[lemiant]

Originally Posted by IndySam

But to be truthful my original post was a reaction to someone complaining about his experience being lessened by a small amount because others were allowed to have the same experience (especially when they got in on a RAS last year.) Probably not real GP of me but I have never been known to pull my punches.

This is a fair point. We did get in on RAS last year, if I had my way there wouldn't be guaranteed spots for RAS or EI, and we could use a point system or something to bring more competitive teams to champs. I'm not complaining so much because my team lost one match (we actually got a good schedule so 8 matches helped us), however I find an attitude that says, in effect, "we do not care about the best teams winning" from FIRST higher ups very uninspiring and the fact that the hard work of teams like 2056 got knocked out in part because they could not overcome the ridiculous amount of luck introduced by such a short schedule. The fact that no amount of hard work excellence or perfection provides any guarantee of success is discouraging, not inspiring. Kids enjoy sports because sports celebrate competition, I've never heard of varsity basketball playoffs that included extra teams because they thought it was uplifting. If FIRST wants to be a sport it needs to act like its a sport.