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Re: Einstein 2012
233 software mentor here. I was down on the field for part of it and in the stands for part. Whether we won or lost we didn't want to play like this. We have absolutely no problem with losing cause you're beat by a better robot, but win or lose these matches just were not how we wanted to play the game. There were several problems with our opponents and while they were not so obvious, in the finals matches there were flickers of connectivity issues with some of our bots have longer bouts of "sudden" connection issues (233 in F1 and 987 in F2). I watched our robots more but I also heard there were issues with 180 in F2.
To the comment about sucking the excitement out of the air, it really did. The general feeling was that the entire crowd was pumped and everyone felt a real tingle of excitement after each divisional elimination match. After the Einstein matches though there wasn't rampant cheering, there were no exciting rallies or awesome blocks. It just felt hollow, because everyone knew that no matter who won or lost, it probably wasn't going to be based on robot design or driver skill or strategy.
As a mentor I feel bad for how it ended, but I feel even worse for how it ended for our students. Mentors can come back next year and go again but we had a good number of students that are seniors that this was their last go at it, this is the last feeling they're going to get from FIRST unless they decide to come back in the future and be mentors themselves.
As far as the issues themselves, I'm not sure what caused it, but I will say that Pink went through divisional matches and never had any period of connectivity issues, this was the first it appeared. I don't know they could have done anything differently, I think they knew it was a raw deal all the way around and all the EI teams I think recognize it. I just hope they can fix the causes of it and we can move on.
So congrats again to 16, 25 and 180, I know I talked to most of you there. All of the EI alliances were fierce competitors and I think we all want to be remembered for our performances in our division finals instead of what came out of the EI matches.
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