[jessss]

I've tried to stay out of these threads as much as I could, but as a mentor of a MN team I think it's important. Also this is my view on the whole situation, other mentors and students from my team might feel differently.

Our team has attended two regionals each year since 2013. We've been lucky enough to have sponsors and have had very few problems financially when it comes to paying for our regionals. Our main problem though is the lack of inspiration felt by competing at Minnesota events this past year. The return on investment, all of the work we do throughout the season, especially the hours that us mentors put in just to play so few matches doesn't make sense. When you have a robots on your alliance not moving during half of your matches during an eight play regional my students stop feeling inspired, and their moods start to sour. Also, last year we got three matches on Saturday, a day our parents and sponsors come to support the team and watch us compete. We had parents and sponsors come again this year who missed out on our one Saturday match, they were devastated, and once again our students were bummed that they couldn't show their parents what they've been working on this season.

Listen I appreciate everything that the MN RPC does for the state and have spent seven years loving the 10,000 Lakes Regional but honestly it doesn't make sense for my team to compete at these events anymore.

My team is more than likely going to make the switch from FRC to FTC next year. If we do, we not only do we get to work with an awesome staff at High Tech Kids, but we will be saving a lot of money. It makes more sense to our school to pay $150 a tournament where we would get five matches and don't have to travel at all instead of an eight play $5,000 regional. That's $30 a match instead of $625, and trust me I don't mind my kids competing in a high school gym. That return on investment makes more sense to me than watching my upset kids after only getting to play eight matches.

So for teams like mine, it's not worth sitting around waiting for things to change in the state anymore. Listen we all have our own views, I'm just trying to inspire my students and right now it's not working.