[Nawaid Ladak]

1) From an outsiders prospective, this game was excellent: I've noticed that the games in the odd numbered years tend not to be as exciting for the spectators as the games in the even numbered years. (Triple Play vs Aim High, Rack N Roll vs Overdrive... etc). This year brought a pleasant change to that concept. For some reason, I thought this game would be boring and some teams would find it difficult to score and climb. Then again, I haven't played frisbee in a few years.

2) I still prefer regional events over districts. While districts are great for some regions. other regions simply lack the team involvement, quality of play, or volunteer base to implement a program similar to MAR or FiM. I do think that districts are great for the ares that may be able to support them in the near future (New England, Minnesota, California, Texas, DMV...)

3) This was the best Championship Event I've attended in St Louis. The program was really well put together. aside from the paper planes, everything went great. Sure Einstein was long, but you had nine matches with a recount for one of those matches, what else was there to expect?

4) I for one did not find any of the speeches too lengthy, maybe its' the ten years that I've been involved with FIRST. Maybe I've finally gotten used to this format.

5) Preliminary Schedules = AMAZING!, Please do this again, let regional events try this out if they can as well.

6) This was the first year I truly thought that the FRC portion was truly a World Championship. Three of the top six ranked teams on Galileo and Curie were teams from outside the United States. This really goes to show how much this program has grown outside our borders. I'm hoping this trend continues.

7) The FIRST Robotics Conferences being free this year was a treat. While I wasn't able to attend the seminar that I wanted to go to (I'm sure there were about 150-200 others that found themselves in a similar predicament...) Just seeing the buzz surrounding the conference halls Wednesday night around 6pm was something I didn't expect and was presently surprised by. I hope they give Karthik 3 hours and the auditorium next year.

8) Providing special seating for Volunteers was something new that was added this year. The seats were great and I'm sure a lot of other volunteers were really appreciative for this arrangement (As someone who was helping with handing our awards on Galileo as the main lights for the dome shut down, I'm happy i got the seats i got instead of being up in the nosebleeds or having an obscure view of the field somewhere else).

(DISCLAIMER I wasn't really involved with my team this season as I was busy trying to get my career off the ground)