[Pault]

Having attended worlds for the first time this year as a senior, I just wanted to chime in about what made the experience so special for me.

The first thing was that it was a goal that I had finally achieved. For four years I have worked countless hours to try and help my team reach the world championships. And it nearly didn't happen. But that fact that I can say that I did it (not to undermine the teamwork aspect of FRC, I obviously could not do it alone) made the experience worth so much more to me. If my team had simply gotten off the waitlist, or had won a regional by being nothing more than a cheesecake platter, than I'm not even sure if I would have wanted to attend. And everytime I hear the phrase "top 25% of teams," I lose a little excitement, because that makes it sound like making it to worlds is not an achievement at all, but rather just something that I was gifted (even though I know this wasn't the case).

The second thing was watching matches on Saturday. The shock of seeing 254 being taken out in the quarter-finals. The entertainment of seeing how various alliances synergized, and what ended up working the best. The anticipation of seeing 900 on the sidelines of Einstein, being put into transport configuration before every match only as if they were going onto the field, only to be taken back out a few seconds later. And finally accepting that 1678 really has become one of the best teams in the world, and not just some team that got lucky a couple of times. So Dean can say that who wins doesn't matter as much as he wants, but in the end I have found that the competition is the most inspiring aspect of FIRST.

YMMV, but for most of the students that I have called teammates, I am fairly confindent that a lot of what I have said holds true.