Unofficial Chaos

[Amy W.]

As a member of team 126, I think the call was perfectly legitimate. At first, I was upset, but after thinking about it reasonably, it makes sense...

It's true that we may have seen the same move called legal at regionals and nationals 100 times, but BattleCry was a different competition with some rule changes. Although some people may disagree with the rule, by attending BattleCry, we agreed to abide by it. Few people in the alliance deny that a rule was broken, but many argue that the rule was "illegitimate", "stupid", or "made up to help the host team". Personally, I don't believe that any of these things are true, but it doesn't matter even if they are because we agreed to the rule by competing. A rule can't be thrown out in the middle of a competition. That's when things would really start to get messy, if they weren't messy enough already. If the rule were to have been challenged, it should have been challenged before play began. I don't think that the refs or staff were out to get any particular team. They were just enforcing the rules.

I think that many of us have forgotten what is important in FIRST. It seems like it is becoming more and more about winning, especially for the veteran teams. I hope that something good will come out of the bad feelings that some people have about BattleCry in that teams will reassess what FIRST is all about. According to usfirst.org "FIRST redefines winning for these students. Teams are rewarded for excellence in design, demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and maturity, and ability to overcome obstacles. Scoring the most points is a secondary goal. Winning means building partnerships that last."

Finally, I'd like to extend my thanks to team 190 and the BattleCry staff for hosting the competition, and apologize for behavior that did not fall under the category of gracious professionalism. Unfortunately, this probably even includes my own.

I'm proud to be a four-year member of team 126, but BattleCry 4 was a somewhat disappointing end to my career as a student member of the team.

Amy