Another Culture Change

[Tom Line]

Every team at the regional I'm going to mention will remember this happening.

Gary Voshol concocted a April fools day prank to play on us Michigan teams - on April 1st of last year, during an event, he announced an emergency rule update. He told us FIRST had released a rule update stating that they believed it was against the spirit of the game for a robot to lock into the tower, so no one could stay there more than 5 seconds.

Of course, this was a jab at 469, who everyone in the district (and the country) knew had an incredible robot.

The number of people who cheered sickened and angered me - I actually yelled a word in anger that I wasn't too proud of at the time. A good chunk of the students at that venue were more than happy to have the dreams of a team crushed rather than play against them.

I suspect it would have met the same response anywhere in the country.

This starts with the mentors. It's up to us to stamp it out. It's up to us to make it right. It's up to us to guide our team members and remind them that if it were OUR game breaking robot, we'd be devastated. I wonder how many teams talked about that occurrence. I know we did.