[Don Wright]

Actually...it's called life. Some people follow the rules, others bend them. Hopefully FIRST is mostly comprised of people that follow them so that the students that they are involved with will learn to follow them too.

Listen. The rules are what they are. I am not going sit around and spend time trying to make sure other teams are following them to the letter. I'd rather spend the time with my students helping them build the best robot they can within our understanding of the rules. If we get beat by a team that broke the rules and cheated, that's fine. We did the best we could do without cheating and I will never feel bad for that. If we break the rules, it is an accident and I hope that someone lets us know so we stop.

Let's police ourselves and stop asking FIRST to babysit us. If you see a team that you think is breaking a rule, just mention it to them in a polite way. Hopefully it will lead to a good discussion IRL like this one here and everyone will come out better than if you just bottle it up and create a new thread the day after the tournament is over.

It's all about communication. If we all communicate half as well in real life as we do here on CD, instead if a 60 message thread about breaking the rule, we could have a 60 thread message thread about how great a tournament or match was.

Don