[379Robocat]

Reason alot of teams win, is that they are REALLY good at talking. Judges arn't going to say you should win if you can't tell them how good your robot is, even if it's the greatest thing ever. Presentation is every bit as important as actual acheivment when campaigning (and that's exactly what it is) for an award.

I understand that but, I have been in the pits when the judges come around and the kids I think do an excellent job. I listen to them and I see them demonstrate the robot functions and I think they have done the most fantastic job ever, as if they were in a nationals chairmans award interview. They talk, demonstrate and show drawings. I still feel that Corporate base teams with engineers have some kind of advantage over the teams from a small town that is a community run team with community members donating their time to make the team better. I have seen it done before. In our community the economy is bad. We had a corporate sponsor and they dropped us with no explanation and the other major corporations have already been in partnership with other teams. After that it took us a while to beat perseverance and to dominate a community based team. Some teams have engineers do all the work. Example: If you walk into some pit areas you will find 20 engineers working on a robot and 5 kids watching what would you think? I stand by my posts 100% and I have already gotten PMs about this but I don't care. But think about it, put yourselves in our position and not have a corporate sponsor or engineers and just community volunteers donating their time to help the team and go to a competition and see how things go. Then think about how you want to send PM's and be negative towards teams who want to make a difference and see the looks on their faces when they feel they have done an excellent job constructing a robot that they feel is superb from not having corporate sponsors and no one noticing them. They feel that teams with corporate sponsors get some kind of advantage because they have the money, materials and right knowledge to build a robot and a team that is rememberable because of team spirit, robot performance or sponsors instead of o0o yeah I think I remember that team. I had said previously that I was not trying to bash this thread or teams but people seem to want to be against me and send me PM's about this. These PM's are from people with corporate sponsors. Place yourselves in some team without a corporate sponsor for a year or for four years and see the difference before you go and start criticizing them. I'm sorry but people need to realize that not every team has a corporate sponsor and not the chance to work with some top notch people from corporations from around the world. I know judges have a hard time judging. I for one have been a volunteer and seen the stress that goes through each day. But corporate teams seem to be a first look. This thread seems to be a negative one but that's not my intention as stated before. There are teams that aren't as fortunate as some to be able to work with the major corporations that have leading engineers. That is what FIRST is about. I would appreciate if people would think about that for a second before they start replying or PM'ing me about this message.