Posted: Like all FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) teams, Team 930 anxiously awaited the Jan. 3 kickoff with lots of speculation and debate about the challenge they’d be faced with this season. With kit of parts in tow, the team quickly descended on the slippery challenge that lay ahead of them.
Much debate and brainstorming has followed in the ensuing days…LabVIEW or C++, crab drive or 4-wheel tank drive, shooting or collecting and dumping balls, human shooting versus robot shooting. Despite what the team members might say, they learned a lot more in the process of deciding on the team’s robot design than the pros and cons of two programming systems, the benefits and drawbacks of drive systems, which strategy may prove the strongest, and the accuracy of different shooting methods. If they thought long and hard, they would see how much they learned about listening to someone’s idea other than their own, taking constructive criticism for what it is as a means to grow, mostly they learned the importance of compromise and cooperation.
But then, that is what FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is all about and this young group of many FIRST veterans have been breathing this oxygen for many years so this is really nothing new. What is new for Team 930 this year is the structure of the team, the roles each team member plays and the responsibilities each member has to help make this team successful. It starts at the top with the project managers and filters down to the lead electrical-hardware person, lead electrical-mechanical person and on to the lead for the chassis group. In any aspect of the team’s activities, one team member has taken on the lead role be it cart building, pit design, awards, marketing, strategy, scouting, web design, safety, game rules, animation, documentation, or a special project the team is working on. That lead person keeps the subgroup on-task and reports to either the project manager or a mentor, depending on the group.
For our team, at this stage of the season, this team structure is proving successful. As a mentor I am seeing the energy and excitement of each member channeled in the proper direction because they know exactly what is expected of them and where they have to go within the framework of the team. They are rising to the challenge of the duties within the title they bear. They are embracing the responsibility of a major role on the team.
Perhaps it is a year of maturity, perhaps it is having that first year of FRC under the belts for many of them, perhaps it is the chemical makeup of the team itself this year, but whatever it is, it is a pleasure to see it in action.
We have a small team, but the energy and enthusiasm of each individual amounts to that of a team three times our size. The Lunacy journey has just begun and there is no telling what will slide our way or what will slam up against us, but Team 930 will grin and bear it, whatever it may be.
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