[Nawaid Ladak]

very VERY good question Joe

In the world cup, we don't remember which team was in which group, but we remember which teams were in the "group of death". I think FIRST sort of has to employ this strategy, Galileo in 2008 and 2009, Curie in 2007, Newton in 2006 Archimedes in 2005 etc. etc. could all qualify as "divisions of death". Those teams faced the toughest challenges in their division that year. and they should be appreciated. it's just the general FIRSTer needs to understand his/her history.

if FIRST was to classify divisions to a particular strategy, I would suggest one of two methods.

Location: have each division represent one segment of the United States, East, South, West and Midwest (Canada = MW, Israel = West). and let the champions duke it out so we can know which region of the country is truly the best.

ie

East 11(NJ), 20(NY), 25(NJ), 40(NH), 41(NJ)
South 16(AR), 79(FL), 86(FL), 108(FL), 116(VA) etc.
West 100(CA), 115(CA), 159(CO), 192(CA), 254(CA) etc.
Midwest 1(MI), 27(MI), 33(MI), 45(IN), 51(MI) etc.

Awards: classify divisions by the four Robot Awards given out at regionals,

Creativity 1153(NH), 1683(GA), 51(GG), 343(FL), 20(WOR) etc.
Engineering Excellence 40(NH), 1466(GA), 1912(LA), 1625(KC), 1538 (SDC) etc.
Industrial Design 78(NH), 25(NJ), 2377(DC), 1379(GA), 1622(SDC) etc.
Quality 1073(NH), 1727(DC), 63(ROC), 1515(OR), 1717(SDC) etc.

make the regional judges classify each team in one of these categories to make this system work.