[Karthik]

Originally Posted by fox46

It quite frankly devalues the experience. It cheapens the result. If the playing field is not level, the hard work performed by one team is not transferrable or equitable to that performed by another. The teams that work hard are no longer rewarded accordingly in their performance.

Why do the Olympics have drug testing?

The FIRST teachings to be gracious to your opponents is wonderful. I wish our world adopted this thinking far more however, you cannot negate the underlying purpose of building a good robot... it's called FIRST Robotics *COMPETITION*. Competition is what drives our innovation. You look at any of the modern technology we have today and none of it would have existed without competition- world wars, cold wars, space race, apple vs Microsoft, capitalism. It isn't pretty and it involves some deplorable events in human history but you cannot say that "winning doesn't matter". It is a statement that paves the moral high-ground and to claim it is to be blind to the reality all around you. If we teach kids that "winning doesn't matter" and being the best isn't valuable then what sort of a future are we setting up? What drives innovation if not to improve? What is the purpose of competition?

I postulate that if you took the competition out of FIRST- took "winning" out of FIRST, gracious professionalism would not be what it is. There would be no accolade for bowing to your opponents and working together. There would be nothing special about it without anything tempting you to gain by not practicing it. http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/gracious-professionalism

Recently, in the men's cross-country sprint, Canadian coach Justin Wadsworth rushed out onto the course and replaced the ski of Russian competitor Antov Gafarov. This was a true act of gracious professionalism. But lets say that they weren't from different countries, in competition with each other. Had they both been from the Russian ski team would you call it gracious professionalism? No- it would be called doing your job. Winning may not matter but it's a nice reward for your hard work. http://globalnews.ca/news/1141984/wa...ro-after-fall/

I try and avoid throwaway posts like this one, but I feel this needs to be stated: This is the best post I've read this entire season. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.