[RonnieS]

I would never say that being rewarded for hard work isn't in the spirit of First. I take First as preparing students, like myself, for industry. If everyone received the same reward for the effort they put in...well our industry would suck. This is a competition, where people do compete. If your team did not preform well enough to claim a top seed spot, then go back and re evaluate what you have to do to place higher if that is what your program wants( there are many programs who do not value winning and that is fine too). Many of the top team will lend a ton of experience, advice, and help to you; you just have to ask. I know our team is always willing to help as many people as we can because we have been on the receiving end for awhile. Yes, it sucks to not seed first and feel like the top seeds are just dominating but as others have pointed out, its not very different from what it used to be.

You see a lot of the number #1 alliances winning this year do to the large differentiation in quality and performance. I have attended events where our OPR was almost triple that of the next best team, a huge gap that might make other teams mad at you. I see it a lot and powerhouse teams (teams like 1114) have experienced it at some point I'm sure of. We make an effort to talk and help other teams, more so this year than ever with the large amount of rookie teams we have in Michigan. This has bridged unfriendly gaps with teams there and made the atmosphere a TON better.

(This might not be a response you were looking for, just personal experience and my opinion on it.)
-Ronnie