Experience.
If you lack design experience, there is less chance of success.
Perhaps “losers” “lose” in part because the “winners” aren’t spending as much time with them as they could be?
I think the ultimate “loss” is a team ceasing to exist after their first year or two because their initial funding runs out, and they’ve done nothing (and/or no one has taken the time to show them how) to become self-sustainable over that time period.
In a majority of cases, a young team failing miserably on the field is a big giant warning sign that they could be headed for the ultimate loss: self-termination. Very few young teams “get it” in all other aspects of FIRST outside the robot without at least being able to field a somewhat-capable machine. I met a bunch of rookie teams in TN filled with very nice people; however, in the cases of the teams with the worst robots, there were at most two adults leading them, and it was obvious those adults were in over their heads, *nor had they had the benefit of any veteran team guidance prior to their arrival at the competition. *These teams are always appreciative of veterans at the events who help them get out on the field and compete, but I can’t help but think that if the veteran teams in their own region would have spent just a bit more time with them during their first year, their experience would have been MUCH more productive, fun, and inspiring. We need more regional collaboration among teams, and anything FIRST and veteran teams can do to facilitate such collaboration would be monumentally helpful.
In other cases, you see veteran teams that have a long history of competitive failure and uninspiring robots. These are teams who continue to get funding somehow but who lack the leadership needed to grow their resources and use that funding efficiently. These are the teams who frustrate you to no end, because they are often led by stubborn types who refuse to admit they need any help, even if you offer it to them. You grit your teeth at the vast amount of money being wasted on such forcibly inefficient enterprises, and you feel bad for the kids trapped within such programs. The only solution here is to keep smacking their team leaders upside the head with common sense until they relent and accept your input.
So yes, it is MUCH better to show teams the best methods of obtaining more resources, to continue applying positive, constant pressure on them by periodically checking on their progress, and to show them how to better use the resources they already have at their disposal.
Once we understand WHY “losers lose”, instead of continuing to marvel at them like they are some freak show exhibit, we must then ask ourselves, “OK - so what are we going to DO to help them become winners?” I think a concerted effort by FIRST and its experienced teams to pay more attention to young and at-risk teams, not only during the offseason, but dare I suggest, during the build season, would help alleviate many problems, providing reassurance and confidence to new mentors that they have their teams heading in the right direction. It doesn’t take much.
A whole other can of worms involves hooking up veteran teams with potential rookie teams to help them determine if they should even start an FRC team in the first place. If we’re asking teams to fully understand what they are capable of given their existing level of resources, then I imagine the answer they’d arrive at in many cases would be to start slow and form an FTC or VRC team instead.
This is a truly fantastic post. I spent my high school years on a team that sounds incredibly similar to the “veteran teams with a long history of competitive failure and uninspiring robots,” trying, and largely failing, to change the team from within. It wasn’t an easy place to be, but I’m not done trying to help them out yet. The advice I would give to successful teams who want to help a team like mine is, don’t stop trying to help, and start with the kids. One common point I’ve noticed about teams like this is that they tend to be very student driven, or at the very least, have a far higher student:mentor ratio than most teams. Invite them to your shop, and show them “how its done.” Give them direct examples of how you got funds, resources, mentors, etc. When you help at competitions, help out the eager student who maybe hasn’t had a proper mentoring experience, rather than the leader who is locked into their views. If enough students “get it,” the team will begin to. And if enough students “get it,” the smart ones will seek out all the extra help they can get. That’s how I found Chiefdelphi…
There are ways to have strong opinions yet not make enemies. Eventually you’ll master those ways (or be out of work a lot), best to start now. Ask for help from unlikely adults, you might be surprised.
Do you mean “get resources” like improving their ______? (Fabricating capabilities, fundraising techniques, scouting, strategizing, award submissions, time management, etc…)
Resources are not always tangible. Things like experience, integrity, honesty, and work ethic are resources as well.
So the answer to your question is “Yes”.
There have been a lot of excellent posts on this site. And this may be more emphasis than addition but here goes:
Mentors need to be sure that the team is on track to have a working robot ready. Students can do almost everything, but they need help watching the calender. Even if your ideas turn out bad, if your robot is inspectable and running when you arrive at your first event, anything can happen.
This year my team focused realy hard on design and effectivness. But in the two regionals we competed in this yearwe didn’t even make finals. The reasons:
-
Loss of robot comunication.(whether it be the controboard, robot, or field at fault)
-
Making that last second discision to hang another tube with only 15sec(or less) to go.
