The finals in Philly: A 293 team member's perspective

[Mike Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Revolverx7

The only thing that can be changed now is to make sure that next year the refs can finaly understand to be fair and impartial.

before you go judging the refs partiality i think you should take a second and rethink it, that is not a very gracious thing to accuse people of, who give their time to help YOU be able to participate in a Robotics Compeititon

[Kevin Sevcik]

Being a volunteer does not make someone sacrosanct. I've seen the phrase "they're just volunteers" bandied about as reasons to let problems with reffing and other things slide, and it's annoying me. It's completely possible for someone to volunteer at something and utterly bollix it. I don't beleive there's any great contradiction in being appreciative of someone's efforts while still noting that they didn't do a good job at it. It's entirely possible, also, that they're not doing a good job because they're being poorly instructed in how to do their job. I think what we need to do is figure out the root cause of all the heartache and consternation this year and make a concerted effort to fix it. Simply ignoring the problem, shrugging it off, or making excuses isn't going to help anything.

[Jonathan]

Dear Team 293,

As a third year member of team 316 I can understand your frustration at the calls that were made yesterday in the elimination rounds. The one thing you have to remember is that each week is a new week. My team just last week was in your shoes. We had seed 3rd at Annapolis and were paired up with team 1507, and 836. During the semifinals team 007 ripped a wired loose from 1507's bot and disabled their arm. 007 did this in both matches and cripled our alliance. I went to the head ref and he told me that it was accidental. This week at Philly we seeded 23rd, i believe, and we were selected by MOE and went on to win. You win some and you lose some. Either way you guys have nothing to be sorry about. You competed well and had one of the best bots out there