[EricH]

FRC selections are like building your own football team.

I don't see that the competition is based on people's opinions; the only part that is is the alliance selection, and the better scouts know that the only thing that matters is what you do on the field. Unfortunately, due to human nature, insulting a scout will wind you up with a note about "Rude team. Use caution." (Not saying you did, just stating a general fact.)

Judges have their own system. It involves going around and looking at the robots. If they like what they see, they'll come and talk to the team. That's how the awards are given, and that's the way it's called out in the rules for the awards to be judged.

By the way, I wouldn't make such general comments about "all the teams" doing something if I were you. I know that a number of teams do not decorate their pits or wear costumes (and stupidity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder). If you walked into your archrival's football training facility and started making comments like that, no matter how it was decorated, I would bet that you'd find out very quickly why football and track athletes talk with the scoreboard instead of their mouths. Quite a number of teams do decorate their pits, and that's fine by me--they're trying to attract the attention of the top 8. For the L.A. top 5 or so this year, it wouldn't have worked very well. Those teams tend to scout the field performance, and they do very well at that.