[Guy Davidson]

Like most other voices on this thread, I think there is a big problem with the way the system is currently set. Teams should not be forced to compete against similarly numbered teams every time. This is not what we paid for, and not what we worked a month a half during build season for. Teams deserve to compete against all opponents, to get a feel for what many teams can do.

I also believe that writing a new algorithm before the next set of regionals is not only possible, but also a necesity. I am currently working on a new algorithm myself. I don't expect my code to be used - I have under a year of experience in Java (in which I'm writing the code) and only a few years of programming experience overall. My belief is that if I can write a code that will behave correctly in a few hours today and some testing tomorrow, then someone of the hunders of professional programmers, or the thousands of college students, or the dozens of thousands of high school students that are affiliated with FIRST can write something better than I did. And hence, there is no reason for the current algorithm to be used for another set of regionals.

I will post my code tomorrow, after I get around to testing it, if I believe it is worthwhile.