I think the root of the entire problem can be linked to the fact that an assignment was directly tied into a competitive event. If Ruane had instead made the competition into an individual event where one person would get dinner with him based on... say... the best Research Paper about World War I, then I feel that everyone would be a lot cooler about the situation.
Hell, if this wasn't a contest at all, I honestly think that people's built-in human drive of competition wouldn't be taking over right now. Trust me, I understand how everyone feels about the event, I thought our project deserved an A or at least the rankings be changed based on the time frame some other teams got that we didn't. But I'll take my B+ and scram!
I guess I dunno what I'm trying to get at here, but perhaps the best thing I could suggest for future classes is to exclude the prize-orientated nature of the assignment. I know that nobody cares more about the food than the grade, but lets face it, when we all built our machines, we felt that each of ours was better than anyone else's. No one goes into a 4x400 relay thinking their team is mediocre; they strive to beat everyone else. It's how we tick.
Anyway, I'm ranting now when I should be writing about DNA or something. Sorry for bumping the Final post down, but I just needed to get this off my chest.
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