Should this have been allowed?

[Nemo]

There is nothing FIRST would do about that situation. A referee's call is final.

Your team showed up to the 10000 Lakes competition and did a great job. Our team played with you in the qualifiers, and your people were great alliance partners. I'm sure that your match could have gone either way, and I think both alliances deserved to advance to the next round. When alliances are closely matched, that's part of the deal, and one does not need to feel bad about oneself when the luck doesn't come through. Having said that, it's also true that any team that loses a close match could have won it comfortably (even with some poor luck) if they had built their robot that much better.

But none of that is the reason I wanted to respond to your post. I would invite you to look at this endeavor in a different way. A lack of awards does not equal failure. The whole difficult process of this competition is the important thing here. Running a bunch of students and mentors through that gauntlet is what is changing the world for the better, not the act of bringing home a trophy.