[davidthefat]

I think another aspect is the attitude and perspective. I would personally call this season a failure for me, but others on the team think that it was a tremendous success. Now, we both had the same season, but yet, how can we have such polar opinions? It is a matter of perspective. I have failed on a personal level. I saw this season as a failure because of several reasons.

First, we relied too much on luck. Luck got a fairly far, in fact, the farthest we have gotten in 11 years. But that is why I consider this season a failure. Disregard all numbers and ranking. I, personally, did not do all I can do to insure a better robot. I did not acquire the trust from the mentors to allow me to implement any autonomy into the robot. In fact, I had only uploaded code only once during the competition. Mentors did not trust code. I call that a failure because I failed to gain their trust.

Another reason was due to the more obvious. I had failed to control the arm efficiently enough. My personal record was 2 tubes during any given match. I considered that a failure. I promised a logo, but due to technical difficulties, the arm was not given the limelight. Perhaps it was not all in my control, but I bare the blunt of the blame.

Lastly, one of the biggest reasons were "diplomatic" reasons. Perhaps, I have made a few enemies in the team. I am very outspoken and opinionated. Which in itself is great in my honest opinion, but the flaw was in the execution of those opinions.