[Chris Hibner]

Larry,

In many ways, I really agree with you. I grew up playing a lot of sports and good sportsmanship was ingrained in me from the start. Unlike a lot of people, I know that being extremely competitive and being a good sport are not mutually exclusive.

However, coopertition is a life lesson that FIRST is trying to teach that isn't well understood in a lot of American life. The fact is, in real life you can be very competitive yet still benefit by working with your competitors in certain areas.

This is a very foreign concept in the US, but a lot of examples are out there. The best example is the "Group of 5" - the alliance of German auto companies. I was introduced to this when I worked for an automotive supplier that had a decent presence in Europe - I even attended a Group of 5 meeting at Porsche's headquarters one summer.

The Group of 5 was highly competitive with each other in their market, but they realized that they could gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the world by cooperating on certain advancements that helped reduce costs among them, but didn't really make for a competitive performance advantage. Basically, they collaborated on things that made life easier for all of them.

Many of the things that started out as Group of 5 collaboration efforts have become world-wide standards since then, such as CAN and CCP. Virtually every control system in the world now uses CCP as the standard method of calibration and data collection.

The point is, FIRST wants to point out that you can be competitive, yet still find ways to improve your standing AND someone else's standing at the same time. Personally, I think the coopertition bridge this year has been by far the best example of showing this concept.

Yes, it's just a robot competition, but FIRST's greater mission is to get people thinking of bigger picture things along the way.

On a final point, I don't really think the seeding has been out of whack this year. If you look at the standings from the vast majority of competitions, you see the usual suspects.

And by the way, it was nice meeting you at dinner in St. Louis last year.