[,4lex S.]

I don't know how your team functions or what your circumstances are, but for me, FRC was always much more than the competitions. 6 weeks of building a robot with people who became close friends and coming together as a team to accomplish difficult tasks, or to provide community service for the rest of the year were the key aspects of my experience.

Sometimes you may see things in FIRST that make you wonder how effective the system really is, but look at some of the teams. RAWC, 190, and 4 were all at your event, and are all very professional behaving teams (I don't know of many SoCal teams, so don't take this as a limit).

I don't know of many teams that aren't trying to post a solid score, that would be against the purpose of the competition. Most teams are gracious in helping others and cheer loudly for all that they have accomplished, but the professionalism shows clearly in the pit (most pits I have seen) where the team comes together in an organized fashion to prepare their robot to compete. I would never expect a driver to leave anything out of their effort either.