The team forums are fresh on the minds of the FIRST family, both here and in New Hampshire.
I’m sure that FIRST is working hard at improving the experience for everyone who participates in the next year based on the lessons they learned on their own, and through the concerns we shared with them through the forums.
Question of the Week 06-15-03: What are you and your team doing to improve yourselves and your experience for next season? How much of a burden is there upon teams to create a healthy, positive environment for everyone who participates? What other interteam initiatives can we investigate so as to further improve FIRST?
Lately it’s been clear that some individuals and teams are unhappy with the direction FIRST is taken, while others are unhappy with the specific circumstances of their team. We can all take steps to improve these conditions. Let’s start taking them.
Team 25 is currently working on an organization system, in the years past, we would come to meetings, sit down and our advisor would run the meeting, we are trying to talk the advisor out of the picture, so the students will run each section, orginze meetings, I think that this well overall Improve our team, and teach them Teamwork skills, making us a stronger team and easier to compete with
Next year our team is really planning to work on bringing the entire team together… we also wanna try and fill the shoes of our leaving seniors, who were vital to our team this year… so that’ll take some time… but most of all we just wanna have a lot of fun, like always. I think we’re really trying to expand our thinking and the ways that we are able to communicate with everyone (not just those on the team) about what we’re up to, and what the whole FIRST thing is about… there is always room for improvement… even us, PR girls!!! hehe!!!
*Originally posted by M. Krass *
**The team forums are fresh on the minds of the FIRST family, both here and in New Hampshire.
I’m sure that FIRST is working hard at improving the experience for everyone who participates in the next year based on the lessons they learned on their own, and through the concerns we shared with them through the forums.
Question of the Week 06-15-03: What are you and your team doing to improve yourselves and your experience for next season? How much of a burden is there upon teams to create a healthy, positive environment for everyone who participates? What other interteam initiatives can we investigate so as to further improve FIRST?
Lately it’s been clear that some individuals and teams are unhappy with the direction FIRST is taken, while others are unhappy with the specific circumstances of their team. We can all take steps to improve these conditions. Let’s start taking them. **
Okay, this is going to be really lacking from me today. But anyhow, first let me say that you are right by saying that we can take steps to improve conditions, and that we should start taking them. My answer to your first question: I am in good shape with starting a team who hopefully won’t follow in the footsteps of some veteran teams who (yes, i’ll say it) are pretty much to the level of corruption. Isn’t this supposed to be about Gracious Professionalism? And to follow that up, the burden should be entirely on the teams to create that positive environment. Let’s face it: the teams areFIRST. They make it, and they can also break it. So to not break it, we have to remember what FIRST is all about: not winning and glory, but about inspiration, recognition, and pride in what you create. Not enemies, but friends. I could probably claim a friend in every state (alright, not Nevada, Wyoming, Nebraska, or Idaho, but that’ll change), and some internationally. If everybody could just make at least an acquaintance on every team, I think we’d see our troubles go away really quickly.
Team 234 is also trying to get more organization. Last year, we’d come into meetings not quite sure what to expect, because our mentor wasn’t quite sure either. Also, this year, we are trying to separate the team into more subsections and have people stick to them. Last year, we had lots of people who were the, I can do a little bit of everything. Which is good, but to be more successful as a team, it would be better if everyone could do a little of everything, but also had one specialty that they do better than most the team.
Team 1020 started off their first year not knowing what to expect. They had little or no organization, and a few students were put into leadership positions due to their previous experience with FIRST. Although the season finished up well, I hope the kids will deal with more organization, set goals, and a mission to work towards.
Personally, I think FIRST is headed in the right direction by a group of set individuals who actually ‘get’ what FIRST is about… and being dragged down by persistant individuals who continually corrupt this program when their competitive attitudes get in the way of their gracious professionalism toward others.
I should know… my temper was notorious. The kids on 1020 this year were uncomfortable and uneasy around me - is that any way a mentor should be? Shouldn’t a mentor be someone to trust, to confide in, and to learn from? So I guess not only do I feel that the team and FIRST have a lot of growing to do, I think that I have a lot of personal growth to work towards for the next season.
After 5 years of intense effort on the part of Mr Tripp, he is stepping down next year as the main teacher to prevent a total burn out. After being at allmost all the meetings and being the main contact for the past 5 years, he will come to one meeting a week next year. 116 is taking the summer and alot of team parents are getting together and trying to figure out how the adults will be organized next year, both so the team can function as a team, and so the school will allow them as a team.
We need to work on all three. We are trying to work on all three.
Also, we plan on keeping the team student run and built, and ignoring the voices that ask why we don’t just let the engineers build a fancy robot. And now that we are starting to flesh out a team organization, we are going to start working, really working, on our community involvement - get the word out about FIRST by helping people out in the community. That’s our big summer goal. Well, that and developing a drive system that DOESN’T suck.
This last year was a struggle for me to get a team started at my high school and get the funding for it to take part in the FIRST competition. In the end we couldn"t find a company that was willing to give us anywhere near what we needed (early September: “$5,000? Sure, but the guy who has the company checkbook left early today to do some tax stuff, we"ll get back to you.” Week before registration money is due: “What? Oh, we might be able to get you $200…”) so the team at our rival highschool (Team 832) decided not to go to the Championships and instead paid for our Regional registration (no lack of Gracious Professionalism on their team). We also had a couple of my adult friends who volunteered to pitch in registration if necesary, so I feel we don"t have any corruption to worry about yet.
We had one engineer who is actually just an electrical engineer and prgrammer, but with our combined leadership and experience, we managed to put together something that looked like a robot and a core of guys who each have enough drive now to go start a team. Our enigineer also has enough common sense to pull back and tell us how to do things, rather than just doing it and expecting us to learn from it (he also gave the mentor badge to me at competition because I knew better than to push one of my core guys out of the driver or human player spots and he said that there was “a better view from the stands” or something…) I believe we have a fun, bright future because all of my guys want to go out and start LegoLeague Teams and help with Championships next year (because the GWCC is only an hour drive away bwahahahahaaaa) and everyone involved is so happy about what we"ve managed to do and no one has mentioned anything about scores at the regional, just how much fun we had while we were at the competition.
Plans for next year:
1.Get money to fund ourselves and all of the little LegoLeague Teams and the Community Tech Center we plan to turn our old school into when we move into the new facility.
2.Get an idea how to build something that looks like a robot and works like a robot at the same time.
3.Recruit more students and parents to have fun with us (and learn how to build and program robots.)
