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Unread 23-10-2001, 16:30
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Mike Soukup Mike Soukup is offline
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FRC #0111 (Wildstang)
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Multiple responses to multiple posts:

Jeff, this isn't a flame war. I'm not upset, but when I write, I get my point across quickly and I'm usually blunt. There are a lot of people who feel strongly about this point and it's good to hear everyone's opinions.

[quote]Originally posted by Todd Derbyshire
I hate to disturb everyone's break into reality but I know that if I was in a competition for a qualifier I would go full force to try to win. No I'm not saying that cheating is good or anything, but if a team pays $4000 to go to a competition which is a qualifier for Florida and then you get there and say oh lets be nice and let random team win... that is not going to happen and I hope it doesn't. I personally like to see the rivalrie
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s the deception the betrayal and COMPETITION in the game. If that happens this year I would throughly enjoy it better than the six old play school game we played last year.
I'm glad to hear you, and I'd assume everyone, is against cheating in FIRST competitions. I agree that last year's game wasn't good for head-to-head competition, and a team's success relied too much on random partners.

But being nice is not mutually exclusive with good competition & rivalries. Teams can compete their hardest against each other on the field and be friends off the field. We battled against Beatty at 3 competitions last year (including IRI) and partnered with them once. Even though we tried our hardest to beat them on the field and have a small rivalry going, our teams are still friends & got together a couple of times over the summer.

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That is why if an already qualified team is qualified they shouldn't be in the qualifiers(a.k.a Regionals). Instead maybe FIRST can give those teams that have qualified some extra weeks before there robot is due. I don't know but that could be one suggestion to help the certain crisis in Registration. CAUSE ONCE AGAIN IF A TEAM THAT IS QUALIFIED WINS then you are going to in effect losing the best of the best aspect that FIRST is trying to bring to the Florida competition.
A few points...
Keeping already qualified teams out of the regionals would hurt those teams. Regionals give teams a chance to practice against other teams in real game situations (which there is no substitute for), figure out if they need to change any hardware, and to test & practice new strategies. By keeping them out of regionals, you're hurting their chances at winning the Championship.

Allowing pre-qualified teams to compete in & win regionals does not remove the 'best of the best' aspect of Nats. It merely reaffirms the fact that the team belongs at Nats. Plus, as Wayne said, since the team that finishes second doesn't win the regional, they aren't the 'best of the best.'

Mike