[generalbrando]

Oh how I miss the good ol' days. There's something to be said for making the competition better by keeping teams like the Monkeys out of the ring. Had we gone to nationals, it would have been a struggle for us to move again. However, when I was at the national event in 2001 (the largest national event FIRST has had, I believe), it wasn't the tough competition that was most drawing for me. It was going around the pit and talking to other teams. Regional events offer this in small scale to rookie teams. However, it's not the same. In St. Louis there were so many rookie teams that some of the professionalism and spirit wasn't there because there were many teams that showed up expecting a confrontational relationship between all other teams. They don't really know what to expect. Some of my own team members couldn't believe we got parts from other teams. We even got booed because we were moving our robot ourselves during practice.

At the national event everyone buys into a sense of community a lot more and the true meaning of FIRST shines. If we can't have everyone going to the national event every year (which I understand is impossible), then I think we at least need to send a good number of rookie/second year teams out there so they can bring back the true spirit of FIRST to these rookie hot beds like St. Louis.