[Kate Muller]

Our team had an amazing year. It is the first time since our rookie year that we qualified for Champs.

I love the district model except our district regional ended at 7 pm on April 18th. That gave us 10 days to plan a trip to ST Louis. We didn't have any mentors on the team that had ever planned a trip to Champs before so it was a painful learning curve.

The hotel reservation and badge registration site was a nightmare. I kept getting emails form First telling me I had to assign rooms or they would drop our block and we hadn't had our qualifying regional yet. Phone calls resulted in confusing and contradictory information.

Find a bus would have been impossible if FIRST hadn't had a bunch reserved.
There were problems with the bus company and I hope FIRST can arrange for better service next time.

I know FIRST is trying to go paperless for many things but that didn't work for us. The app for conference schedule wouldn't download on my phone. Also all the apps requesting access to my contacts and photos was a no go for most of my team.

The lack of maps with location labels was painful. The blue sign labeled innovation faire in the hallway on the second floor of the conference was completely useless and sent many a person on a wild goose chase.

Last minutes email updates are not very useful to a first time attending team. Having a printed copies posted on a wall in the pits would have been very helpful.

The hour + long lines to buy merchandise were a fail. I didn't buy any FIRST souvenirs because I didn't have hours to spend waiting in line. Not labeling the small satellite locations with shirt size limitations was another fail. I had a mentor wait in line for 45 minutes to find out the shirts at that location were all mediums.

I would love to see higher quality food and more options for people with dietary restrictions. Having inconsistent information on being able to bring food into the venue didn't help our team members with severe food allergies.