[Koci]

I first would like to thank everyone at the AZ regional that signed team 68's petition, and posted ours in their pit.

We were approached twice during the regional to do this collusion, and both times flat out declined. I believe this practice is completely against the spirit of FIRST. One of the mentors from team 980 even went so far as to say it could be the death of FIRST, which I agree with. This activity causes the matches to be uninteresting to watch, and no longer allows for the teams that build the best robot to rise to the top during qualification rounds. Finals would have been much more interesting if the top 8 teams truly came from at least the best 15 robots there. I think the fact that the final match was between the 7th and 8th placed alliances says a lot, even though I would have rather the 5th placed alliance to win (thanks to teams 57 and 1212 for their great attempts: we were so close; I can't believe we lost that first match by ONE point).

The petition that was passed around by us, team 68, and team 980 caused this practice to cease. On Saturday, none of these fixed matches occurred again. I think we got the message around that we really don't want to tolerate it, and helped some of the other teams to realize what really was occurring.

I certainly hope that this anti-collusion sentiment continues to the next few regionals. I think its a good idea if someone starts a petition on the Thursday of each regional, just to make sure that it no longer happens. I know we will for the Lone Star Regional.

Edit: Oh, and to Travis from Team 968, you didn't like the 6-stack we built in the final match?