A plead to FIRST, anyone else agree?

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

My general attitude about the competition aspect:

When I show up at competition, the team has put countless hours of work into the robot and strategy, and will put 100% effort towards putting the best possible product* on the field. And when it gets to the field we'll compete like no tomorrow, for doing anything else is disrespectful to our own efforts, and to our competitors.

That being said, you stop by our pit, you need help of any sort (except psychiatric we need that ourselves), we will do whatever is within our power to help you, Fasteners, tools, troubleshooting, rebuilding...

You ask, we'll help.

For the goal of pitting our creation against the toughest opponents we'll help.

I'd much rather loose a match fighting tooth and nail for it to someone running at 100% we helped, than to win against a crippled robot.

A sense of accomplishment is a very Inspiring thing

That sense of accomplishment can come from losses just as much from wins, you just need the right viewpoint.

I've never been one for the "you did your best" and other "everyone's a winner" sayings, they don't push you, they don't get you to analyze what went wrong and figure out where to improve. If i truly tried my hardest I would've accomplished my goal, if I fell short I WILL find out where and why, and remedy it.

A sense of accomplishment from hard work is getting our butts handed to us by 111 and 2826 in the Wisconsin finals, and working for a solid week to bring the battle to within a minibot fuse from a 3rd match at Midwest.

Bring your A game, wherever you go, I hope FIRST never pushes anything different


*product is robot, strategy, driveteam, communication

you pretty much summed up part of what i was trying to say earlier. GP is for off the field (in the pits/stands, etc.), but on the field, people should play to win.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

you pretty much summed up part of what i was trying to say earlier. GP is for off the field (in the pits/stands, etc.), but on the field, people should play to win.

This is a false dichotomy.

[BACONDUDE1902]

FTC Rocks!!!!

[Frenchie461]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

you pretty much summed up part of what i was trying to say earlier. GP is for off the field (in the pits/stands, etc.), but on the field, people should play to win.

Exactly. At 461, we try to help everyone who comes to us. It doesn't matter whether they are our next ally or our next opponent, we help them. If we end up losing, then we helped a team to success.

Why do we do that? What honor is there in defeating a bot that can't move or can't score, when you could defeat a bot by a small margin knowing that you helped them have a better experience at their regional because they could play the game.

[Bob Steele]

I would only like to address the issue of "shameless" advertising.

I don't get your point... This is the 20th Anniversary of FIRST.
It is ENTIRELY appropriate to use the LOGO as the game pieces.

Are you really so tunnel-visioned in your opinion about FIRST being self-serving to not see that?

As far as the game being the same one... sorry...not so...
We played in Rack and Roll... Different dynamics totally... even if you leave off the end game (ramps vs minibots)

If you want to have totally new games... we wouldn't be able to use a ball as a game piece. They have been used most years...

I suggest that if you want to boycott to force FIRST to do YOUR thing instead of what is currently being done... that is certainly your right.
Just take your robot and go play somewhere else...

Oh wait a minute... there really aren't any other places to play with a robot as sophisticated or a field as large or the rich history that this competition has..

My apologies to the other robot competitions...I have participated in many of them and I am in FIRST because it is really the Superbowl of Smarts... yes I like that phrase...