My Pre-Kickoff 3 cents - 2007 version

FIRST General Forum
1

The 2007 season is all but here, so here is my “For What it’s Worth” post for this FRC season…

Most of my more meaningful thoughts on “upcoming FRC seasons” are already found in these two threads:

For 2007, I’d like to add just a few things:

  1. Inspire, Recognize, Inspire, Recognize, Inspire, Recognize…
    (oh yeah, we need to get a robot and award entries done on time, within the rules, and to the best of our ability too). Keep this in balance and you help achieve the mission of FIRST.
  2. Whether you (student or adult) play a very small or very large role on the team, quitting on the group in a time of need is not acceptable, even if someone else has hurt your feelings/pride. What kind of reputation do you really want to have?
  3. Faith, family, and school/work are all exceptions to 2, depending on circumstances. Try to maintain healthy priorities, even though you’ll be short on sleep.
  4. Successful participation in FIRST and achieving the FIRST mission have nothing to do with being “right”. We all need to get over ourselves, now. The best leaders in this world are the ones who can “let go”, especially when they are deeply invested.
  5. FIRST is stressful, unfair, and holds higher expectations than any other project you’ve ever seen. If you don’t like that, we’ll understand if you want to leave now. If you choose to stay, never whine about these things.
  6. Being a FIRST participant won’t automatically open any doors for you. It will however present you with many opportunities. As an individual it’s up to you to take advantage of those opportunities in the right way.
  7. Gracious professionalism and changing the culture ARE really what we are about. We’re different on purpose, for a reason. If you’re spending your time trying to “bring FIRST toward the more accepted way of thinking” in the culture, you really don’t understand most of what Dean and Woodie are saying.
  8. Did you work your butt off, try real hard, not win a Chairman’s Award (or event or other award), and wind up exhausted and disappointed? That’s OK, but if you turn that disappointment into angry thoughts about other teams, judges, refs, the scorers, regional folks, or FIRST staff then you really didn’t deserve to win in the FIRST place. Quickly turn that energy into constructive planning for next year before you embarrass yourself in a public way. Every team and person must have INTERNAL motivators/goals that drive them because no one can fully control any award decision or other external motivator.
  9. Have fun. Have a great season.

Namaste

2

Rich,

A GREAT post!! I am sitting here at the Radisson, Manchester, New hampshire and was thinking same thoughts. On the drive up here today I was thinking on how to word a thread saying the same thing.

Here’s to a great season for everyone, and please remember that “Gracious Professionalism” is more than a catch phrase. When something upsets you think about how you would react if your Grandmother was watching!

Best of luck to all!!

3

Ill second that for a great post,

Best of luck to all the teams this year and to each student and mentor also. I hope that everyone will get a positive experience out of this new season
Also to all the seniors cherish this season but don’t make it your last.
To all the new student’s that are about to experience their first season, mistakes will happen and it is good that they do, there is no better way to learn.

Good luck to all.

4

In my opinion, while all of those points are very important, most important are 2, 5, 8, and 9…

Everyone should try to involve whoever is on the team as much as possible, and not look down on those who dont give the most because they literally CANNOT. [size=2]These people should be respected just like every other person on the team.

Every year we also have threads saying

[/size]

We lost XXX regional because of XXX referee and XXX alliance partners

My only reaction to that is: Please don’t. These threads add nothing to Chief Delphi, and furthermore, they give you nothing. While you may feel that the best way to excercise your frustrations is to whine and complain, you are much, much better off taking those frustrations and applying those emotions to constructive uses.

All I can say to that is: Amen, Kyle, Amen.

And last but not least, remember in all these times of stress and competition to HAVE FUN, meet new people, make new friends, learn new things, go crazy. Do that one thing that you thought you would never do in your life.

Thank you,
And sorry for the rant,
Dan

5

Oh man…
Gotta drink for that kind of words…

(4 minutes later)
Me and my programmer have just had a fine shot of Sprite…
=]

Anyhow, i think that there are somethings that i can add to that, and i think that everyone who enters this thread should think of what he can add to what’s already been said…

a) Remember, you are still a school student. And school grades and family ARE prior to FRC, anywhere and anytime (well, maybe except the final week of build season, and even then it depands on the case).

b) The main goal of you and your team is to create a robot. Do not invest the first 3 weeks in making an awesome animation and only then start building your robot.

c) We are robotbuilders, not some kind of politicians. Therefore when u are haveing a meeting on how your robot should work, or any other issue, be patient, and let other people talk. Dont disturb them by interrupting, think of how would you feel if u were interrupted.

d) Mentors aren’t supposed to TELL you how your robot should look like, The ones deciding that kind of things are students, the Mentor is there to tell you when you are getting unrealistic and to do the durty job. Trust me, they enkoy it. (At least i do).

