Multiples 2007

FIRST General Forum
21

sighhhhhhhhhhhh. Much of what I read in this thread is respectful, but there’s an undertone that needs to be addressed.

Judging or evaluating ANYTHING from a distance is dangerous. Even for those who know team members well on other teams. Anything that keeps students, mentors, and teams in FIRST is a good thing. What works for my team, might not work for yours … yadda, yadda …

Remember why FIRST exists, folks. Stay focused on the mission of changing the culture. Putting people in a position of explaining/defending a team choice on how to do business makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. All of these other details are wasted thought and energy. It’s one thing to want to learn from other teams, but that is not what’s happening here.

Remember, take what you know and believe and value from being a part of competitive events in the popular culture and throw those away. No, this isn’t easy for any of us. I’m a lifetime jock and have coached multiple sports for nearly a decade where it was more about winning than I ever cared to admit. However, this is what our founder, the national advisors, and the board of directors ask of us. Without trying to sound harsh, it’s time to get on board with that notion and live it all of the time, on purpose, for a reason. And, no, spending your time evaluating whether or not someone ELSE has it right isn’t what I mean. For those who haven’t read it, I believe I covered my thoughts on Gracious Professionalism here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=423174&postcount=1

Every time you show up at a FIRST event you should notice the PEOPLE and say to yourself, “Oh, wow. Look at all of these people involved in FIRST. I wonder what positive difference FIRST makes in each of their lives. Maybe I’ll go ask them all over the course of the next three days. Oh, yeah, there are some robots here too.”

Until we learn to celebrate our differences with great vigor in an earnest way, we won’t accomplish what we’re supposed to get done. If the average American (sorry folks from elsewhere, I don’t know the numbers for you) lives to the age of 75, that’s 3900 weeks Americans have to live. I’ve got about 1820 weeks left in my life, how about you? How do you want to use the little time you have left?

Namaste.

22

That’s a lot of harsh words coming from somebody with no first hand experience working with the collaborative group, and little experience with the robot build team.

To 515 and 1447 - I’m proud to have worked with your teams this season. If our three robots don’t run in a single match all season, I’ll still be proud to have worked with you, because you’re just that great. I hope that the experience has been as good for you, both personally and as a team, as I feel it has been for our team (whether our students have recognized it yet or not). Not only do I have pride in my team, but in both of yours as well, and in the achievements that our teams have made together. I also would like to apologize on behalf of anyone who may have ever made you feel, in any way shape or form, unwelcome.

To the Niagra FIRST bunch - Having experienced a collaborative build season, I’m amazed at what your teams accomplished.

As far as the Chairman’s Award goes, we make the decisions we do because we think that it will benefit the FIRST community, or the community at large, while making our team as a whole a more inspirational experience, and through this process we strive to be the best team. When we are judged as the best team we’ll win the Chairman’s award. We didn’t enter into a collaboration because it would “look good” on our award. For that matter, it wasn’t to look good to the FIRST community (I doubt anyone would enter into such a publicly contested arrangement to look good), or to be more competitive either.

Another misconception appears to be that collaboration is easy, or taking the easy way out. I assure you that it was not easy. In all my years on this team I can’t recall a year where we worked as hard as a team (or in this case, three teams) as we did this year. I can also assure you that there is a strong fundraising effort, and that building identical robots had little to do with saving money. Perhaps we just didn’t organize it right, but there’s probably little cost difference between what we spent and what it would have cost to build three different robots. There was also no “copying.” From the beginning we worked as one group to design one robot and build three of them.

I’m proud that my team is part of a “triplicy.” I think that the experience forged bonds between both teams and people from different backgrounds, who otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to interact, while maximizing our resources to spread the message of FIRST. One aspect of a successful season is knowing the limits of your resources and being able to not completely spread everything to thin. Overtaxing the resources leads to burnout, and that’s one thing that does not lead to a healthy sustainable team.

I don’t mean to say that collaboration is a perfect solution, because of course it’s stressful, but I have yet to see a FIRST team (whether they are part of a collaboration or not) in which everything is perfect. One of the wonderful things about FIRST is the diversity among how teams are run and operated, and I think collaboration (identical robots or not) is one of the many effective methods.

