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Originally Posted by jtdowney
I think a more likely explanation is they are trying to optimize the page for the user agent it detects. Their site has to handle a large amount of traffic and intentionally blocking screen scraping seems like a wasted effort to me.
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I don't think they do any page optimization based on client. FIRST's TIMS system is pretty old and hasn't seen any substantial updates in the last few years. What would be the best is if they implemented an actual API that provided structured XML so that teams could more easily write applications that utilized FIRST's data.
Ultimately, I feel that FIRST underutilizes their website, and could do a lot to promote and help the community. Potential sponsors and people looking for "official" info need a very different experience than students and mentors currently on teams, and I don't think FIRST does a very good job catering to the latter group right now.