What makes a winning team?

This will be my 3rd year in FIRST, and I have been to 4 FIRST competitions, one of them the international finals  in Atlanta. In almost all of the competitions, the same teams pop up as the "strong teams" that do well and are fun to watch in the finals. Teams such as 148, 118, and 16 are the "favorites" in almost any FIRST competition. What sets them apart from any other team?

Some say money. Well Westlake and LASA have the same amount of funds, but they don't do as well. While we aren't flowing with money, we rarely turn down a part because we can't afford it. Thus, I don't believe lack of funds is the reason we aren't as successful as they are.

Some say mentors. Their mentor builds the robot, their mentor is a genius. Well, we have an equally as good, if not better, mentor team. Not only do our mentors know how to build, they know how to teach. Lack of mentors is definitely not the problem.
Are their kids smarter? No, this is Westwood. 47th in the nation. No way are our members any less intelligent than those of the winning teams.

I think the reason they win, and we don't, is that throughout the entire season, their entire team is fully engaged and has a full comprehension of what they are doing. Instead of having one mind per part of the robot like we had, they had the entire team per everything. They still had organization, they didn't make everyone do everything, but everyone knew everything. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but the difference between their knowledge distribution and ours is substantial. I've frequently noticed that each aspect of the competition is only known by a few. I think it is imperative that we make everyone more aware of what is going on.

Pond Springs Demo

We just had a very successful demo at Pond Springs elementary on November 17th, 2011. Throughout the demo, I essentially acted as the "spokesperson" for our team, giving a speech about our robot, and then taking questions from the kids or the adults. It was a very fun experience.

I also learned a lot about communication in this format, that is with a very large audience.

A) If you know the information well enough, you don't need to plan much. I walked into the school with essentially no idea what I was going to talk about. I just quickly ran through the major points in my head, decided on an order, and I was ready to go.

B) The method of communication needs to be altered given the audience. I was giving a speech to elementary schoolers, so I had to make the robot very easy to understand, but yet be true to the information. I was able to dumb down the complex cRIO communication system with our driver station to enable joystick control of the motors to "The laptop tells the brain what to do". And that was it, the children instantly understood the idea of joystick control of a robot, and the idea behind a "brain", or some sort of central processor.

The real question is how do I apply to this to my real communication problem. The answer is simple, sufficient knowledge of what is being presented and a good deliverance is key to my success as a leader of a club. I have noticed many "empty" presentations in the past, where people gave a presentation on something they didn't really understand, and were forced to fake knowledge and failed to answer any questions. This cannot be the case to have a successful team. I need to fully understand all the information, just like I did for the demo, and I will have similar success with leading a successful, and a winning team. I also need to understand who I am talking to, and even when in the workshop with fellow high schoolers. Use simple language, let everyone, including any unexperienced engineers, understand what is happening. It is of no use to  use advanced engineering vocabulary when simple words will suffice.

Excited for the next season! 

FLL-Speech on Core Values

On this day, November 12th 2011, I had to give a speech on Core Values, such as team work and leadership, to the competitors of First Lego League, who are a mix of elementary and middle schoolers. To view this speech, click the first link in the video bar "FLL speech". Or, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhIDNpfdJPg. Now, when I used to compete in competitions, there was always some speech of this sort, and I used to be disgusted by the very idea of "Core Values". Who cared if we had teamwork, all that mattered to me was winning. Well now that I have traversed through more advanced competitions, larger teams, and more complex challenges, I see that teamwork is winning. Aside from just building a robot, teams have to know how to interact and play to each other's strengths to achieve the ultimate goal of, not winning, but succeeding. They are two completely different entities. Winning just means that a certain team had a good robot and performed well with it. It shows no indication of who built the robot, and how the robot was made. Success, as I see it, is determined by a well functioning club, with proper leadership and communication. If a team can achieve success, then winning will follow directly suit.
The reason I gave this speech is that I was a judge of Core Values that same day. Throughout the day I watched teams work together on problems introduced to them on the spot without any help from teachers. There was a clear distinction between those who made their robot, and those who had it handed to them giftwrapped. There was also a clear distinction between the teams who fought the entire build period, and those who actually worked as a team. Teams talked about how they resolved conflicts through discussion and voting, but when conflicts arose in this spontaneous problem, all of that went to the wind. Even though the people fighting were children under the age of 13, I realize that I witness the same kind of fighting in our Westwood Robotics Club, consisting of high schoolers and adults. When conflicts arise, no one abides by the "social courtesy" of proper discussion. While some may argue that we discuss various designs and prototype them, no one can possibly argue that there exists no bias.
Just this past season, I witnessed a freshman attempt to prototype his own design. He was competing against our president(A member standing for 4 years)'s design. How is this fair in any way? I didn't help him because I was busy making my own design for a different part of the problem. As it turns out, one of the best teams there had a similar design to the one that this very same freshman had.
Now comes the question, how does any of this relate to the topic at hand, communication? Well, I am one of the main members of the club, and am present at nearly every meeting. I am also one of the most outspoken members (Nice word for loud), but in my eyes, I did a poor job of taking a "team" to the competition. In this next season, I should work more on achieving a team built robot, as opposed to a robot jigsawed by a few members.

What this blog will really entail

While this is a robotics ISP, the real aim here is to discover the art of communication. That is, how to communicate ideas effectively, whether it be a small group of fellow members, or to a larger audience. I've noticed several communication errors within our club, whether it be student-mentor, or student-student, they have occurred several times, and need to be fixed.

I picked Kevin Mundt to be my mentor for this project because he has consistently communicated his thoughts and ideas flawlessly, and is an excellent leader and an asset to the club. He has been a role model to me since I was in 5th grade, and I aspire to at least get close to his communicative abilities.

He has discussed with me his experience in communication. He has given various seminars on the importance of communication, and methods of improving it.