Dealing with Loss

[Rick TYler]

Elizabeth Kubla-Ross wrote that when a person finds out that they are dying (or you have to ship your robot) they go through five stages of dealing with it: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. An example is:

1. No, no, no! The ship date isn't Feb. 21 -- it's MARCH 21. You must be wrong.

2. I can't believe FIRST only gives us six weeks! Those *&#$&@(!!!3! No one can build a robot that fast.

3. I'm going to call FIRST. I'm sure if we send the FIRST offices a box of t-shirts they will give us five more days.

4. Tuesday. There is no way we are going to make it. I'm going home to play video games. Does anyone have some chocolate?

5. OK. Tuesday it is -- let's get busy. If we take the motors off, I'm sure we can make weight.

Where are you today?

[Billfred]

1293's definitely in stage 5. Sometimes we've been teetering on stage 4, but mostly we just want to get this darn thing done!

[Michelle Celio]

Being that it is Sunday, I don't know if we'll be completely done >.< I mean it works, it just needs a program, and I just don't know if it all will work. So i guess stage 4

[Joe J.]

All of our major mechanical work is done, just some tweaking left to do. As for code its getting there. So right now we're in stage 5. With how much more complex our robot is this year compared to last year we're really happy with how well it works.

[Adam Richards]

Uhh... we were supposed to be building a robot? *looks at giant wooden Trojan Rabbit in the corner that was built instead for the past 6 weeks* Whoops...

[Bemis]

I've in acceptance for a day, and I was in sepression for a week before. Things are looking like we could get done on time. Could...

[Ethulin]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Elizabeth Kubla-Ross wrote that when a person finds out that they are dying (or you have to ship your robot) they go through five stages of dealing with it: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. An example is:

1. No, no, no! The ship date isn't Feb. 21 -- it's MARCH 21. You must be wrong.

2. I can't believe FIRST only gives us six weeks! Those *&#$&@(!!!3! No one can build a robot that fast.

3. I'm going to call FIRST. I'm sure if we send the FIRST offices a box of t-shirts they will give us five more days.

4. Tuesday. There is no way we are going to make it. I'm going home to play video games. Does anyone have some chocolate?

5. OK. Tuesday it is -- let's get busy. If we take the motors off, I'm sure we can make weight.

Where are you today?

There has to be a funny story behind the Brazil Option, anyone care to explain?

[Koko Ed]

We have good experienced mentors and capable kids handling the robot so it's never an issue about getting the bot done.

[Steve S.]

not an issue at all for us. we are only fixing a couple bugs in programming, but it works!!

[robochick1319]

The entire team is totally on stage 5 right now, but personally I'm around 2 or 4. >.< We'll make it though and I'm sure that everyone's robots will look awesome, even if the team doesn't!!!

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Ethulin

There has to be a funny story behind the Brazil Option, anyone care to explain?

In Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil our hero ultimately escapes the torture and brutality of a totalitarian regime, in which he is helpless to control events, by abandoning reality and mentally going off the the Brazil of his dreams. It's like all metaphorical and stuff.