Perplexed after Richmond Regional

[archiver]

Posted by rob kelly at 03/12/2001 12:20 PM EST


Coach on team #367, Delaware Destroyers, from Seaford Senior High School and Dupont, NASA, JRM High Performance Machine, Trigli.



Greetings all
I purposefully waited until today to post a message here. This delay has allowed me to collect my thoughts and hopefully relay them in a gracious professional manner. I am concerned because of the look in my students eye's and conversations with them since the championship alliances were choosen, and we were not considered.
At the conclusion of qualification rounds Fri. we were ranked 18th avg. points 106.8 with 5 matches. Our alliance scored 128 points in the final match of qualification. this score raised our average to 111, ranking us 12th of 67 teams. We were shocked not to be choosen for the championship round. We consistently completed our portion of the strategy, when many of our alliance partners could not do what they said they could. Some machines could not even reach the bridge let alone cross it. Why inflate your ability at the expense of the other alliance partners? Is this gracious professionalism? Can any of the top 8 teams explain why we were overlooked? We are fortunate to be able to compete in Philly next weekend and need to know what we can do to improve our chances of reaching the elimination rounds. We are a small team and cannot afford to take 30 people to regional event.

Many teams at Richmond only competed in 6 matches, for some this was the only competition they could afford. Thats a lot of work and money for only 6 matches. The Long Island Regionals with less than 40 teams allowed for 11 qualification matches, is this equitable? After a great rookie experience in Philly last year, Richmond has left a foul taste in this teams mouth this year. I can't help but believe that teams inflating their abilities in strategy and representation led to the low scores in Richmond. I still believe in the power of FIRST, it has impacted my students in a positive manner.

Any response would be helpful as we are scratching our heads and wondering what's up. I apologize if I stepped on any toes, that was not my intent.
sincerely
Rob Kelly