[ngreen]

One of the biggest advantage I've seen from multi-regional teams is they have multiple chances at making it to the championship. So in that thought they should put teams that attended only one regional in line for getting into championships before they put the people who attended multiple regionals and didn't qualify.

I see multiple regional as a huge advantage. Both a competitive and financial advantage. The three closest regional to me personally are as follows:

St. Louis - 5 hours
Denver - 10 hours
Houston - 14 hours (Midwest may be closer but this is where we go)

and the championship was 14 hours away

Our team raised nearly 50 thousand dollars to pay for the trip to Houston and Atlanta. While only spending less than 10 thousand on the robot and entry fees we spent nearly 35 thousand on travel expenses.

This is a lot of money to spend travel when some teams are able to go to 2 close regional and the championship for way less than that. The only solution we have thought of so far is just to help continue FIRSTs expansion in our area. Maybe a KC Regional 2005 or 2006?, OKC regional would be fun, maybe another Texas regional. Expand the central states FIRST teams and cost will go down for everyone.