[Cory]

It saddens me to see that people want to dumb down the competitions.

For crying out loud, you are talking about a COMPETITIVE sporting event. This is not pinewood derby. This is not a science fair. This is a sport, and in sports there are winners and losers.

Before I joined 254 I was on a team that did not enjoy much success on the field. While I was on 100 we had a good robot, a couple mediocre-average robots, and one god-awful robot. We made the eliminations only 3 times in my 4 years. Statistically speaking our best season was my senior year, when we were Silicon Valley Finalists, despite having one of the worst robots I have ever laid eyes on.

Even when I was on 100 I wanted to play with or against the big boys. How do you make yourself better if you aren't practicing and competing with/against the best of the best?

I'd have been angry if we weren't able to play with and against those teams because they had already won an event. What's the fun in knowing that the field of teams is being handicapped?

It's easy for me to say this now, as my team has won two regionals per year all three years I have been a mentor, but even now I am continually inspired by teams like 1114 who construct machines which totally dominate.

Sometimes it is shocking how simple some of the top machines are. For example, 90% of FIRST teams could build robots similar to 330's. They really are very simple, yet they perform better than 90% of the robots out there. This tells me that all teams have something they can learn from the elite teams, and apply to their own robots without much difficulty.