Restoring motivation

[SPurekar]

226 the best we've been in years this year, and we thought that after the teamwork and everything from our last regional, we have a shot at some award. So our team’s leadership voted on going to Championships whether or not win an award, because it would be a valuable experience for everyone involved, and we don't have money to book flights to Atlanta ($700 during spring break) less than 2 weeks before competition. We had to tell the team we were registered so we could book flights by next week.

Here’s where the problem comes in: The motivation for many of the new members to do well at the regional was the thrill of going to ATL. Now that we’re going whether or not we win, most of them seem to have lost the spark they had after our last regional, when we watched Frog Force get the gold. Unless the veterans can somehow get that enthusiasm back, we’re not going to be able to represent ourselves as well as we’d like, and drastically reduce our chance of winning anything.

Are there any other teams that have been faced with this problem before? Any advice on what we can do in the next two weeks to get back the motivation?