[Steven Smith]

1A/2A for what I'd choose personally... 1B/2B for the program and what the students could use right now. Echoing other sentiments, I don't want to diminish the win for teams that achieved it as a 3rd/4th pick, but being selected as that 3rd/4th robot is more heavily influenced by luck than by consistently striving to improve to where you can win events as an AC or 1st pick. Long term, I'd like to be a problem that wins consistently, which equates to 1A/2A.

That being said, what if that win in 1B/2B is what inspires the next round of freshman/sophomores to really step it up the following years to dramatically improve? Or outside of the robotics team, just inspires them period as they move on to college?

Sorry for the stream of consciousness, but I guess what it equates to is that I want our team to perform well to inspire my students. I think that the best way to do that long term is to recognize incremental improvement via better placement in tournaments (without winning), and I'd never intentionally try to play to the 24th spot just to increase my odds of winning... but if it sorted out such that we lucked into Einstein... I don't really care how we got there, the kids would be ecstatic.