Einstein 2012

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

FIRST is a wonderful organization that has done a lot of very good things. However, there are people that have issues with FIRST that would love to extend the single failure to troubleshoot into evidence of a pattern.

Unfortunately in this case they would be right. This was not a single failure, and was indeed a pattern all season long. The train whistles before this wreck could be heard far in the distance for those that listened. There was more than enough discussion of this issue throughout the season to make it clear that we were heading for a calamity at Champs if something did not change to fix it. As far as I am aware, there was never any official acknowledgement from FIRST that there was a problem, or instructions for teams about how they could help prevent it. As a team that was affected by this issue both before and during Champs, I feel there is at least a silver lining to what happened on Einstein: It will guarantee a fix. The complaints of individual teams throughout the regional season were not enough to bring about a solution, but the events at Champs most surely will. It was painful and disappointing to watch it happen, but there was also a little voice inside me saying "I knew this wasn't just us."