[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

As important as that match was for the alliance, at the end of the day, the team's budget and sustainability is more important (in my opinion). However, these things should be relayed to and/or discussed with the alliance partners beforehand. Sponsors want to see their investment in action, so it is not really an uncalled-for request.

I wonder what sort of sponsor sees the FRC robot (rather than the team) as an investment.

Performing well in your qualification matches is as much a part of FRC as showcasing your robot.

It's a poor lesson to teach students to compromise their alliance's performance in order to superficially look more impressive. In a real engineering environment, if your product doesn't work, you don't try to demo it.