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Originally Posted by LittleKesich
But what really angers me is that between the matches we tried to show the refs out video of the match and we couldnt. We has 2 cameras taping the round and both clearly showed that our teams robot never even hit the other teams robot, and that the cheesypoofs team hit out teams bot in the loading zoan under their own power.
I realize that there is nothinbg that can be done about this now, but i would like to make this little fact evident to the other teams incase it occurs again some way or another.
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Something that hadn’t been comented on before is that it is against the rules for referees to consult video replays in order to make a call.
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Originally Posted by ducttapejason
let me explain my views of 254.
NASA has essentially bought a FIRST team... not a bad investment at all. They put many great, talented, smart, and enthusiastic individuals, such as Jason, and others like Dr. Federman, who just in general kick a lot of $@#$@#$@#, and have done great things for FIRST. There is nothing wrong with this at all.
The problem occurs where I would imagine that NASA would love to parade around their wise investment into the youth of america. This team loves to strut around like the own the place because NASA has made them their poster child. There is nothing wrong with a team being NASA poster child it is in fact great for FIRST... but this is not professional sports. Being a FIRST poster child means building the best robot you can (#254 and every other team), helping out other teams as much as possible (#254 and others), and being placed up on a pillar as a model for others to follow (#254).
Being on #254 it is most likely that you have a great advantage in life. You go to a great school, and play for the winning team. This is what i meant in my original post. The kids of 254 ( or the majority i have seen) need to stop strutting around like the own the place simply because you do.
Keep on winning, keep on helping out other teams, keep on lending out resources, but go out and buy some modesty.
Congratulations to your team, and i hope that you continue to challenge yourselves and the rest of the FIRST community. You are up on a pedestal for a reason, quit looking down at everyone. Reach down and grab others to bring them up as well.
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Originally Posted by CJO
I have a lot of problems with team 254 (among other things, during the playoff rounds I saw four NASA engineers working on their robot), but I do not believe that they had a hand in throwing the regional. Still, this was the wrong call. How do I know? In three years of FIRST I have never seen the arena boo. Not just one or two individuals, but hundreds of people. As I noted in my letter to the rules commission, this call was the breakdown of gracious professionalism.
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I think it’s pretty obvious that there are quite a few misconceptions about our team; how it’s run, by whom, with what resources, who our team serves, and what we try to accomplish. I must admit that when I was a high school student on The Sea Dawgs and even my first year as a mentor running that team that I didn’t have a favorable opinion of The Cheesy Poofs. I disliked getting beaten by them year after year, but that’s where my actual knowledge of the team ended. After a few years I realized that I really didn’t know anything substantive about the team, and that I needed to let go of my bias and try to get to know people on the team. I was lucky enough to get to talk with a couple of the students and Steve Kyramarios and I confirmed that my original feelings towards the team was absolutely wrong.
Adrian was correct when he said that our team only has one engineer (Steve Kyramarios), and that we have only three college mentors (Al Bayer, E.J. Sabathia, and myself). The 2005 season was both my first season with The Cheesy Poofs (I had run The Sea Dawgs, a Cheesy Poof competitor, Team #258, 2002-2004 seasons) and also the first year that Steve Kyramarios didn’t guide this team’s ship. This season Al, EJ, and I basically ran The Cheesy Poofs’ day-to-day activities with roughly halftime guidance and advice from Steve. The three of us easily put in over 450 man-hours each of robotics work this six week build period, and countless more all through last fall and during this competition period. We Cheesy Poof mentors and students are dedicated to keeping this team on track in terms of spreading the ideals of FIRST, “keeping up with the Jones’” in terms of advances in design and technology, and fielding a competitive team every year.
It’s also incorrect to assume that our team has unlimited funds. Our team is very fortunate as most teams go, this is true, but we have far from a bottomless source of funds from which to draw. We have had mentors and students foot the bill for miscellaneous parts this season, and we haven’t been able to pay for many things we had wanted to use or fabricate.
Our team tries its best to help teams in need. This build period we were pleased to host roughly 15 teams at our lab to allow them to practice on our competition field. We also did some machining for three local robotics teams, two teams in Southern California, and one team in Arizona during this build period. In addition to this machining support, members of our team helped give design advice to, did design work for and otherwise shared designs with more than ten local teams, two teams in the Californian central valley, and those two SoCal teams and Arizonan team. Last fall I taught classes for and helped organize the WRRF Workshops as a member of The Cheesy Poofs. This is all I know of for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there was more advice and services that our team had done during the build period that I don’t know about.
In conclusion, coming from a recently folded fierce competitor of The Cheesy Poofs, if I had thought that this team was unethical or somehow not up to my standards (for those of you who know me, you know how strongly I feel about FIRST and how teams should operate) in terms of how it operates and expects its members to behave I would not have joined this team. This year has been a pleasure for me, and I am very thankful to Steve Kyramarios, Robin Kyramarios, Glenn and Krystine Thoroughman, Jim Urhausen, Al Bayer, EJ Sabathia, Matt Yu, John Kiely, Matt Durstenfeld, Justin Madera, Adrian Santos, Ben Margolis, and many others for what has been a huge learning experience for me this year. I hope that I have been a constructive member of the team this year in their eyes.
-Bill Gold