Is FIRST Encouraging Uncompetitive Winners?

[Kris Verdeyen]

Norm, you broke two of your own rules there -

Originally posted by Norm M.
8. People who have not yet graduated from college are allowed to construct messages without capitalization, punctuation, or spelling considerations.

9. Adults are not allowed to post humorous messages.

10. All messages should be taken way to seriously.

But anyway, my take on the matter is that the rule sucks, to be sure. It's difficult to understand, but it can be learned. Is it "underhanded" to minimize points in a round that you know you're going to lose? Not at all. While I can see both sides of the debate on the fiery subject of collusion (please don't consider this mention an attempt to resurrect the rightfully dead discussion), I can't here. In an elimination round it is, simply put, really stupid for you to try to put your robots on top of the ramp when you're losing by 51 points. Every additional point you score is another one you have to make up later.

The question is though, is this what we asked for last year when the peanut gallery was crying to "make the finals and the elims the same game"? Well, it's a try. The fact is, as Tony said at the top, the elims are fundamentally different from the quals. This attempt to make them the same has not only failed, but exacerbated the problem, as well as making the finals less interesting to watch.