[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by Garret

I know that this sounds harsh and insensitive,and I apologize for that, but I seriously think that devaluing your whole season over this is hurting your team more than it helps. You should celebrate your amazing season.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by LeelandS

Tyler has told us of how he had to stand in front of a room of students, parents and sponsors and tell them that all their hard work was for naught at the hands of someone who intentionally targeted their robot. I don't know what that would feel like. But I know I wouldn't be able to say it without tears in my eyes.

Also agreed.

But frankly, I'd rather be able to tell the parents, sponsors, and students that the team was intentionally targeted as opposed to returning to them and only being able to say "Whelp, FIRST has no idea what happened. We're SOL. Better luck next year?" To me, the connotation of "intentionally targeted" is "we were so good, that someone felt they had to resort to underhand tactics to beat us".

I'm not going to tell any team that went through what the 12 did to "suck it up", but I do think that they should step back and look at what they did. They made phenomenal robot and throughout the build process I'm sure that every student on all 12 teams learned something valuable this season. I feel that everyone can walk away from the situation knowing that they built (or funded) a first class robot that was capable of making it to Einstein, which is something most teams (and sponsors) can't say.