[Patrick Chiang]

Here's the story from another point of view.

Our team started 4 years ago with the bare minimum. We had the school autoshop and $6000 to buy the starter rookie kit and a position in the Seattle competition. We had about 20 students who came in every day and night for 6-7 hours, excluding Sundays. We had 4 mentors plus our head mentor who is also our school autoshop teacher. For three years, we pulled through with the bare minimum. (To make matters worse, our autoshop has its funding trimmed every single year and bureaucratic nightmares make it a chore to donate to our team.)

We raised our own funds, we applied for all the grants there are, and we use material sparingly. We made our own omni-wheels (semi-disastrous results), we foraged wood and plexi-glass from our school woodshop, and we borrowed materials from generous teams in the area. If I recall correctly, we were the only team in the area to have a total bill of materials with <$350 for 3-4 years in a row.

Our first year (Lunacy), due to a fair bit of luck, we went undefeated in Seattle qualifications (7-0) and landed first seed. So, as any rookie team would do, we shopped around and were looking at the top "elite" teams who would win every year to see if we could pick them (while saving the other slot for the team that helped us start out team). Our team captain got up there during the pick, asked 2 of the elite teams to join our alliance, and we got rejected by both teams (this was before there was a rule where you couldn't be picked if you rejected someone).

Now, I understand that there must be a valid reason why they rejected us. (They had a deal with another alliance, they felt their robot's strategy wasn't compatible with ours...etc). Which is why there wasn't really have any animosity against them or anything.

However, what really does tick us off, is that in years to come, we would go to these elite teams and their pits, try to be friends with them, asking around what their robot does, what each part does...etc. And the thing is, none of their students actually knows how their robot works. Their robots have custom-built carbon-fibre parts, machine painted at the factory or whatever...etc. Their team is 100+ students, but only 2-3 of them are at the pits at any time, while their squad of mentors stand around their robot, explaining how stuff works to curious passerbys and judges.

Then we go onto their nicely designed website (by someone in their PR department, kudos to them), and on week two, their robot is already done, and on the blog is says something to the effect of "today, we zip-tied this component down to the frame". (actual example phrasing here)

Now, I find it hard to believe that these "elite teams" that win every year do more to inspire science/tech than the underdog teams. Few of their students do anything on their robot (which isn't their fault) and they never get to the details. They see what being an engineer is like, but what use is that if they don't get to BE the engineer. (Also, there is the issue of fairness and how money shouldn't win games, but I won't get into that.) While not every top team is like these elite teams I describe, everyone knows there are a couple of teams like that at each competition. They win largely because their school is basically an extension of whatever large corporation that sponsors them, which is why they can afford to have their beautiful custom-built bot, along with their community outreach plans funded by the school that gets them their chairman's award every other year.

End rant. I realize that the world is unfair, money is a real life issue yada yada, but can you really blame our students for not liking an elite team because of reasons I've stated? (Note: this isn't directed towards anyone, just teams in general).