UNgracious UNprofessionalism

[bEdhEd]

I have been watching a plethora of YouTube videos lately that are showcase and reveal videos that are posted by many teams at the end of build season. There are videos of good robots, not so good robots, and some absolutely incredible robots! The topic I want to discuss is the amount of ungracious and unprofessional comments left by some FIRST participants accusing these incredibly hard working and productive teams of having robots that are mostly built by corporate sponsors, or robots that are barely built by students. These comments are extremely negative, uninspiring, and most of all, ignorant. When I look at a team with a well built, beautiful robot, like Team 254 or Team 118 (Winners of SVR 2013 by the way, congrats!) I can only be inspired at how they are doing FIRST right!

The reason I say that these type of teams are doing FIRST right, is because they work with sponsors and engineers so much that it is an integral part of how their team is run. What is interesting as well is how these high performance teams usually have a huge number of students, and they are being accused that their students don't do enough or even anything, which is highly illogical. I'd hate to say that FRC teams that work within their high school which lack a decent amount of engineer mentors who work in the industry and are forced to make robots that are completely student built (Team 701 is guilty of that) are not doing FIRST right, but they really aren't. FIRST was originally started so students were not limited to the resources of their schools or parents. They are ideally supposed to be teams that are formed with students who may be from different schools who work with an industry partner and can work in that partner's facilities and use that partner's resources. I find it a huge issue that some people in FIRST now think that this type of partnership is "cheating," "unfair," or "too easy." I want these people to know that this type of attitude is not in the spirit of FIRST, and is completely ignorant, because what they consider "cheating" is how an FRC team should work. Team 701 has been running for 13 years now without the industry resources such as engineer mentors or large amounts of expensive professional machinery, and by seeing these high performance teams I wish we could do FIRST right.

This year, some FIRST participants have assumed that our 2013 robot isn't made by students because of how well built and aesthetically pleasing it is, when it actually is 100% built by our students, aside from powder coating, which isn't actually part of the building. The only thing our few mentors actually do is supervise, teach, and give advice. I get how stupid these kinds of comments can actually be now. I actually find it a compliment that a 100% student built robot can be mistaken for an industry built robot. A 100% student built robot is a great thing, but it certainly isn't something to brag about.

The whole point is, that I want all FIRST participants to understand that it is normal and should be praised that a team can work with an industry partner to construct a phenomenal robot, and if they aren't working with industries, they haven't done FIRST right just yet. They should feel inspired by high performance teams to do better, rather than being envious and making ignorant and incorrect statements. I think that a team of students can fully take advantage of the FIRST experience if they do work with industries. I wish my team did that, and I know that if Team 701 did, and if more teams did as well, we would have more exciting and competitive events, and students that are even more inspired and passionate than they are already.