Posted by bill whitley at 12/29/2000 12:52 PM EST
Student on team #70, Auto City Bandits, from Powers Catholic High School and Kettering University.
What do you think is the single most important charecteristic needed to have a winning team?
Do you think it is money, engineers, facilities, or something else?
Posted by colleen at 12/29/2000 1:39 PM EST
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science and WPI.
In Reply to: most important charecteristic of successful teams
Posted by bill whitley on 12/29/2000 12:52 PM EST:
I think the most important thing about having a ‘successful’ team is attitude. You can have the people, engineers, money and high-tech machines you want… but if you don’t have people who are in it for the right reason… that put their blood, sweat, and tears into the robot, ‘success’ although in your capacity to accomplish is irrelevent.
And honestly, I probably would have never said this to be true until last year. Previously, I knew attitude played a major role in how individuals perceived and achieved in FIRST… but I also thought success was measured in awards and that was very much the focus of the team.
Last year on 246… I saw something new though… A bunch of inner-city kids… eager to learn and having a blast doing it taught me something… When we went to Jersey… we barely worked… but we wanted to do well… and we were proud of what we did accomplish… we never missed a practice round or match… and we always went out there knowing we were the underdogs but knowing we had the ability to do SOMETHING. that attitude is what got us through match #84 (Won Best Defensive Round… shut out the #1 seed)… and it was attitude that made us feel just as successful for tying for last place as any gold medal toting FIRSTer could have felt…
So it’s all about your attitude towards this… winning is fun… but success is more rewarding… fortunately they aren’t one in the same in my book…Blessed are those who have known this from the start… and although it was probably always in the back of my mind… it took me until my fifth year of FIRST; gold medals, #1seeds, Control, Offensive, Defensive, DYF Awards later to understand that that isn’t what success is and to learn firsthand what Dean has been talking about all these years…
Best success to everyone… 
See you at kick-off!!
–colleen
Posted by Andy Grady at 12/29/2000 8:40 PM EST
Other on team #126, Gael Force, from Clinton High School and Nypro Inc…
In Reply to: most important charecteristic of successful teams
Posted by bill whitley on 12/29/2000 12:52 PM EST:
I would say the most important element needed to win a competition is strategy. You could have the most beautiful machine that is just functionably capable of tearing apart the competition, and it would get you far. But…strategy wins competitions. Ive seen robots that didn’t look great, and didn’t work great, defeat great robots because of strategy. Ive seen excelent robots fall time and time again due to lack of good strategy. Just about any robot can win a competition, it just takes strategy and alot of luck.
Cya,
Andy =)
Posted by colleen at 12/30/2000 1:03 AM EST
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science and WPI.
In Reply to: Strategy
Posted by Andy Grady on 12/29/2000 8:40 PM EST:
i gotta totally agree w/ andy on this one… in terms of winning matches and competition… quality of robots is nothing compared to ‘how’ you use 'em… it’s all about strategy… every robot can be defeated in some may… it’s just a matter of using your strengths to capitalize on another robots weakness during those 2minutes…
and of course… having drivers that can execute is just as important 
Posted by Kate at 1/2/2001 12:02 PM EST
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Mass Academy of Math and Science and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
In Reply to: Strategy
Posted by Andy Grady on 12/29/2000 8:40 PM EST:
Now, I’m not knocking the answer to the question, because I totally agree with it… But this question… It’s all a matter of perspective for what you believe ‘winning team’ means for FIRST… Obviously, Andy was talking about a team winning one of the competitions… But what about the Chairman’s Award?? That’s supposed to be the most important award that you can win… What makes a team good enough to be able to win this award?? Thoughts anyone??
T190 XO
Kate
Posted by Ken Leung at 12/30/2000 4:06 AM EST
Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.
In Reply to: most important charecteristic of successful teams
Posted by bill whitley on 12/29/2000 12:52 PM EST:
I have to admit, this competition sometime have really tough challenges, not to mention the frustration. But what keep me going is how much I like doing this project, and the fun in working with the people (and of course showing off my shop skills and tools). I must say the interest for the competition is extreemly important. That’s what keep the people in learning more about engineering to build a better robot. But sometimes nights after nights of work, people get really tired of the kind of work and machining we do when building the robot, but they kept on pushing just because they want to do it, and that’s how one of our best robot get produced.
Great interests motivate the students to be better on their own, without our mentors or student leaders telling them what to do, and that kind of self-motivation, I think, is the also the most important factor to have a winning team.
Posted by Robby at 12/30/2000 6:13 PM EST
Other on team #108, The SigmaC@Ts, from AIFL and Motorola.
