Have Persistence

What is the most important thing to have if you want to be successful?
Talent?
No.
Education?
Never a bad idea, but no.
Money?
No.
Technology and resources?
Still no.
No, the key to success has been around for almost forever.  The key to success is grit, perseverance, and the ability to keep going when everyone else has stopped.
It's the thing that allows you to bounce back from failure.
The thing that allows you to keep trying no matter how hard things get.
It's the thing that allows you to work harder than anyone else and create something that will change the world.
Grit is sooooo underrated.
The effects of persistence weren't really formally studied until Angela Duckworth entered the stage.  Angela Duckworth was one of the first psychologists to study perseverence's effect on kids, and her work leaves a lasting influence.  It has been found to be more important that IQ, and the reason there are so many promising kids who fizzle out later on.
At PRISM, we try to emphasize grit, so along with learning about circuits, programming, and technology, we also learn how to keep our head up in failure.
For example, in late January-early February, we were working on our rover.  It was for multi-terrain use, but we kept encountering setback after setback.  The baseboards didn't work. The wheels always turned to the right.  The controls were seriously limited.  The materials were occasionally falling apart in our hands.  You name the problem, I assure you, we had to deal with it.  But we kept trying, kept improving and testing and redesigning and... persisting, and in the end, we got a rover, a rover we would have never had if we had quit, and with that, an experience that would last us forever.  
Meanwhile, another story of overcoming failure in the PRISM room was not from Makers, but from the Scenario kids.  We had all worked harder than we ever thought we could on our stories, but in the end, there could only be one winner. (Congrats, Stella, btw.)  We could have just curled up into a ball and sobbed our eyes out (Which I'll admit, we did do for a little while,) but we managed to get back up on our feet again, and we're ready to blow away the competition next year.
All in all, PRISM has taught us how to think, and how to never give up.  Not only did we learn how to use Arduino and other cool gizmos, we learned how to keep going, and this is a skill that will stay with us, even when the technology becomes a thing of the past.