[DukesAZ]

Thank you Petey.

I think the "criticism of the critics" posts need to stop. Its a waste of time. Stop worrying about your reputations and what other people think about FIRST! Get back to building your robot!

I feel I need to defend Mr. Pettit against some of the attacks made on him. Mr. Pettit has spent five years now in FIRST and he has poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. He has spent thousands of hours running both a FIRST and Lego League team in addition to helping organize this year's Arizona Kickoff. When ASU couldn't host the event, Mr. Pettit stepped up and convinced our school to allow us to use our blackbox theater and classrooms to host the Kickoff and seminars. I can safely say without the work of Mr. Pettit and the Arizona Regional Planning Committee there would not have been an Arizona Kickoff. If Mr. Pettit didn't love FIRST, he wouldn't participate. I don't think anybody has any right whatsoever to question Mr. Pettit's dedication to FIRST or likewise accuse him of being "ungrateful" towards FIRST. Quite frankly, some of the behavior I have seen on this forum towards people who criticize FIRST is bordering on McCarthyism.

Is Mr. Pettit blunt? You bet he is! He doesn't have time to dance around the issue or sugarcoat things. None of us do. Mr. Pettit doesn't have the time to sit there and say "Gee, will this offend any of the zealots on CD?". Mr. Pettit's bluntness gets things done too. When Pettit says to me, "Hey, you're screwing up, shape up!" I shape up really quick. Other people would subtly attack the issue hoping things would change. Blunt doesn't automatically me you are cruel or mean, it just means you get to the point quicker. More people in FIRST need to be like Mr. Pettit if you ask me.

The sprockets thread was over and done with in my opinion when the solutions to the problem were posted. There was absolutely no need for the comments following the post made by Mr. Neun. The comments like "GO OUT AND BUY A 16MM DRILL BIT BLAH BLAH" where completely unnecessary and I think an apology is owed to those teams who dared post criticism on the matter.

In closing, criticism (or "whining" as particular posters would say) is what changes things. Those on this forum who believe there should be a ban on criticism all together are wrong and in my opinion dangerous. If they would have had their way, we wouldn't have any gotten this year's tranny kit because it was criticism of the poor quality of previous years' drive system that led to those changes. I hope that our criticism of the sprocket problem will convince FIRST to rethink how they issue sprockets in the kit. Remember guys, we spent 6 grand on this kit, I think we have every right to scrutinize what is in the kit.

I am done. I am going to take my own advice and go back to actually caring about important things.