[Thad House]

Originally Posted by Cory

The "problem" isn't just the wait list though. It's RAS and to a lesser degree EI/CA. If you look purely at the quality of the robots, it's clearly less than that of those who qualified through performance. From a competitive standpoint some of these teams have no business being at Champioships, but FIRST seems to be pretty clearly on the rainbows and unicorns side, not the competitive side.

I would disagree completely with this. The teams that earn those awards are the teams that strive for excellence. If you look at the 4 teams that won RAS at championship this year (4488, 4451, 4472, 4731), None of them actually won a regional. 4451 went to 2 events, were alliance captains at both events from seeds 7 and 5, made it to the finals in one event, but did not with their way based on performance. 4472 made it to the quarter finals from rank 11. 4731 ranked 19. And we ranked as the 4th seed at our event. All four of these teams had very capable robots, and so did many other teams. At championships, 4451 ranked 42, 4488 ranked 37, 4472 ranked 52, and 4731 ranked 94. But none of them would have made it without RAS. I saw first hand this year what championships did to the rookies on our team, and talking to them afterward they were all amazed and it is making them strive to be better.

I think its the 3rd picks at regionals that actually bring the Championship performance down. I know there are some regionals where the 3rd picks are deep enough to be amazing, but at a lot they are relegated to defensive bots because that is all that is left. I think that the teams that usually win the awards usually have better robots, and get picked higher, but because of luck don't make it all the way.