[artdutra04]

Off the field, helping the other teams should be encouraged. But on the field, this is a competition, especially in the elimination rounds. The point of a competition is to win.

Regardless of which alliance I would be on, I would want to give it my all. I would rather go out in a blaze of glory as the one robot against three, than suffer through mediocrity because the other alliance went "soft" against us.

It's a form of respect. You don't go purposely go soft on your opponents in other sports (this action would be very disrespectful there!) on the field, so it's no different for our [robot] sport.

The better alliance will win, and the losing alliance should just get the "we'll get 'em next time!" mentality as they head back to their shop to brainstorm and make their next competition/robot even better.

(I've never really liked the "We're all winners!" attitude; it runs counter-intuitive to the desire for self-improvement, to want to work even harder to beat everyone else next time. The losing alliance should know they lost, admit it, and use the desire to win to push themselves even further. Although if they changed "winners" to "more experienced and smarter", then I'd have no problems with the phrase.)