[sammyjalex]

I really like a lot of these ideas. I'm hopeful that they would at some point be implemented.

My favorites include having teams locked into divisions thus in this way networking for students across the world at CMP becomes much more convenient having seen the same teams year after year for getting to know and recognize the members and also the idea of allowing winning teams for that year to draft their alliance thus encouraging scouting across regionals for the entire team and getting involved in FIRST on an international level more than just a team level; learning more design techniques than just those discussed as a team that build season.

These are striking to me because I know many teams struggle to get their students to watch matches other than those their team is in and a draft may encourage this and also simply because a great tool FIRST offers that is not utilized enough is CD; it's the networking between students and teams which is not utilized enough. Adolescents (and adults) inherently find some difficulty meeting people in large social atmospheres like regionals and CMP but it is a fantastic advantage of FIRST to make friends all over the world and a lock on divisions someway would provide this.

For this reason of inter-regional scouting and mingling, I am against the idea of regional divisions. The best ideas I have heard with regards to who make up the divisions have been the idea of a draft using winning teams as division captains in charge of socials etc. as well as incentives like a divisional trophy passed around from year to year. It is my belief that if there will be better teams around strategically when inter-regional scouting is done than just that one you know locally thus preventing dynasties of nearby powerhouses as Cameron mentioned.

Jiust my $.02

Sam Alexander