As we celebrate the CPS Codillians who will be competing in Brazil this week, we would like to take a deeper dive into each one of this team’s performance in the three key areas of the Puerto Rico Championship to see what makes up this winning team! Today we explore this team’s Core Values:
Part of what makes participating in FIRST LEGO League an experience like no other is its focus on Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition. Gracious Professionalism is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Similarly, Coopertition is displaying unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition. Coopertition is founded on the concept and a philosophy that teams can and should help and cooperate with each other even as they compete.
Coopertition and Gracious Professionalism are seen through the FIRST Core values. Let’s see some examples of how the judges saw CPS Codillians shine through their Core Values this year.
- Inspiration: All team members took on the responsibility of investigating and researching an area of their innovation project, as well as developing new programming skills by tackling specific missions. They pushed themselves out of their comfort zones to learn about new engineering concepts and try more complex programming. They demonstrated incredible pride in their innovation project and showed incredible team unity.
- Teamwork: It was evident throughout every aspect of the Championship that the students were leading their own learning journey and that their mentor was just their guide to answer questions when things got tough. Every team member understood how all aspects of their robot worked and could easily answer questions about their programs and what each part of the code achieved. All team members also thoroughly understood their innovation project, demonstrating that its creation was a true team effort. Every team member could explain the problem, the team’s solution, the impact of their solution and the way that they individually contributed to the development of their Innovation Project.
- Gracious Professionalism: In every aspect, from judging presentations to the Robot Game, every team member was included. The team not only could articulate clear and fair divisions of responsibility within the team, but also treated every team member with respect. Through challenges and through highlights, the team members were constantly encouraging each other and treating their team members, their coaches and the event refs and volunteers with respect. Even when confronted with the frustration and disappointment of a malfunctioning robot during the crucial first two rounds of the Robot Game, the team remained in control of its emotions, choosing to persevere with grace, kindness and dedication rather than give up or quit in frustration. They accepted the challenges as a learning opportunity – showing incredible Coopertition and focus on learning rather than winning by taking the time in between rounds to continue to brainstorm and troubleshoot the problems they were facing until they were able to solve them just in time for the last round of the championship.
We know the CPS Codillians’ core values will shine just as brightly in Brazil this week! Good luck team and most importantly HAVE FUN!
Do you want your school or robotics team to have the opportunity to represent our island? Registration is now open for the new season of the FIRST LEGO League Challenge! Sign up today: https://firstroboticspr.org/inscripcionesfll/
