Quote:
Originally posted by Matt Leese
"Fixing" of matches has only hurt someone if you consider winning the object of the FIRST competition. I don't.
That's why I find this whole discussion silly. What's the FIRST competition about? So does it really matter if some teams act stupidly?
Matt
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I get what you are saying. I do not believe that teams should start calling each other names or refusing to talk to each other over this issue. However there were teams that were upset by what happened. One team discussed voting on whether to withdraw and go home. Another team was upset when they found out near the end what had been going on. They felt cheated, even though technically there was no rule against collaborating with your opponents. It would be great if no one ever got upset, but many people do when they feel an agreement has been broken. The agreement in this case is that teams thought that we are competing 2-on-2 as per the kickoff.
What we are trying to do with this petition is re-establish agreement between teams on how to compete: a) 2-on-2, b)as a Team of 4 or c)as a combination of a) and b). Personally I think that we should stick to 2-on-2 because that was the way the game was designed.
In Arizona, we discussed the issue of teams making agreements with their opponents with Jason Morrella of FIRST. He advised us to talk to other teams at the regional and to take up the matter here in this forum.
That is what we are doing: communicating to try to restore the commaradarie of FIRST, which seemed to be slipping away at times in Arizona. (There was a certain amount of upset and anger over what was happening.)
If we are all operating on the same rules, agreement will be restored and we can throw ourselves into the competition with enthusiasm. If we lose, we will know that we were beaten fairly because everyone was operating under the same rules.
While FIRST is not just about the competition, the competition is a vehicle for achieving our goals. So if the basic format (2-on-2 or Team of 4) is in doubt, that causes upsets and disagreements.
Quite honestly, if the teams voted to turn this year's game into a Team of 4 competition, I wouldn't bother going to the Championships, because the game wasn't designed that way. How hard is it to make human player stacks, split the bins and roll all 4 robots up the ramp?
I really do want us to have the 2-on-2 competition I thought we were going to have. And I don't want to have to go through the whole process of convincing each team at the S. Calif. Regional to agree not to make agreements with their opponents. And I don't even want to think about trying to do that at the Championships.
See "Rigging the Game" in the FIRST Forum.
See the post by Jason Morrella, FIRST
So if your team thinks that we should agree not to make pre-match agreements with our opponents, please sign this petition.
__________________
FIRST Team 980, The ThunderBots
2002: S. California Rookie All Stars
2004: S. California: Regional Champion,
Championship Event: Galileo 2nd seed,
IRI: Competition Winner, Cal Games: Competition Winner
2005: Arizona: 1st seed
Silicon Valley: Regional Champion (Thanks Teams 254 and 22)
S. California: Regional Runners Up (Thanks Teams 22 and 968)