[Mr. Lim]

Martin,

I'm going to try and share some insight to your situation, but I hope you don't take it the wrong way.

I know many won't agree with me, but it is perspective nonetheless.

At some point, strong teams will need to understand that opponents saying "no" to coopertition is not some kind of personal attack against your team. Opponents may just be giving themselves the best chance at winning the regional.

Despite information which may have been spread about the GTR-E event, very few teams actually "hate" the powerhouses. In fact, if you read the dialog on CD, it's overwhelmingly supportive. Nearly all say they've pushed the level of competition in Canada to a level never before seen, and the community has benefitted immensely from the bar being set so high. They are directly responsible for the high quality of robots in this country. As someone actually in Canada, who has competed in the these competitions and interacted with a large number of students and mentors up here, the level of "hate" up here is greatly overstated.

In fact, I'm willing to bet some of this "hate" has been attributed to me PERSONALLY, and I can unequivocably state that I do not "hate" any of them.

However, I and much of the community here really want to beat them. Badly. And I don't think you can blame us for that... this IS a competition after all.

To address the comments about the student vs mentor or high vs low resource teams. I can only share my personal opinion:

I couldn't care less if your robot was fully conceived and built by a crack team of engineers with limitless manufacturing resources, and constructed entirely of pure unobtanium. I couldn't care less if your robot was fashioned from common household goods, and held together with an adhesive based mostly on the hopes and dreams of your all-student crew.

I do care if your team is REALLY REALLY GOOD, and is about to lay the smack down at my regional.

If saying "no" to coopertition helps me compete against you, I will do it.

Nothing personal.

It's not an attack on your team or how it operates.

And who knows, maybe I'll be eating my own words in a few days when teams are declining my offers of coopertition. If they do, I'll chalk it up to them playing smart. Not due to hatred against us.