I posted this as a comment on the
"haters" article, but I thought it would be better spread on CD
I agree with most of what you said, however your striving for excellence being equated to a desire to win seemed a little off to me when you later commented on how your team is founded on the learning/growing experience and fueled by student commitment (which I whole-heartedly support).
I came across this post from your culture change article which I completely agree with, however, I believe a lot of the problems you described arose out of the competition centered mentality that FIRST currently employs, something I gleaned from this post of yours. Within FIRST, as a competition, I would say it's hard to disagree that teams with more members/resources/mentors do have an upper-hand; this being said however, in the aspect of FIRST that I believe should be the predominant focus, building the best robot you can while learning and growing as much as possible along the way, members/resources/mentors really don't have any influence, it really does all boil down to the student's eagerness to learn and commitment to the program. Because of this, when I read that your team members are actively involved with your mentors and do put in the time, I am overjoyed, and your feats of engineering really are stunning each year, however, when I read that you are fueled out of a desire to win, especially right after reading your culture change article, I can't help but be a little disappointed .
So maybe instead of your goal being a "winning robot" maybe it should be "the best robot we could build" with the "winning" part being an indication or reward that follows because of this goal being employed.
Note that I agree/support everything else you wrote about