[Brian Maher]

I'd like to note that the smaller events and District Championship provide more opportunities for success. Instead of ~50% of teams at a ~48 team regional playing in elims, around two thirds of teams play in elims at a ~36 team district event. This creates more opportunities for success in elims, and more chances to win judged awards.

Winning our first (district) event in 2014 revitalized my team's morale. As the second pick of the second alliance, if the event were much larger, we very well may not have had this chance. That year was our first time at District Championship, and our experience iterating on our design, playing with MAR's best, and nearly qualifying for CMP motivated us to grow and push ourselves toward new success, both on and off the field.

The opportunities the District system presented have cause my team to advance leaps and bounds in the past few years. Last weekend, my team won its second competition and its first as an alliance captain. Districts help teams improve on so many levels, between the increased plays/$ and the more easily attained chances for success.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying it's all about the competition. Our success caused us to re-assess our priorities, and we went from being a team with very little outreach to a team regularly demonstrating our robot and getting people excited about STEM. Competitive success isn't everything but it sure makes a difference.