-
Something on the robot breaks.(arm, manipulater, minibot,etc.)
-
Team isn’t being consistant.(scoring lots of points only counts if you can do it again.)
In san diego we went into quaters and won the 1st match 80-38. 2nd match we were hanging many tubes while our opponents only hung 1. During the endgame we hung a tube at 10sec and weren’t able to align with the pole in time. Lost the match 50-53. 3rd match we lost communication after autonomous and completely blocked one of our own racks.This was caused by a malfunctioning usb port in the control board. Lost 29-71. Just painfull.:ahh:
In L.A. we flew by quarters with scores of 129 & 128. In semi’s however we lost the 1st match because of a communication problem, 28-60. The robot didn’t even move in automous. The banebot 775’s we were using shorted out and caused the robot to reboot(something that also caused 781 to be disabled in einstein finals. The next match the same thing happened but communication was restored half-way through the match. Our partners minibot wasn’t working properly and didn’t go up the pole, ours did but according to the judges it was to high, something that never happened before and never happened since. Lost 61-86.
In champs qualifications we got rid of the com probs but ran into little probs that kept us down.
We were alliance partners in the SD elims. Our Ubertube wiggled off the rack at the end of autonomous in that second match - just as much our fault as anyone’s that we didn’t reach semi-finals. Luck plays a big factor in matches, so don’t dwell too much on what could of (or should of) happened.
I’m happy, in the end, everything worked out so well for 973.
How about a post from you in the “Why Winners Win?” thread. 
Generally, when all team members aren’t on the same page and when the team doesn’t realistically ■■■■■ their resources and derive a plan from that assessment is when they set themselves up for failure.
I believe losers lose because of unorganization and unprepared teamates
Why do losers lose? Here’s my tree of reasons:
- Because they don’t build a good robot
1.1) Because they didn’t have time
1.1.1) Because they didn’t have enough students
1.1.1.4) Because they didn’t run active recruiting
1.1.1.5) Because they didn’t keep the students interested year-round
1.1.1.5.1) Because there wasn’t enough teacher/mentor availability year-round to run meetings?
1.1.1.5.2) Because there wasn’t enough enthusiasm among the students to run meetings by themselves?
1.1.1.6) Because the students didn’t have the skills they needed to be effective during build season
1.1.1.6.1) Because they didn’t run year-round meeting? (see 1.1.1.5)
1.1.2) Because they didn’t have enough mentors
1.1.2.1) Because of an anti-mentor bent among the team members?
1.1.2.2) Because of insufficient mentor recruiting?
1.1.2.2.1) Because of a lack of involvement in the community?
1.1.3) Because they didn’t have the money to have things built professionally (see 1.2)
1.1.4) Because they bit off more than they could chew
1.1.4.1) Because they lacked experience (see 1.4)
1.2) Because they didn’t have money
1.2.1) Because they didn’t do enough community outreach?
1.2.2) Because they didn’t do enough in-school fundraising?
1.2.2.1) Because of not enough teacher/mentor organizing involvement?
1.2.2.2) Because of not enough student enthusiasm? (see 1.1.1.5)
1.4) Because they lacked experience
1.4.1) Because they’re a rookie team
1.4.2) Because they don’t live and breath robots and robot designs
1.4.2.1) Because of a lack of enthusiasm?
Interesting that for me, lots of things come down to “lack of enthusiasm”, “lack of community outreach”, and “lack of year-round program”
Some reasons I’ve noticed my team fails at doing and therefor leading to the ultimate game losing is:
Focusing on designing the robot.
We never design around the idea of points, we always design around the idea of doing everything in the field. For example, our minibot was a last minute add on we made. NOT EVEN TESTED!
I’d like to thank everyone who posted in this thread. Your perspectives have added insight and food for thought.
One area that I’ve been mulling over is the lack of check points along the way. There are check points for the build and there are plenty of discussions about teams falling behind schedule, waiting on parts, or procrastinating. I haven’t really read many discussions in CD about check points for morale. If a team feels defeated or confused before the build starts or during the build, the team won’t move into the competition season with much of a boost. There can be various reasons for feelings of defeat, even before the season starts. Maybe a team isn’t going to the Championship Event and decides that it is pointless to give 150% each and every day. Maybe a team doesn’t understand the process of designing the robot to be able to adjust to the continual development of game play. Maybe the team doesn’t have a system in place to address the constant day-to-day frustrations and road blocks, helping it to overcome and problem-solve through those frustrations. Maybe a team’s mentors try to take on too much and don’t delegate properly. Maybe a team’s student leads try to take on too much and don’t delegate properly. I can see all sorts of reasons for feeling defeated and confused before, during, and after build.
