[PayneTrain]

I wanted to just let this go, but since the soapbox seal has been justly broken and I still find the decision... perplexing... I'll fire up my old soapbox for the first time in a while.

In the sixth grade, I had a science teacher that had a lesson the first day to help refresh the idea of the scientific method in our young minds. The tool to help us was a menacing black wooden crate casting a shadow from the front table onto the floor below, affectionately called "Die Wunderbox". The question: what would happen if he poured clear water through a funnel in the box? We took time observing the box, and due to its large nature, its rusting MasterLock keeping its contents hidden from us, and the teacher's general wackiness, we hypothesized that the squirrely tube at the base of the box would output something different into a glass beaker on the floor, transforming the clear water he would pour into a funnel on the top. Our hypothesis was supported by the test. Clear water went in, and a lot of dyed water came out. Through this single input into the black box, we received a different output. How did the box change the input on the way to its output? He promised he would show us on the last day of eighth grade.

Almost 3 years later, June rolls around and the whole 8th grade class of around 100 students crowds Mr. Longworth's room to see him reveal to us the inner workings of the mystery black box. For years we wanted to see a peek behind the curtain, a hint of what it could be. He pulls the key out of his pocket, jiggles it into the lock, and turns all the tumblers. The air is still in the room as the door swings open. Then we finally all see the secret...

It was a bright haired, wrinkly plastic troll doll, grasping a sign reading "Nice try, Suckers!" After all the anticipation, after youthful curiosity had reached its zenith, we literally got trolled. He took out the mechanism that gave us our output, for no reason other than a couple laughs at anguished students at the height of puberty.

FRC judging is kind of like the menacing, splintery black box. Teams spend all year preparing for a couple sessions where they can provide input to the judges. For all judged awards except one, the inputs of time and effort into executing robot design and growing the team's outreach and reaching organizational milestones were funneled into the black box all at once, and out came all the awards winners. All except for one. The "black box" for the Chairman's Award was never fully clear, but it was a far cry from the black box. Through its fuzzy, translucent shell one could reasonably see shadows of how their inputs of the written submission, presentation, and Q&A would generate a slightly clearer output than one you would get from the splintery, opaque box used for all the other awards.

422 was able to take the output of feedback from the judges over a 3 year period and turn a total dud of a team into a good team with a total dud of a submission, into a team that took home the award for the first time in its 15 years. Still, we kept trying to pry open the box; cut the lock, break the glass, just see what was really happening inside the Wonder Box of Chairman's decision making. Instead, we come back later to see the box ajar, ready to have its lid peeled open and reveal...

a troll... a bright haired, wrinkly plastic troll doll, grasping a sign reading "Nice try, Suckers!"