[Don Wright]

I had an absolute blast at my first IRI (no pun intended). The competition was incredibly intense and the environment was wonderful. The best FIRST competition I've ever been to.

Which leads me to an off-topic suggestion.

This is a perfect example of what a FIRST regional could be like. Practice rounds where you can actually practice instead of frantically trying to finish a robot you had to ship. Let's get rid of the ship date and allow teams to bring their robots with them to the competitions. Get rid of all the "put down your tools" rules. Get rid of the need to build 2 robots so you can practice while your real robot sits in a box 10 miles down the road waiting to go to your local tournament. It would make all the regionals more competitive and exciting for all teams. We all know the game isn't fair to begin with, and the ship date rule doesn't help. More rules don't either.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, but IRI should be the model competition for FIRST to really look at for Inspiration on how good it can be.

Thank you all for a great weekend.