[couvillion]

I am going to make two suggestions.

One of the main lessons I repeat to kids is you can't debug what you can't see. FIRST need to take this to heart with it's FMS, I would suggest ethernet data loggers and or back channel comunication box that is attached to each robot on the field, it will tell you if that robot is getting packets and allow problems with the field to be debugged. That data should be shared with the teams so that everyone knows what happened.

Two some form of tiered competition. Different teams have different resources and the obvious soulution would be to allow some teams to skip bag and tag and compete against other teams that did the same. They probably shouldn't go to St Louis even if they do well cause they have money and people problem. Maybe they should be limited to one regional or such. But know you have a decent robot but lack the resources to pull it off is frustrating to (a/mine) team. I do think they should compete in the same time and place as the top tier teams because there is deal that can be learned simply with a few minute to talk with a top tier team.

I think FIRST is a great asset for exposing kids to engineering and I think that FRC is a wonderful competition because of the compressed schedule but it threatens to overwhelm the smaller teams.