[Undertones]

This could be a very long post, I will do the best to explain my full thoughts on the Einstein field issues.

Being the driver for 4334, I was front and center in experiencing this awful event. I can't tell you how awful it is for your whole alliance to go down during the championship finals. Forgive any bitterness I may have in this post, I am pretty biased on this event.

While I understand that FIRST had their reasons for handling things in the way that they did, it was completely disgusting. The volunteers that I dealt with were all less than helpful, they brushed me off more than once, and not once did they give us a straight answer. I realize and recognize that they didn't have answers, but the least they could do is admit there was a problem (which they did when we replayed those matches). It made it hard for anyone to believe that they fixed the problem when the problem continued. I was standing there listening as a volunteer tried to tell 2056 is was a battery issue with their bot. I mean, 2056 has had a perfect record this season in terms of up time and robot reliability. Loose connection in one match; improbable but plausible. Loose connection in 2 matches; highly unlikely but possible. Loose connection in all three matches; I mean, look at the stats and tell me that's what happened.

They did the right thing by replaying the first two matches - they did the wrong thing by powering through and denying that there was a problem. I don't think I'll ever forget the moment I lost faith in the FIRST system - just the injustice of what happened was enough to make me want to quit FRC. After a match when so many robots went down, holding faith that they would replay, and then not doing it... It's ridiculous. If there was a massive hole in the ice at the Stanley Cup finals, they'd stop and fix the ice. This was a world championship event, and the field didn't work? That should be the least of anyone's concern. And to think - if I won worlds, went home, got on Delphi, and saw that there was problems with the field, I would seriously question the legitimacy of the award. That alone should have been reason enough to fix the field. And think of how bad this made FIRST look - people who don't really know anything about the dynamics of Rebound Rumble and the structure of the FIRST ranking system/elimination processes must be thinking "Wow. How bad were the rest of the robots?"

As anyone involved in the community knows, FIRST is all about gracious professionalism, honesty, integrity... And they informed 10,000 kids by example that none of that matters when your reputation is on the line.

Now, I'm not going to go into "well, this would have happened if.." The All-Canadian Alliance has been the FIRST Canada dream for years now, and this year it became a reality. People recognized how strong an alliance we were. We had a really good run, and it stung to see and feel it end how it did. Anyone who's ever gone down during a match can agree with me it's probably the worst thing that can happen to you. It's horrible. And then for them to turn around and tell us it was our robots? Add insult to injury, why don't you.

Honestly, I'm impressed by FIRST's acknowledgement of the problem. I think we'll probably never know what caused it. I've heard all kinds of ideas on what happened, from thunderstorm interference to conspiracy theories involving the War of 1812. (I actually overheard someone say that last time there was a bunch of Canadians in the White House they burned it down).

So, as respectfully as I can, and with as much gracious professionalism as possible, FIRST screwed up big time. I hope they took away from this a valuable lesson.

I guess above all, I wanted to show the world our siiick triple balance. I think we can all agree it was a thing of beauty.

We need to make sure something like this never happens again. It's unprofessional, low, and unbecoming.

Learn from the past and apply it to the future.

On a lighter note, the rest of the championship was amazing. So good to meet so many amazing people, I had a great time aside from the last night.

Mac
ATA 4334