2012-Greater Toronto Regional East

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by 907eyci

what this person did wrong was use the #'s of a few teams, but they are not the only ones that do it. sadly because of these two teams this person may not have have ever been exposed to the others that do it.

I love this post but have been un able to say it in fear of getting my account banned from this form. i have been in FRC for years in the GTR area and feel the pain. teams like this tear the dreams of others away from them by removing any chance of getting to the worlds, by cleaning up on the field and in the awards section of comp. with budgets that have grown from cascading sources they can do more then most teams can... in my eyes it seems that they get more attention then what they should. you give any team that kind of $ backing them up and any one can do more. for example those vex and Lego kits that they put in all the schools probably added up to a cash value of more then the budgets of most teams competing.

on the other hand FRC permits teams to run them like a business, so you have some kids build there bot by hand and others shipping it out to be built for them and they might assemble it. it's going to happen.

what needs to change is that the judges, and refs should not be in any way related to any `one` team, this causes a huge bias IMO. Judges for awards should also know what awards have been given to a team at other regional's so that any one team can not win the same award at 4 different regional for the same work. this allows for more students work to be seen.

we all must be reminded it's the students that should be learning not the adults. the chance to evenly earn there way to the worlds should be given to any group of students that set there minds to it.

There is a similar phenomenon down here in the Atlanta are with Team 2415 and their sweeping of regionals lately. I'm going to say it right now: They earned every single bit of the money They Raised, every single regional victory The Students won through intelligence, strategy, and skill, and they deserve all of the praise they get.

There are plenty of rumors going around saying The mentors (Former 1002 Alumni) built 2415's robots, and how their massive budgets that allow them to build 3 robots is unfair, but it comes down to how hard they work. I had the opportunity to see their shop. It's smaller than our own, yet they use it to its fullest potential. The team works hard, and earns everything they do

It's the same with Team 1114. Want to one up them? Earn it. If that means working your butts off, then so be it. After our team's lackluster performance last year, I went on a crusade to gain as much knowledge and experience as possible to ensure our team was victorious this year. I browsed CD daily, designed drivetrains, participated in Beta testing, and did offseason events. The end result: We have a good robot that can compete with the best of the best this year.

Team 1114 and 2056 continue to be my sources of inspiration, ever since we faced off against them in the Quarter Finals of Archimedes in 2009. I was a freshman at the time, I was amazed at how beautiful their robots were, and I continued to follow them because of what an inspiration both teams are. Instead of hating on them, let them inspire you, and show you what FIRST really is.