e) If at any point, you are not enjoing what you do on FIRST, you are doing something wrong. The people which are in FRC are enjoing every single second of their lives starting Kick Off and ending National Event. Event stuff like seeing your robot screw up an autonomy cause another team rammed u during it, you should be happy. IT means that your bot was good anough for them to think he’s dangerousm and launching their autnomous at you.

f) Use Chief Delphi as much as you can, many great ideas will be posted here, and also good codes or other stuff that WILL help you.

g) Make friends, not enemies. It is very easy to be angry at someone when he did something you dont like, but FIRST poeple are supposed to forgive and give a second and third cahnce. Everyone makes mistakes, YES, even you.(and even Dean, though i have no proof =])

h) If you are building a robot and no one at your School\Area epart from the team and their frinds\family knows about it, you have missed a BIG point of FIRST. Show off, you robot is amazing, and people in your town and school will love to see it in action, and you will love seeing their reactions to your robot.

i) The greatest thing to ever experience in an FRC season, is seeing that bunch of metal and sensors u spent 6 weeks on work in the end. You will never forget that first autonomous to which the crows was claping and not beliving u just did it.

j) Students dont have experience in building robots. You might think that u know nothing about robotics now, and maybe you really dont. But after 4 days in FIRST you will know just enough to build a good robot. Imagine what you will know after 6 weeks of beeing in =]

That’s it for us, hope you guys cn add more and more advices here =]

6

Rich,
Thank you for taking the time to collect your thoughts and post from your wealth of FIRST wisdom and experience. I have tucked your $ .03 in my pocket and feel richer and stronger for it.
Here’s to '07.
Jane

7

I think… no I know that everyone should be having fun (even though it is very stressfull during the 6 weeks) and do their best to accomplish what they know they can. But most importantly they should have fun.

8

I’ve been in FIRST for five years and in those five years I can honestly say that overall everyone I see is having fun. Thats what I love about FIRST. Everyone seems to be having a great time. I hope and I don’t really need to hope I know that this year inst going to be different.

9

Rich,

Awesome words of wisdom. I like and strongly agree with all the points you made, but I especially like #7 and #8. These 2 are too often forgotten.

Raul

10

Rich, once again, excellent insights.

Additionally,

Remember, when you’re frustrated that things aren’t going well, think about how to fix them, not how you got there. Pointing fingers is never a way to solve a problem.

Your teammates are just as valuable to your team as you are – just perhaps in a different way. Don’t belittle another’s contributions, and do your best to help them contribute!!

More important than having FUN in FIRST, is LEARNING – about technology, about your teammates, about your team, and about yourself. FIRST can be a life-changing experience, opening many doors for people in places they never would have imagined. BUILD SEASON is where much of the transformation and learning takes place. As a result, you can typically see how learning IS fun!

As others said, the next six weeks WILL be stressful, WILL be challenging, and WILL be meaningful. If you are engaged in FIRST, you will never forget what you do over the next 4 months. You WILL learn that with planning, prototyping, and testing, you WILL be able to solve problems. You WILL learn what it means to be a valuable member of a team, and you WILL learn how people will depend on you, and how you need to depend on others.

Cheers and congratulations to you all – you’re about to go on yet another one of FIRST’s wild rides.

11

Rich’s excellent words of wisdom got me thinking – how have I contributed to my team’s efforts? Those who know me and what I do on the team are probably in shock at what I just said, because I do contribute a great deal to the team. But there’s one big difference between how I contribute to the team and how most of the rest of the mentors contribute.

I don’t help the students build the robot. I don’t help the students with the web site. I don’t help the students with animations or any other area where a team competes within FIRST Robotics. But without mentors like me performing the functions that we perform on the team, vendors wouldn’t get paid, sponsors wouldn’t be contributing money to fund the team’s activities, the robot would not be crated and shipped to the drayage facility, and the team would not have transportation, food and lodging at distant competitions.

So, to all of the students on all of the FIRST Robotics teams, I’d like to add one additional item to Rich’s words of wisdom:

  1. Remember to thank each and every one of your mentors for what they give to you and your team. It takes an incredible amount of time and effort behind the scenes to make a FIRST Robotics team successful. One heartfelt “Thank You!” and a hug from a student makes it all worthwhile.

Switching Gears Now —

In many respects, The FIRST Robotics Competition is a lot like the real world, but harder. In the real world if you miss a deadline on your project, the deadline gets pushed back (after the project leader is raked over the coals). In FIRST, you cannot miss the deadline (to ship the robot, etc.). If you do, you don’t compete in the competition, period.

So, I’d like to add a bit of hard-earned advice – what we in the world of Project Management call the 5 P’s of Project Management: PROPER PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE. The teams that do well are the ones that have invested the time up front to plan out everything that must be done, where and when must it be done, and who must do it. If you don’t have someone who does that for the team, find that person and get them on your side. Your team will be so much better off.

GO TEAMS!!!