[Rurouni]

Also as a forth-year FIRSTer, I'd have to say epcot for some of the follow reasons, some of which have already been mentioned:

1. Yeah, that walk to the pits from the arena was ridiculous. I feel bad for all the drive teams that had to lug their robot back and forth.

2. Well, unlike the years in Disney, many teams were scattered throughout Houston. Past years, most of the teams attending nationals either staying ON Disney property, or were right near it. The differing numbers of hotels with FIRST people in them was staggering.

3. The last is one I can't really describe but if you went to nat's in previous years, you can sympathize. It just didn't feel like nationals, but I can't pin down why.

I'm not saying Reliant stadium wasn't good. I loved how the fields were set up. I also like how you could watch all four fields as once, due to the massive screens on the top of each wall. That made watching all the division finals matches especially easy, as opposed to having to run from one division to another to find seats for a match.

But to address a few points:

1. The distance from the pits to the field was horrible, and those ramps were insane.

I already mentioned this but I can sympathize.

2. I know this is a budget cut event, but having no screens on the division fields really sucked.

I don't know. I really didn't mind it. I had a good view of Curie and Einstein for both days of competition. It didn't bother me at all, if I couldn't see what was going on, I just looked over at the wall.

3. I don't even want to go into some of the referee horror stories.

There are horror stories every year. People need to stop complaining about it. The refs have a job to do, and they can call it as they see it. That's all there is to it. Granted, a call may not seem justified to those in the stands, but the refs can only do so much. Cut them so slack please, they're just trying to do what they can to keep the competition fair.

This added with some teams blatant hatred for other teams makes me sick.

That has nothing to do with the way nats went this year. That happens every year, and yes it is sickening. I can not think of a good reason to form such hatreds. People should be talking and exchanging ideas. Friendly rivalries are okay, because they spur on ideas and fuel more motivation for some teams. But the blatant hatred should stop, I can agree with you. As with the looking down on teams. If someone comes to you pit wanting to ask you about your robot, you should not treat them with arrogance. A certain team, which shall remain nameless, treated me like crap when I was asking them about how their robot worked and how their autonomous mode worked. I know I'm not the only one to experience this and it sickens me. The teams in FIRST should treat each other with respect, not with such insulting words to discourage other teams.

4. The match pairing hardly seemed random. Some of the teams I talked to had the same robots in almost every single match.

Again, I agree. The randomizer this year didn't work well. I noticed this at the UTC regional too. Oh well, what are you going to do. Smeh.

5. Elimination should be 2 out of 3. Enough said.

I don't know. I think this way, it made the matches alot more exciting. But that is up to everyone's individual tastes though