[galewind]

If the whole point of FIRST was to get into a dog-eat-dog competition, every man for themselves, getting to the top by any means possible, then sure, I'd say match fixing was fine.

If everyone did match fixing to get to the top the same way, that would be fine. But sadly, this is an attempt to circumvent the way that we SHOULD be playing the game.

I see this as a way to one-up HONEST teams who work hard to play the game as it was meant to be played.

The last time I checked, FIRST did not stand for "Fraudulently Improving Rankings by Staging a Truce", or "Flagrantly Inconsiderate Rigging of Score Tabulation". Perhaps you should re-examine what you're doing, and how it meshes with the FIRST mission.

If winning is the only thing you care about, then you need to reconsider why you're a part of FIRST.

If fixing matches is the only way you think you can win, then I personally believe that you need to work on developing your own self-confidence, as well as perhaps considering a more versatile design for future competition.

We're a rookie team this year. We attended only one regional, the J&J. Being one of only five rookie teams at the regional, and knowing a lot about team 25's bot, we were quite intimidated by what we were up against. We did our best to fit in with the big boys, though, and although we had our losses, we persevered and did well without any "scoring aides". We showed our stuff, and many were impressed.

The game is a lot more fun when everyone plays by the same rules. That's why J&J was SO great! As someone else said, 44 great teams, all playing the same game. It was a fantastic time, especially for our first regional!

But hey, if you want to play the game by your own rules, far be it from me to tell you otherwise... but what I personally feel is that instead of showing everyone that your team has a sense of gracious professionalism, you're showing them that you're more interested in just getting ahead of the others the easy way.

Well, as for me and Team Mercury, we would never "butt in the lunch line".