[cgredalertcc]

I have to say that in comparisson to the regional in Wisconsin 1741 recently attended the Boilermaker referees allowed teams to be much much more agressive and it seemed like some of the defensive teams were driving at a near malicious level. We came out of several matches with the bottom forks of our gripper bent at inconcievable angles due to some of the rough driving. In talking with several teams at the regional we felt that activley pushing a robot when it's manipulator is in a vulnerable postion is not truely in the spirit of first and we avoided doing so. In the eliminations one team tipped two of the opposite alliances robots (completely flipping one and putting another in a situation where they would have tipped without the quick action of their third partner). The team that did this left the match without even a yellow card or a penalty. Also during the finals I spoke with a referee regarding the starting condition of a robot and how that fell within the rules, because of one rule regarding the postion of the robot controller in regard to the starting postion of the robot which says the the lights on the robot controller must be visible from three feet in front of the robot in starting condition in which the front of the robot is determined by the dimension facing out of the alliance home zone. All in all the regional was a good experience but I feel like it could have been better. I am extremely happy for 234 who is pretty much the reason for my team's existence. I love robotics and the situations mentioned above are purely observations in hopes to improve everyone's regional experience.