Ideas to move in the direction of making FIRST competitions 'fair'

[KenWittlief]

The biggest difference between an average team and one of the powerhouse teams is desire. When the average team is complaining about how unfair it is that powerhouse teams have all these resources, the powerhouse teams are working hard to get these resources. When the average team is taking sunday off, or going home at 5 pm, the powerhouse team is working 7 days a week, and going home at 10 pm.

this statement could cause a great deal of hurt to a small team with limited resources and mentors. Telling a team they did not win, that they dont have access to a multimillion dollar machine shop, that they dont have awesome mentors... because they did not try hard enough is condesending.

If a small team is very successful, and their success can be attributed to them (and not to the alliance luck of the draw team matching), then they would advance up on whatever structure or division format exists for the next season. If you prove your team is great playing against other teams on your own level, then you win this year, and you move up to a greater challenge next year. Certainly there will be small teams that excel. That is what a competition is all about - seeing how well you did, based on how well you prepared for the event.

I guess I have asked for too much to try to focus on coming up with ways to make the FIRST competiton more fair than it is today. This thread has fallen into a hopeless debate on whether or not FIRST is fair, and whether or not it even matters.

It seems pretty odd that a program that is suppose to be a culture of change, has fallen into its own patterns and habits, so much so that it cant even see the issues.

but as they say, seeing the problem is the first step. If you cant recognize there is a problem, then nothing can be done about it.