Gracious Professionalism

[Bubblegum]

This is something that my team did not know the meaning to, but we have learned it with several real life experences inbetween October and March,
It is something important for this type of sport

[Dude22]

Originally Posted by Bubblegum

This is something that my team did not know the meaning to, but we have learned it with several real life experences inbetween October and March,
It is something important for this type of sport

It is very very important.

[Quadcore]

Indeed. Utmost.

Remember to share these experiences with your Core Values Judges!

[Roosevelt Robotics]

I teach at a middle school that is heavily involved in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (the STEM subjects). We have a LEGO and VEX robotics program, participate in the MESA Schools Project, and are a NASA Explorer School. FLL's Core Values and Gracious Professionalism match our philosophy of implementing project based inquiry learning as a hand's on approach to teaching without focusing entirely on the competitive aspects.

Competition alone is a powerful motivator, but as teachers, winning cannot be the main goal for our students. We guide our students through the design and engineering process incorporating applicable mathematical concepts along the way. The process takes time, and their performance levels don't always match the FLL tournament schedules. That's why we embrace the concepts of Gracious Professionalism and the Core Values.

We tell our students not to be concerned with the performance of the other teams, but rather to focus on what they've learned and what they can do. When we first started competing in FLL, some of our students complained that we, as coaches didn't do enough for them. We would teach them the basics of design, testing, sensor, programming, etc, but that's about it.

Only after they become proficient with their existing skill set and this skill set isn't enough to arrive at a solution to an existing problem do we offer to teach them a higher skill set.

After the FLL season is over, I usually build a robot and show our graduating 8th graders my solution to some of the harder missions. Invariably someone says, "How come you didn't show us that before?" My response is usually something like, "How come you didn't think of it yourself?" or "If I show you how to do everything, what's left for you to learn?"

At a recent community event, more than half of our team was out sick, so I just brought the boys who run the robot. Sharing a table in the pit area was a rookie team from an elementary school. They didn't have a robot or a laptop, but had brought their Project to be judged. I told my boys to let the rookie kids watch them at work. After a couple of minutes, my boys were showing the rookies the basics of programming. Another team ____ed the rookies their back-up robot. They actually got the robot going well enough to run it in a performance round.

I was very proud of my team because they truly understood the concept of gracious professionalism and FLL Core Values.