[ngreen]

Andrew,

I see what you are thinking with this one but I haven't seen a good way to make that kind of thought a reality in the real world.

Many teams work very hard to raise the money they need to compete in this competition. This basically means that neither I or FIRST have the ability to directly tell them how to spend their money. I think FIRST offers some idea by making Chairman's Award and Engineering Inspiration prestigious awards. You can't compete for these awards without spending a least a little bit of money (not necessarily a lot) and a lot of time. But people aren't forced to try to win these awards or some can afford multiple regionals and compete for these awards also.

What it comes down to is that the team and their sponsor(s) have control over how the money is spent. If that means going to four regionals, the only thing that will stop them is running out of spots.