[fargus111111111]

I tend to side with most of the other people who have already posted that FIRST, FRC especially, is stressful, but that stress is good. It is through the stress that the competition feel really comes out for me. The level of stress, for me, is what moves FRC beyond the average science fair. Personally, as far as eating is concerned, I always put some snacks in my pocket that I eat between matches in case lunch or dinner winds up being rather late. I do realize that for the drive team especially it is often hard on Saturday to find time for lunch. It is usually our policy that we meet with our alliance at a table in the lobby and one of our team members brings food to the drive team so we can inhale it before matches start. Sleep, as the original post mentions is something that we, myself included, do not get enough of on competition weekends, but something all our mentors stress to us is that they do not want to hear that you are tired and need a nap halfway through the day. They encourage us not to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing games and we always have an 11:00 curfew, that being said, I often struggle to stay awake on the bus ride home.

I too am a graduating senior and the team's impact on me has been tremendous. I hope that going forward you discuss the issues you found with your mentors because most of the issues you addressed, except the paper airplanes, were matters that 343 talks about at the meeting just before a competition and at the nightly meetings at the competitions and we seem to do a good job of not having a major issue with any of these. I cannot speak for Einstein as we have not been there for several years, but I did notice last year at Championships that the paper airplanes did seem a bit excessive at times. IMO they should set aside a time and place for the planes and ask teams to not throw them outside of that window.