Essay about "an accomplishment with a group"

6697 Eurobotics team

24 nonplussed students with their funny-looking robot trying to answer this important question "what are we supposed to do?" while everyone else working. This was us, Team 6697, a rookie team from Istanbul at FRC Northern Arizona Regional 2017. I was the spokesperson and only interpreter. And as we say in our little interpreter circle, "With great English literacy comes great responsibility." I wasn't active during the building season as I was responsible for award essays, but now it was my time to shine. That being said, we walked into the arena and found ourselves admiring the teams around us. We even met a team from "Hall of Fame" and were thrilled when they wanted to talk to us. It was like a cliché high school movie where we (new kids) would get super excited about them (popular guys) talking to us.

While these teams were ahead of us by experience in FRC, we had something that they didn't: a family like bond. Perhaps it was sniffing tin solder at 1 AM or singing the FRC song that bonded us but we became a family over building season. Our mentor was our pregnant Physics teacher who we were quite close with. And our Turkish roots helped us when it came to our enthusiasm. We have our own way of cheering (particularly in soccer) that was new to Americans.

In FRC there are many awards and many factors judges take into consideration. They inspect your pit, safety kits or even team's Instagram account and I was responsible for a bunch of presentations for them as well. Without any experience, we were able to impress them with one thing: our bond.

We were able to make it to the semi-finals in Istanbul but couldn't make it to team allocations in Arizona. We upset at first but then teams started asking us to teach them our way of cheering. So we did, we taught them our way and at the end we all had fun. After the matches, there was only one thing left: Awards Ceremony. We sat on the benchers without expectations and heard something we least expected "And the winner of Team Spirit Award is... 6697 Eurobotics". We screamed, with spirit of course and ran to the stage to get our award, again with spirit. I guess that moment once again proved the judges that they've made the right decision. Although the award wasn't about robotics it represented concepts that each team should have: spirit and bond. And I had a great role in conveying those concepts to judges who didn't know us. I was the one that explained them our inside jokes and Turkish way of cheering. I was the only interpreter and my interpretation helped them get to know us through the language barrier and played a significant role in our win.

Wow I really like this essay. It's full of originality, and paints a really positive picture about you.
You clearly define your personal values (bonding with close ones) and also showcase your responsibilities without gloating.
That said, I don't think it was your role as the interpreter that helped you win. Yes, you may have contributed to interpreting, but wasn't it the bond that you shared within the group that ultimately lead to to win the Team Spirit award?

If you want to add that information about being the interpreter, you can, but focus more on your internal role within the team..

Su, while the prompt is about working with a team, the focus of the essay should be on your function within the team. Now, it appears that you were both a team member and the interpreter. These are two very interesting roles that one can have on a team. In your case, you just need to strengthen the presentation by not focusing on the whole team but rather, just your contribution. This is not a "we" essay, this is an "I" essay. As such, you have to focus on first, what your role within the team was. How did you function as a team member? What was expected of you and how did you perform the task? Only after your role as a team member is discussed should you focus on the interpreter angle of the essay. To highlight your role in this aspect, you can present the "Hall of Fame" team meeting, provided the other team spoke English only. This will serve to justify the need for you to be both an effective team member and interpreter.