[Amanda Morrison]

I forgot - when did FIRST become a relentless competition, with winning being the only goal in mind? Honestly, what is so bad about losing? What happened to saying 'good game' and respecting someone because they played fair and ending up winning against you? Where is the challenge, the excitement, the feeling of working incredibly hard? If you win based on the way you set things up with your alliance partners and your opponents, did you really, honestly win?

That's the only reason I can see for 'fixing' matches. You're fixing them to seed higher... to get into the top eight... to get to play in the finals... to win.

There is a very big difference between talking with opponents, letting them know your game plan with your alliance partner, and playing a good match... and talking with your opponents and alliance partners and working out how to make yourselves score higher.

And that honestly saddens me. FIRST isn't about winning, it's about teaching. It took the students on my team- who only wanted to learn about the aspects of engineering through this great program- to make me realize that. I hope that every mentor has a student to teach them that a great life lesson learned means more to a kid than any hunk of metal on a ribbon that FIRST could award.