[Boe]

These are my own personal opinions and not the opinions of team 2175.

Let me start off by saying in my opinion the purpose of the event should be to determine the best teams in Minnesota. This in my opinion is the best way to introduce the public to FIRST, by showing them the best our state has to offer. My issues with the current system and suggested fixes:

Chairman's Award:
I feel like if this is going to be an auto bid to the state tournament we need to award a chairman's winner at state. I would also not be against having teams who won chairman's (as well as EI and RAS) only compete for those awards.

Age Bonus:
I really don't like these points, but I get their purpose. I know this only affected one team not making it, but that team (FRED) easily has one of the best robots in the states (top ten or so I would say). I personally think that the best way to inspire younger teams is not to have them at the state competition because they are simply younger but to have them their because their robot was one of the best in the state (I'm looking at you 5172). I think having only the best of the best in the state gives everyone else something to strive for. I know I wouldn't feel like I deserved to be at champs just because my team was younger, whats the saying, age is just a number.

Only counting points from first event:
First off let me say if I had my way teams would get the points equal to what they got at their best event, this would drastically improve the competition at the state tournament. I haven't done the math but lots of teams with great robots (2883, 3206, 2177, 2472, 2491, 2220, 3130) all had amazing second events and definitely are among the top 28 in the state and were all hurt because they didn't do as good at their first event. I know there will always be the argument of the "fairness" of using a teams best event but in my opinion if a team raised enough money to build a competitive robot and go to two events the deserve to use the score from their best event. A compromise I would suggest to this is having teams use the average of there two scores. This would still hurt teams who had a bad first event, but would not eliminate their chances of making it to state.

Needless to say I can't wait for MN Districts.

Also does anyone know why the tournament is held at Williams I think Mariucci is a much better venue.