[SudoSammich]

At our regional competition this year, something occurred with our team that bothered me. It wasn't the event itself or even the outcome that bothered me though, it was the way in which it was carried out. I've always placed the FIRST community in high regard for its dedication to fairness and dedication to helping one another through potential rough spots, which meant that I was shaken even harder when this took place. For fear of running too long in the introduction (which I suppose I probably have already...) I guess I should just get into the problem.

During this year's SBPLI Long Island Regional, my team (514) was disqualified at the start of the quarter finals for an illegal bumper shape. And we should have been. It was illegal. We had a V shape in the rear of our robot's frame so that it could more easily align the robot with the tower for minibot deployment. This was due to our team's incorrect interpretation of the bumper rules (I can get into this more later, but it's not critical to my point). I, along with several other members of my team realize that it is nobody but our team's fault that we showed up to the competition with this frame, so the fact that we were disqualified doesn't bother us, but the fact that some teams waited until the second the quarterfinals were about to start to bring it to the judges attention does.

While two teams had approached us earlier in the competition to state that our frame was likely illegal, neither were readily willing to point out which rules were broken. In one particular case, the person who brought it to our attention stated that he only wished to see if we had a way around the rules so that if we were paired with his team later, we wouldn't cause them any problems. What's more, I know from a volunteer that several of the teams who noticed our problem didn't wish to bring it to the judges attention until it was too late to be fixed. Once we made it to the quarterfinals, complaints came in to the judges in droves about our frame, stating there is no way we should be allowed to compete with such an obvious rule infraction. And I can see their point. It gave us a clear competitive advantage. My question is, why not bring this up earlier?

Given sufficient time, we could have fixed our frame and our bumpers. If this was clarified with the Judges on Thursday or even Friday, we could have fixed the problems in time to compete. The way the entire event went off left a bad taste in my mouth; is it really worth completely taking a team out of the running if you can *maybe* get ahead a match or two? If the answer to this question is yes, then maybe I've had the wrong opinion of FIRST the whole time. If not, I urge you to think of the experience of the new members on my team before failing to help out a team who might run into trouble. I have years of mixed success behind me, but the newer members of my team have been brought in to a year of disqualification and, to a degree, shame.

On a slightly different note, I have to include my team in the criticism for a slightly different issue. Upon being disqualified from the competition, several members of my team were visibly upset and wanted to know who to blame. Immediately they went after the first target available, and this person happened to be the volunteer who had the unfortunate task of explaining to us what had led to this point. Somewhat coincidentally, he had just been awarded Volunteer of the Year for his outstanding contribution to FIRST, but that was not the first thing on their minds. A hardworking man who has contributed so much was backed into a metaphorical corner in our pit by members who just wished to vent their anger. As a result of this experience I felt genuine shame in my team for the fist time. The judges had done nothing objectively wrong. Mistakes were made, but that is bound to happen. Several normally reasonable team members got genuinely angry with the event coordinators as a whole, which in turn made me angry at them. FIRST would not function without the volunteers we have, and I know that I will be grateful to them always. I once again plead to everyone and anyone who reads this post, remain calm and think before venting. Otherwise you'll regret it later and make less people want to become part of this great organization.

I hate to be this long-winded, but I think I had to get some of this out. Also, if anyone involved would like to clarify something I got wrong I would be more than happy to correct it, as I am working mostly from secondhand accounts (volunteers and other members of my team filled me in on the parts I did not witness directly, though I was personally there for the majority of the events that took place).

As a final note...I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. I'm...not the best at editing down my thoughts and I hope you can appreciate the sentiment even if the statements don't seem to flow.