[Dominick Ferone]

Being a mentor of a rookie team and alumni from a veteran team I can say rookies can put up a hard fight. As 1511 may be able to tell you ( as I may have some numbers wrong). 65 rookie competed out if the 410 new ones. 16 of them were alliance captains with 5 of them being as hgh as second seed. I was apart of one of the 5 and when I told teams were second seed they would say "oh you had an easy schedule" and it isn't true. We played the part we were supposed to and so did our alliance members and when it comes down to it rookies only differ from veterans some times in just terms of overall budgets. I know veteran teams with less man power and mentors than rookies. We also had many judges, volunteers, spectators and teams say to us you don't look like rookies with how our Bot was made. Rookies have won before and continue doing so and some rookies are sister teams of big names and can be a deadly force. Don't discount them for being first year teams. Between 4 mentors we had 25+ years of first experience.