Lessons learned 2005: The negative

[dangerousdave]

I have read every post in this thread and I want to post at least 2 of my comments.

allyphant said:

overall, the only thing that irks me is seeing teams that are composed of mostly retired engineers, parents, and other adults working on the robot and the kids merely helping by handing over the occasional drill. There are several teams that are organized and run by students and I really admire their dedication. I think FIRST should benefit the kids that participate more than the parents.

I could not agree more with allyphant. High school students today are extremely smart and talented. Why do some teams not let the students create and repair the robot? A few pits in Atlanta had guys over 40 working on the robots with not a student around. From what I have heard there is at least one team that the students don't get any hands on the robot until it is time to drive it.

One of our team mentors, Jeremy Roberts, CD forum member and the chair of the Peachtree Regional planning committee, asked 3 questions of everyone at the end of The Peachtree Regional. He said if you can answer YES to any of these questions you have succeeded here today.

• Did you fix something that broke on your robot?

• Did you make a mistake and learn from it?

• Did you build a robot that you are proud of?

Let the students build and repair the robots. They are our future and they can do it. If they are stuck with a problem then let the mentors step in. Our team had a pretty tough year with our robot but the team learned a lot. We had a fantastic robot but had some nagging problems. We were the competition winners at the Peachtree last year, did not perform as well this year but our students created and worked on the robot each time. Trust the students, they can do it with minimal help from mentors!

Also, a couple of people here have made negative comments on the announcer Sir Charles. He has done play by play of the Peachtree at least the past 2 years and also been at the Championship's each year. This guy is a class act and brings a lot more excitement to the game so I could not disagree more with the small minority that said they didn't care for him!
Dave

[Jverdon]

Definitly the penalties, if you got one of the wopping 30 point penalties then you PROBABLY had a good chance of losing.