[Steve S.]

Originally Posted by BRAVESaj25bd8

I'd like to take a quick moment to make you aware of how you ended your post. You said you would try again next year. That's exactly the point. The best robots don't always win. You may be mad at how things turned out. However, the idea of FIRST is to learn things. This year you learned that you should perhaps put more thought into a powerful drivetrain for years to come. Maybe you learned to not give away so much on practice day so that the other teams would be ready for what you were trying to do. The fact is, as mad or upset as you may be, FIRST is going to keep you coming back. That is because despite the occasional bad call from referees (who I would like to personally thank for volunteering and taking the time to answer questions when asked), or poor alliance partners for a match, or even the occational tipping due to another bot, you want to come back. There is nothing on Earth like what you get in FIRST. So keep your head up and keep trying. The hard work will pay off.
Also, please don't imply that your team worked harder than everyone else's. I'm not saying our team did. I don't know. How do you judge something like that? There's no formula or scale or graph. I can guarantee that everyone puts a lot of effort into their robot and is seeking reward (winning) for that effort. We worked very hard on our robot this year. We thought it would have an awesome system for shooting until we got to practice day at FLR. We missed three straight practice sessions, only allowing us to go to three others. However, we worked hard and ended up being 4-0-0 going into lunch on Friday. I was the driver so I will take the responsibility of going 2-3-0 in our next 5 matches of the day. We ended the day 6-3-0, good enough for 5th place amongst some GREAT competition.
The final day, we showed up and we found out that one of our matches was going to be replayed due to a field error the day before. This was one of our initial 4 wins. The whole team was a little disappointed but we did not want to win a match the wrong way. We ended up losing that make-up match and tried our best to end the day well. We ended up 7-5-0 and in 10th place. We were the second team picked (thank you so much team 191. X-CATS ROCK!) and had a strong alliance. We made it to the final match of competition with the finals tied at one game apiece. We almost won that last match but came out just shy.
Now Chris, I am not going to say that close loss didn't hurt, because it did. But we quickly went over and congratulated the winners of the competition (which they deserved to be) and became ecstatic with what we had accomplished. Everyone catches tough breaks. Only making it to 3 sessions on Thursday, the make-up match, tipping a couple times in elimination rounds. I could come on ChiefDelphi and complain about all of these but I will not. Because the bottom line is that FIRST is an incredible, life-changing experience that I am thankful to be a part of. I know that through all of the disappointment you are feeling, you are also greatful to be a part of such a wonderful organization. Good luck to you next year.

-Bobby D

So True. on an off note: i believe that was match 15 that was replayed, which doesnt happem often