Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Concerning the idiom, "rubbing shoulders"

                I’ve never understood the phrase “rubbing shoulders”. It’s one of those idioms peculiar to English that doesn’t make the least amount of sense if you think about it literally.
                Today (being November 8th) I figured it out.
                It means that you're working with or around someone, usually in tight quarters. If you're both working at the same table, then the chance that your shoulders, elbows, knees and feet will interact in one way or another is better than good.
                Here’s why this is coming up: I spent the day at the School of the Arts in downtown Tacoma, doing a workshop with a whole bunch of other people. We were in some tight quarters at times.
                I spent the first two hours of the workshop with an Autodesk employee, working with their product Inventor. The guy’s name was Andy something; if someone out there has a last name for him, please message me on my Google+ page :) His computer wasn't working, so we switched computers. Once he got used to the smaller monitor, things worked fine.
                I spent lunch rubbing shoulders with my teammates, the only people there that I actually knew prior to arriving.
                Afterwards, I spent an hour in a panel discussion between two Bear Metal mentors, a referee and a SOTAbots mentor (shut up, spell check). The topic: strategy. Well worth the time; it was intense, but that’s how like some things. Specifically, I prefer my candy, tea, dark chocolate, white chocolate, hot chocolate, any chocolate, information, computer programs, schedules, friends, and music intense (usually).
                During that hour, I was sitting next to SOTAbots’ backup robot driver.
                A note about SOTAbots: these guys are good. They have the skillset of some of the best teams in Washington State, and they bring home enough hardware to prove it. If FRC teams were rocket companies, then SOTAbots would be Virgin Galactic: still kind of the new kids on the block, but incredibly good at what they do.
                My last hour was boring. I’m not talking about it here, except for this: it was good information, but nothing catastrophic or extraordinary happened. The one exception was the person sitting next to me; her hair was bright pink.
                It was interesting to be there; it gave me a good reality check. It was a shift from the “let’s get a robot on the field, and then if we have time we can talk about strategy” mentality to a “let’s figure out our strategy and do our planning, and then we can start designing” mentality. Strategy is pivotal to having a successful team.
                It was also a time for me to look back and see how far we’ve come as a team. When I walked in on my first day (January 5th, 2014) our idea of creating a part out of metal was to print a to-scale drawing of the original computer model, tape the drawing to a hunk of metal and then drill and cut through both. We now have a machine that does that for us, and only makes a mistake when we do (theoretically).
                We’re a robotics team; we don’t think in terms of could and if.

                We think in terms of how and when. 

Friday, September 12, 2014

Day Zero

So, today was Day Zero.

Today, we got as many people together as we could, and we started the team back up. We’re coming out of hibernation; most of us have spent the summer doing nothing that looks remotely school-related.

We’re back, and we’re better then ever!

Of course, by definition, better means different. Our smartest team members left last year for college and careers and life, and now we don’t have them to lean on. In the words of Thirteen Days, “There ain’t no old man here. [censored] it’s just us.”

Am I scared? Yes. Am I excited? You bet. It’s that strange mix of fear and excitement that you feel at the top of a roller coaster, when the ratchet has done its job and gravity is about to take over. You look down the track, and two thoughts pop into your head (or mine at least): “This is going to be so much fun,” and “What have I gotten myself into?”

The gap between fear and excitement is where performance happens. That’s where people hit their peak. That’s the part where you shift your Corvette into sixth gear, and you feel the rumble of the engine and you know that the car, if it could, would enjoy it.

There’s another gap, this time between the past and the future. Everything happens in that gap, but one thing in particular: innovation. Between the past and the future is where things like the iPhone and the drink pouch come. In Stephen Pressfield’s words, “When a crazy idea pops into our head and we think, “No, this is too crazy,”… that’s the idea we want.” That is the heart of innovation. Innovation is taking something that is good enough, and making it better. Dyson’s bladeless fan is an excellent example of this.

We’re here because we’re next.

Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, all the tech giants are hoping for us, betting on us, planning on us being better at their jobs then they ever were. And at some point, we’ll look at each other and realize, “There ain’t no old man here. [censored] it’s just us.”


And we’ll be ready.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Meet the Team!

Members of the club: please comment below and tell us if it's okay with you if we add your picture!
Students:





Mentors

Tuesday, June 10, 2014