It is about the robots (OpEd)

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Personally, I like FIRST just the way it is. On the topic of "is about the robots or not?" let's look at it this way. Would we all really be here on these boards and filled in arenas to build our people skills or become gracious professionallists? No. Can you honestly say you would have joined FIRST for the sole purpose of becoming a more productive citizen? Most likely not.The robots are the attracting force, the common interest that brings us all together. Once we are together, (by force of the robots), we develop all these other great things like gracious professionallism. Today FIRST might sustain itself if the robots were no more because we have been converted into great people who see the value beyond the 'bots, but there would be no attraction for new outsiders. After being involved with a team for three years and now going on to mentor that team for year #4 for me, I can honestly say that it I am just as happy seeing a robot fail miserably as long as the kids still enjoyed the program and got something out of it and there is insight for future improvement. Now, for really totally awesome robots themselves, that's just an added bonus that some teams are very fortunate to achieve. See, building a really great robot is just a pseudo challenge for the concept of the whole FIRST program. It is just a phony way to bring people together to reach one common goal. What we don't know until we have been with FIRST for a while, is that we have subconciously been becoming better people in the process of building this robot.

You think you are building robots, but you are really building yourselves.