon, 5 minutes before we shipped our robot, we had everything working. It was not without a price though.

The team referred to in Melissa's post is my team, Team 810, The Mechanical Bulls, of Smithtown, NY. I am truly sorry for anything my team has done to you. I know that I personally appreciated you being there, as you did help with the Human Player position, as can be seen by several students that did an amazing job as Human Player, and would have not if not for your help. You also were able to help out here and there with the robot, definitely doing much more than several members of the team, who, sadly, knew next to nothing about the robot. Once again, I appreciate you for being there to try to help them learn more about their own robot, even if they choose to ignore you and still are in the dark as to how Minotaur functions.

soezgg, I'm sorry you were turned down by my team. I don't know what you look like, so I don't remember seeing you, but I do know that if you had asked and I was in the pit, I would have accepted your help. As it is, I don't know why you were turned down, as we definitely needed as much help as we could get. Once again, I'm sorry at my team's treatment toward you're offer of help.

To the rest of the members of this Bulletin Board:
If you have ever been disrespected by my team, or in any other way appalled by us, I apologize. If you are ever disrespected by my team in the future, please come to the pits and ask for me, and I will apologize in person. I don't think I can ever apologize enough for the actions of my team, but I will try as hard as I can do to so. I know that many things that were done weren't done by me, but as said before, FIRST is composed of TEAMS, not MEs.

Once again, I apologize for this, but I cannot control the actions of my team. I can try to, but it ends up just making the screaming worse. I'll be the first to say that yes, we were fighting, screaming, yelling, etc at each other. I know that gets nothing done. I've been able to trace tension to two people, who I don't feel at liberty to reveal. They know who they are, and if they choose to reveal themselves, all the power to them. If not, well, I believe the problem will continue. If that becomes the case, I would sadly say, I can't wait to graduate and go to another team, besides 810. I wish I didn't have to say that, especially on Chief Delphi of all places, but I guess that this is the place to tell, if anything else.

I know this turned into a rather long rant about my own team, and well, it's a sad day when something like this happens. If you have any more questions, I feel it would be better to contact me though a PM, email, or through AIM. If you wish to continue discussion here too, that's fine with me, I just don't want this turning into a flame fest on my team, ok?