[sanddrag]

While this may come across as somewhat arrogant, and I don't intend for it to, but if there's anything I've learned in my 12 years in FIRST, it's that if you're a good competitive team, your partners will let you down, nearly every time. Have we been the team to let others down? Of course (especially 696 in 2010), it happens, but I think more often than not, we've carried the weight of the alliance throughout my teams' histories (696 and 968). It's statistics. At a typical regional, there are perhaps 2 really good teams, 3 pretty good teams, 10-12 mediocre teams, and the rest are rather terrible.

If the 72-hour builds help any of our alliance partners in any match score more points (any points actually), work with us better, and in general just be more competent and competitive, it seems like a good thing. It's no fun to play on alliance where you are the only robot capable of scoring and for years (and even easy years like 2011), we have.