In the teams that consistently achieve success in whatever form that takes, there is a recognition and implementation of strong leadership. In my opinion, that doesn’t mean a strong leader who does everything and controls everything. It means a strong leadership within the team using tools such as wisdom, experience, flexibility, and foresight to help bolster self-confidence and ease the sense of failure and/or desire to give up. Teenagers remind me of vessels that love to be filled. One way or the other, they will be filled and it is up to the mentors to help them gain a sense of responsibility, accountability, and ownership regarding the team and the team’s goals. That fills the vessels plenty. At the same time, the mentors are also vessels and we, too, must take that responsibility. Making this a consistent part of the team philosophy and approach to competing will give the team an edge in the shop and on the field. The trick is in making it consistent.
That’s where I am in my thinking right now. I can’t wait to see where my thinking is next year. It changes, develops, and grows every season.
Again, thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread.
Jane
Students students students (and et cetera…)
Students are the people that make the team (heck it’s the whole point of FIRST). Mentors and coaches are there to help guide the team and to show the students what enthusiasm, dedication, and passion is.
If you have a divided team (upperclassmen vs. lowerclassmen) you are not going to do very well. During the time at Boilermaker regional, our lowerclassmen had been visiting the campus- and I do mean the whole time. I can understand why- they feel that they weren’t able to do anything contributing while the upperclassmen did all the work. One of our freshman was very angry and upset that the team had made a makeshift minibot deployment that he had suggested waaay back then in week 3 of building season. Many times the lowerclassmen had suggested ideas, but at some point they started feeling ignored and insignificant.
Student involvement has always been a problem for our team. We come from a school that is 2500~ish strong- yet we are able to hold on to about 5 new students for a year-round involvement, an some of these students are barely holding on to robotics. They enjoy the activity a lot, but their dedication is a bit lower than the team expects. This frustrates some of our other team members a bit because we know there are great students in the school that we could use, but they’re just dispersed. Just out there, and half of them haven’t heard about robotics. The team is working the recruitment now, point made short- students that dedicate to the team will always win. Teams with lackluster students won’t get very far.
I’ve heard this dozens of times over the last seven years – there simply isn’t enough STEM stuff to be done on a single robot to engage 20-30 students or more, so teams have to come up with non-STEM busywork such as PR, marketing or doing presentations. Organizations that find real robot-creation tasks for all their members don’t have trouble engaging students. Our own club has had 50+ members for the last three years, but all of our students get to design, build, program, test and operate robots. No one has to be a cheerleader or “PR person.” If you want to run a STEM-focused program, make sure everyone has a chance to engage in STEM activities.
As for the topic of the thread, I’ve found this really interesting, although a lot of the factors listed strike me as dependent variables, not independent. Like any business, the key to losing seems to be to have a poor plan or to fail in execution, or both.
What’s that old saying? Nobody plans to fail, they fail to plan.
The loser does not lose because he finally wins an experience that ultimately will serve as another option, he loses who do not try it
One of the biggest things is this. I know that on my team the mentor(and student) leadership spend a lot of time(at least I did) planning what the team schedule and build season will look like. I continued this process every day of the build until we finished Champs and lessons learned (lot of scrapped plans!) . Currently, we are in the middle of planning an improved training program based upon student feedback this year. (implementing lessons learned!)
But the biggest thing is continual planning.
The program will NOT go to plan. But its how you continue to plan is what separates you from the team that struggles. One of my favorite quotes is from Eisenhower:
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything”
Agreed. Look us up at USFIRST.ORG. We had no measurable success at all for our first 7 years. It has been only the last four that we’ve found a way to have some measureable success as defined by awards and regional wins.
I’ll qualify the “measurable” above. While we didn’t win awards or regionals we still inspired a lot of students along the way. We have all of our old robots dating back to 2003 and when a former student comes by for a visit the first thing they do is go and look for their old robot. I’m not sure “measureable” success has increased the percent of students going to engineering or other technical fields - they seem to have been inspired anyway.
Trying to build the coolest 'bot at the regional when you aren’t yet good at the basics. You have to finish before you can win, would be the saying.