A new era for FIRST.....and mixed feelings

[Steve Yasick]

I am the team leader from 85. I can give you a different point of view. We have been around for 9 years now. We did not qualify for nationals this year so we participated in 3 regionals. We were 6th at Great Lakes, had big problems at Mid-West and then finished 4th at West Michigan. I think we lost by something like 15 total points to get eliminated. We were on the wait list for nationals but didn't get the "call" when space opened up.

It was very hard for us to watch nationals! We wanted to be there so bad and felt like we came so close. I can tell you as the team leader that it is still a daily mission to help the team keep our heads up. The community outside of FIRST doesn’t understand. They expect us to be at nationals and think we "failed" or had a bad year by not being in Atlanta. I know we didn't "fail". I know we had a great season and I know we could have done well at nationals.

The competition will get tougher every year. I expect us to be more competitive next year and I expect everyone else to make more competitive robots. I don't know what we could have done to get to nationals. Some people say you create your own luck. The way things are changing in FIRST I don't think that will be true, as team skill levels get closer.

Please don't think of this as sour grapes. Like I said before we had a great season. I would like to see some way to let everyone who wants to go to nationals plan on it from the start! We knew we had to "win our way" to nationals. To win your way you really need some luck in FIRST and some cash in reserve. We registered for as many regionals as we could afford then put money in reserve for the possibility of nationals. This really changes how you do the business of running a team.

The regional winners do deserve to go to Atlanta. Maybe the people who pay to get in could be in a different division that could fight it out to get to the finals.

I'm not sure how all that would work. I know that we really missed seeing all of you at nationals.

Take care and have a good off-season. We will see you at Kettering in the Fall.


Steve Yasick