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Originally Posted by 379Robocat
Our team had hoped for a quality award instead of winning the KPC&B Entre. award for the 5th time. We were disappointed that we did not win this award at all nor really be considered. I mean the kids described it as well as test it for the judges. I don't like to say my bot is better then your bot but one of the robots that won this award was right next to us in the pits and after carefully looking it over I decided that ours would be competition with them. After watching their robot perform I was a little confused. After the start of their 10 balls and they were dumped that was it that robot was done it couldn't reload, HP load or collect it just drove around and played "D". We went against them and pushed them all over the floor, reloaded off the floor, dumped in side goals and played some massive "D". Like I said I'm not one to brag or say my robot is better then yours but this year I was mighty proud of that robot and would have stayed up a month straight during competition season just to get noticed. The only reason I can think they received the award instead of us was because they were a GM,Ford,DC,Delphi team. I apologize if I offended anyone or bashed anyone, that wasn't my intention. My point was that there was a robot that won an award and our robot in my mind was up there with that robot if not a step ahead of them and they received the award because they were a Corporate name unlike us. (I would have found out for sure which one they were but the FIRST website is currently down)
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Wow...I'm sorry about all your frustration. Having been in EXACTLY the same position (as far as building a great robot that seemed to get passed over...) I understand how you must feel. Been there- felt that. (Just look for some of their comments about the quality of our robots and you may understand what I mean.) We build well thought-out, well designed, well built, good looking machines that (usually) do a great job.
In 2003 we won the Arizona Regional, and the Industrial Design Award in LA. This year we won the Motorola Quality Award and were the alliance captains for the winner at the LA Regional, we won the Newton division and were finalists on Einstein. Did this happen because we are "a GM,Ford,DC,Delphi team"? NO!!!
We are a team in a mid-low economic bedroom community made up of mostly blue-collar workers. No GM, NO Ford, NO DC, and NO Delphi, NO big companies at all. In fact our
only major sponsor is our own school! Last year we attended only ONE competition, and that was only possibly because of a FIRST grant for underfunded schools.
Do we have lots of mentors? Sure! Two (wonderful) college students and myself. Period. And none of us get any compensation for our time or effort. And we are not the ONLY school in this position. I know of SEVERAL underfunded, under-sponsored teams that do very well year after year, wining both competitions AND AWARDS.
Do we do well and receive awards because we are a well sponsored team? NO!!! We earn these IN SPITE of this. Our students and college student mentors work VERY hard to earn what we get and the idea that someone feels that a team (ANY team!), is 'given' these awards just "because they were a GM,Ford,DC,Delphi team" is, in my opinion EXTREMELY degrading to the members of that team! It completely denies the value of the efforts of every member of that team, and belittles the idea that a team, ANY team, is capable of doing quality work without major sponsors and engineers. Please understand that what you just said (or implied) is that no matter what a team does, without that 'big name sponsor' on it's robot, it doesn't matter what you accomplish - you only get the award if you have the right name attached to yours.
You said "I apologize if I offended anyone or bashed anyone, that wasn't my intention". That may not have been your intension, but your lack of knowledge in this area, poor understanding about why/how things happen at FIRST (or any other) events, and your "poor me" attitude has resulted in malignment of every team that has won an award. If after six years in FIRST your concern is about "why they won that" or "why we didn't win this", perhaps it's time for a refresher course in "why we DO THIS".