[Allie]

I am more saddened by the fact that people have been personally attacked then I ever could be by the events which took place on the Galileo field at nationals. I must admit as this was my last year I was very sad to see my team go down the way it did. I will not pretend to be noble and say I was not angry and did not feel it was unfair. As in all competitions the easiest thing to do is point fingers. From our side it was easy to point fingers at both the refs and at team 469, but after looking back I don't feel anyone is to blame.

As a kid I grew up playing sports and once in the heat of the game I ran into a girl. She ran into the boards and broke her wrist. Of course I felt horrible at the time but I did not intend to hurt her in anyway. The refs did not penalize me and I am sure there were many members of her team who thought that was unfair, and were quite mad at the ref for the no call.

I look at what happened on the field between us and 469 in the same light. They injuried us perhaps but as long as it was not something they intended to do how can we really say they are evil or horrible. Accidents will happen.

As for the refs I personally believe what you do is amazing. You volunteer your time and energy to enable us to have this experience. The knowledge I have gained from this program has given me a direction I want to go in life and every last one of you in the pin stripes have been a part of giving me this opportunity. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was a lost little girl how had no idea where she was going before this and today I have an idea of what I want to be.

I would also like to say after all the time and energy people put into this program I find it extremely disturbing that anyone can critize what anyone else came up with. Some ideas and designs may have worked better in some cases however any robot out there that did so much as move is an extreme accomplishment and these people should be congradulated. You all put a lot of time into building robots you thought would complete the game the best and every bot I see amazes me in some way.

There is something good to be found in everyone's design please do not choose to point out the negatives. I know I do not like to hear people say negative things about my hard work and I would hate to hurt someone by saying negative things about their hard work.