[Squeakypig]

These comments are unfortunate, but jealousy does set in. When a group of students sees a robot that is absolutely an engineering spectacle and then look at their robot made of plywood and c-channel, they tend to get a little jealous. Little do they know, it doesn't matter what your robot looks like or even how your robot plays the game, if your robot functions the way it is supposed to function, it is an engineering success. But when you see a 'perfectly engineered' robot, you just want to believe that the team 'cheated' in a way. It is completely the wrong attitude, you should go to those people that make those comments and compliment their robot, ask them about their design process, give them tips and hints on how they could master your techniques.

As far as people not wanting to do the cooperition bridge with you, this could just be strategy. I know at Waterford, HOT was wanting to do the coopertition bridge every match...and they did it 11 our of 12 matches. The one they didn't get it on was a failed balance, not being rejected the opportunity. I don't know if it is just like this in Michigan, but the elite veteran teams are teams that we look up to. Being from Crevolution, a spin-off from the Thunderchickens, it will take quite some time before we can compete on their level year after year...but we will get there. We have adapted many of their practices and it shows, this year we took home our first ever banner. It took 4 years of biting at TC's ankles to finally get our own banner.

To the teams making those comments, I have 2 things to say:
1) Coopertition in every single match, you can't seed high without it.
2) Stop ridiculing teams and start learning from them instead.