[GarrettF2395]

I attended the OKC regional and here are a few things I learned.

Make sure, you let the refs know if you are having any kind of communication problem with your robot. We lost signal with our robot in 3 separate matches.
This possibly lost us our chance of being in the top 8 teams at the end of the qualification matches.

Make sure your Payload specialist knows ALL of the rules that apply to them.
So many teams (including a team in the finals) lost matches because of stupid mistakes by the PS's.

Make sure your trailer hitch pin is set securely! During our first quarter final match, our robot was hit so hard in auto mode that our hitch pin flew out and our trailer came undone. The refs disabled and we lost the match because there was a free trailer. We had the pin in properly and everything, the head ref checked it before the match. So just because it looks and feels like its properly set... doesn't mean that it is... keep that in mind.

When picking alliance partners after qualifying matches are over, make sure you have a list of teams you want to pick, even if your in 15th place, you may end up in the top 8. A lot of the top 8 teams picked from the other top 8.

At our regional, supercells and strong defense were the way to go.
Several teams did really well because all they did was get a few emptycells moved and then used team work to corral an opponent into their corner.

Having the camera system on your robot will help you do well, but isn't essential to winning. The number 1 ranked robot had a really good camera targeting system on it. The number 2 robot didn't even have the camera on it.

As was said before, having a good robot and a good human player is really important, but means nothing if you don't have a good strategy with your alliance partners. 3 basic robots with a good strategy can easily take down a great robot and its alliance if they don't have a strategy.

I will keep adding as I think of things.