[Roushey]

Well, to put it simply, the animations & animators get very little (if any) mention anywhere, anytime. This recent series of events was the icing on the cake. Essentially animations have always been on the sidelines, mumbled about, and the awards seem to be nothing more than a formality. This view is further solidified by their slumping of the AVA/ AIA presentations at the opening ceremony. FIRST's attitude seems to be "Oh yeah... there's an animation thing over here that some people did ...umm. Who cares, lets move on to the robots." Granted the Focus of FIRST should be robots, not the AVA. However, if the animation is a part of FIRST, why not give the animations the same respect that one does each team's robot? This mindset is heartbreaking to animators and destructive everyone. Walking around at any competition, the only people who seem to care about the AVA are the animators themselves. I think this attitude would change if animators were given a little more notice. So in short, yes, I too believe 'the AVA' to be a long history of neglect and insult.