[Corey Oostveen]

In Regards to all the attacks on 2771 I am quite saddened.


We did not want to be a rookie team so we asked FIRST if we could attain a first year veteran status.

They replied stating that it would be foolish to consider yourself a veteran team. But they said that we qualify for both.


So we talked to many people that have been involved in FIRST for a long time telling them our plan of being a first year veteran team. All of the people we talked to laughed and told us there was no way we were a veteran team.

So convinced that we are actually a Rookie team we went forward.

We started with:

4 students that have been involved in FIRST before

$0 dollars to our name.

No sponsors

NO tools, NO supplies, NO past years robots, NOTHING!

NO Place to build our robot


We had nothing but the fight to keep the goals of FIRST alive.


So we will not apologize for going with the recommendation of MANY highly regarded people in FIRST. Along with direct permission from FIRST.

The reason we had more team members that have competed before than our original 4 is we took in students that were kicked off from the their teams. Along with taking the students that hated how things were operated, and the change in direction that happened with the team they were on, We took in the kids who wanted to pursue the goals of FIRST!

For those who feel we are not truly rookies, or that we cheated the system, or that we are not Graciously Professional. Please seek the truth before making such public judgments.

We will gladly give all the awards we have won back (this includes many non rookie awards), because we know it isn't about the trophies! We don't care about the trophies, we just are doing what we know is best for these kids.

We Build Robots to Build Better People!

Corey Oostveen