In Reply to: interest in the competition
Posted by Ken Leung on 12/30/2000 4:06 AM EST:
And this falls under attitude. You have great point. Students who are incredibly self motivated will put in hours a day, if not days a week, nights too! All that just so they can see the team succeed - build something that works the way they wanted.
Many students will join a team merely for the interest of going to Disney. They do work, sometimes, but never quite give it thier all. Just enough to get by. I have a long standing debate with some friends of mine as to whether these students should still be allowed on the team. And how do you sort these students out? Some are quite obvious, as they just lay around the field every meeting, arrive late, and rush to leave early, often missing several meetings. But others are a little hard to tell whether they will really help out the team once you make it to Orlando? These are the kind of students who can bring a team down.
And the same can apply to some engineers and teachers. If they are only there for the potential glory of a 1st place trophy, did that team really become a success? Refer to Deans speech last year about what he wanted the outcome of FIRST to be, which I think shocked a couple of the attendees. But more of that on a later post.
Hmm… just noticed something. Kind of a depressing post. But never worry! There are us hard-core FIRST junkies who go straight from school, to our sponsor, leave at 1am, get to bed by three, and wake up at 6am only to repeat the process with a smile and 3 primative shapes in thier heart.
These are the students that truly help the team success. And once again, the same applies for many engineers and teachers. Well, not school of course, so they get to pu in way more time. Lucky ::SNIFF::. Damn… those were the good ol’ days.
-Robby
[email protected]
Posted by bill whitley at 12/30/2000 11:38 PM EST
Student on team #70, Auto City Bandits, from Powers Catholic High School and Kettering University.
In Reply to: most important charecteristic of successful teams
Posted by bill whitley on 12/29/2000 12:52 PM EST:
This is exactly what I love about FIRST so much. Everybody looks at the same question in a different way, and comes up with a different correct response.
Personally, I think that the most imporatant charecteristic of successful teams is the leadership of that team. I think teams that have an outstanding engineer (or teacher or parent etc) have the key. I think have those people who can motivate you to be involved, those people who make you eat, drink, & breath FIRST are what makes good teams GREAT! I think this brings the attitude that Colleen talked of, and the interest that Ken mentioned. I think having people on your team like Dr Joe, Raul and people like them are what make those teams great.
Hats off to all the coaches, engineers, teachers, parents and volunteers that make FIRST possible.
Happy Holidays!
-Bill/Team 70
: What do you think is the single most important charecteristic needed to have a winning team?
: Do you think it is money, engineers, facilities, or something else?
Posted by Joe Johnson at 12/31/2000 1:03 PM EST
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
In Reply to: Re: most important charecteristic of successful teams
Posted by bill whitley on 12/30/2000 11:38 PM EST:
I often say that the most important success factor is that a team has to have a few people (at least 3, six is better) fall in love with the project.
Once you get folks to rationally decide to be irrational about making a project work, success is only a formality.
In my opinion, all the crazy stuff successful teams do in order to be successful is mostly due to a few individuals falling in love with FIRST.
Joe J.
Posted by Justin Stiltner at 12/31/2000 2:41 PM EST
Student on team #388, Epsilon, from Grundy High School and NASA, American Electric Power, Town of Grundy.
In Reply to: Falling in Love…
Posted by Joe Johnson on 12/31/2000 1:03 PM EST:
: I often say that the most important success factor is that a team has to have a few people (at least 3, six is better) fall in love with the project.
:
: Once you get folks to rationally decide to be irrational about making a project work, success is only a formality.
: In my opinion, all the crazy stuff successful teams do in order to be successful is mostly due to a few individuals falling in love with FIRST.
: Joe J.
Yep I fell in love but I was the only one at first but 2 of my buds shortly followed. And we ended up being the only students that worked on the bot, and the only ones to operate it.
I have a few words of wisdom for all the rookie teams, if you want to drive then work on the bot all you can because you will get more opportunities to try it out and if you are a programmer you can program it to your likeing aws far as the controlls.
Justin Stiltner
Team #388
Epsilon
Grundy Va,
Justin Stiltner
Team #388
Epsilon
Grundy Va,
Posted by colleen – T190 at 1/3/2001 6:35 PM EST
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science and WPI.
In Reply to: Falling in Love…
Posted by Joe Johnson on 12/31/2000 1:03 PM EST:
I absolutely agree…
Ten years ago… a few people fell in love… and that has brought us to the team…
My freshman year… me and my friend emily fell in love with it… and along with the kids from the previous year… we helped build a successful robot (not necessarily team)…
Success in robot competition is one thing… gold medals and such… but success itself is something else…
Like Dean says, we’re all winners… cause we’re all in love with this thing called FIRST
–colleen
3rd’s the charm