Some thoughts on rules, refs, and ranking

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

I guarantee that the kids on the team won't remember specific matches in anything other than a positive light several years from now. If they don't, they aren't doing FIRST for the right reason.

Thanks for letting me know I wasn't doing FIRST for the right reasons when I was a student, I wish someone told me sooner.

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

Just because something didn't go your way doesn't mean that it was a bad game. More often than not it was most likely actually your fault.

Of course, the famous "let's blame the teams" response. This worked well on Einstein.

Originally Posted by sbak94

If you have such an issue with it, don't participate in the program anymore. Maybe you should go out and start your own robotics competition that includes the things that you see "missing" from FIRST competitions.
Overall I do not see how you could have such grief over something that is supposed to be about learning. That is the whole point of FIRST. And sometimes students AND adults need to learn to accept defeat and BS that comes their way, which a situation like yours seems to have been a great opportunity.

This is a great attitude! If you don't like a certain aspect of FIRST or something that happened to you at an event, you should go quit! (Sorry for blowing up everyone's sarcasm detectors.)

We had a post from a concerned FIRST participant who was unhappy with his experience at his event. Instead of listening to his concerns and trying to see where we can improve things, people feel the need to chastise him, tell him he doesn't understand FIRST, and that he should go quit and find another program. I can't believe that's what this forum has come to. If someone can't offer criticism of the program without having stones cast from the glass houses of the peanut gallery, there's no way we'll be able to keep the program growing and improving.