~Allison K

23

Great Post. I thought that our teams this year would have been a little happier about how things were run this year to help others. It is a little sad that some are not. We have barely enough mentors to run our own team (More than enough work, global travel etc…). Most of the mentors also have toddlers at home that also have many needs. This year, all nighters at the tech center for FIRST instead of my 1 year old didn’t seem like the fantastic idea it used to for the past nine years… The bar is rasied every year, the rookie teams are coming in with fantasitc robots and strategy. The idea of helping the three teams (We actually helped 4) this year and making individual designs, helping debug, rebuilding etc… just isn’t possible with the amount of resources that we have available. Ask most machinists, making 3 of the same part is easier than 3 totally different parts. Much of the time is in the setup. We now also have spare parts that all three teams can use. I say this every year, most mentors in FIRST have little to gain except helping the students to find their way now and hoping it will have helped them as they head into collage and later into real life. I don’t have a son or daughter on the team, I am not a teacher for the school, I don’t need this on my resume. This is all volunteer for us and the thought of shutting out teams that need some help because we didn’t want their robot to look like ours just isn’t an option. I would actually hope others would follow this strategy if another team comes to you for help.

Matt

24

I just wanted to clarify that I am not trying to attack the new collaborations, but rather to determine what participants feel the value is in doing them with all veterans. The 226 collaboration seems to make sense to me, as it was done to save other teams. I’d love to hear from others, however, for their reasoning and the value taken from teaming up 2+ veterans.

25

I know Allison and Matt have explained our reasons already, but I just wanted to put in my 2 cents…

As Rich said, judging anything from a distance is dangerous. Yeah, people on my team were against our collaboration, others agreed to it only because of Chairman’s, and of course, there were others that truly understood FIRST and agreed to it because they wanted to see all three teams succeed, but we voted, the majority were for working with the others and I’m very proud of my team for that decision.

It’s hard to judge from the sidelines the extent of a collaboration. As president, I was at the school for the first part of build, and didn’t get to see anything first-hand. I got lots of complaints at first, but after a week, those same people came to me and told me about how much they liked it and how cool they thought the robot would look, since the people on the other team had some great ideas. I don’t know of anyone that was actually working with the other teams didn’t love the collaboration efforts.

And it wasn’t at all like one team was doing all of the work for the rest either, we split up into groups by what part of the robot we were working on rather than what team we were on, and made sure one person from each team was in each group. I know this might sound stale, but we really did work like we were one team by the end of build. At the competitions, one person from 515 and 1447 will be working in our pit, and one person from 226 will be in theirs.

I can see where all of the arguments against collaborations are coming from, but I’m really glad my team was part of this effort this year. The more teams succeed, the better it is for FIRST and the rest of us.

~Smita

26

Lindsay those are some pretty harsh words from alum who hasn’t seen our team since kickoff, nor had any hand in helping or assisting us this year, and to try and speak on our behalf is just rude. I will admit, I was the first one to speak up against identical robots, oh and how I was against it : ), but however that was a pride issue for me. My argument was always however, I want to help them… I just don’t want 3 of the same. My engineers and mentors (Allison, Matt and others who have not posted yet) noticed that before me luckily. After this last 6 weeks, to have built 3 different robots would have been way crazy. Now I know they where right, And after working with the two teams, and meeting them, talking with them, and just hanging out with them, I do it again in a heartbeat triplet or not, if it means they all get one more year of first. I mean come on, it’s like being at a competition with other teams and such… but you’re building with them everyday! This was the most intense build I think our team has ever had, at least that I have been a part of, and not until near the last day did the mills finally turn off and the drill presses stop pressing, and our poor welder don’t get me started. So to all those who doubt, dismay and look down upon, let me tell you, we did this to help people, to allow these builders designers and everyone else, one more year building competitive robots.

27

I would repectfully ask that the 226 team discussions take place in private. Clearly, feelings have already been hurt. Which brings to light what I was trying to say earlier. Why is a thread like this even necessary? Isn’t it obvious that hurt feelings, etc. wil be the result of such a discussion? Why are we trying to “make sense” of something like this?

I’m going to close this thread and ask 226 members and alum to reflect, talk to one another privately, and repair any harm done. In the end, some may need to agree to disagree, forgive, and move on. For the rest of us, especially the veterans, can we please be more aware of what is likely to happen when we begin or perpetuate or judge in a thread like this one?

Thanks.

[edit] - general discussion about collaboration, benefits, drawbacks, what’s special/different about our circumstances, benefits, etc are fine and welcome here on CD. Keep it respectful, without judgment and all is well. If you wish to partake, here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=586130#post586130 [/edit]