[IKE]

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but Team 33 has not "won" a regional for at least 5 years. One thing I think that is interesting about FIRST is that it really "Awards" just the winners. If you start judging your success by trophies in the case, you are destined for a troubled future.

Some 503 specific advice: You guys had a great run for several years, but one thing you absolutely must understand about FIRST, is that the about 1/3 of the time, luck plays a great deal in being a Champion. I know that seems like blasphemy, and people will write about predestined teams, but notice i put a 1/3rd in there. The reasons:
In games where 2 robots can dominate the game (2008, 2009, 2010, 2006), the #1 or #2 alliance will win. thus if you are the 23rd or 24th best robot or have a strong relationship with the picker, you too will win (i.e. 1/3rd of the Winners were fortunate).
In games where 3 good robots can beat 2 great robots (think 2007), the number 8 alliance can often pull an upset (spoken form experience in the #1 seed). No one goes into a tournament striving to be the 8th best, or 15th/16th best or event the 23rd/24th best. those things just kind of happen.
From a winning perspective, the worst spot to be in is the 5th-8th most capable machine at an event. You will often end up in the 3rd-6th alliance which means you will likely be beat in the semi's. One of our goals is to play in the eliminations at every event. Only the winner's get to end the day on a victory, so we all lose at some point.
So what does it take to be sure you will be playing Saturday afternoon? You must either figure out how to seed in the top 8 or be in the top 16 at the event. YOU MUST. Top 24 is not good enough because you have some teams luck into the captain positions, and you have specialty picks (defense, zone specialists, ramp bots) during the second picks. If you are trying to play offense, you must be top 16.

MSC is tough. We had 503 around 30th on our list. What that means is I would not have been shocked if you were picked, but I would have been surprised at a first round pick.

Championship is a mixed bag. Honestly, on most of the fields, it was softer than the MSC (see OPR paper for Divsion Strength). Archimedes was very similar to MSC with only 1 stand-out (254 was in a league of their own) instead of 3 standouts like MSC. That being said, it is tougher to get picked. There is more regional bias, luck, and quite frankly poor picks at the championship. This year with 10 rounds and the points based seeding, there was less luck in reaching the top 10 (though more schedule luck for order of the top 10). There were a lot of great teams (regional winners) that didn't play Saturday afternoon. There were Multi-year world champions knocked out in the first round.

So, from a robot perspective, consider this a wake-up call to do better next year. Talk about what went right, and what went wrong. Look at what teams better than you did. Focus on the teams that have similar capabilities but end up turning out a superior product. That is what we did after last year. We built too complicated of a machine with too little resources last year. We were beat by teams with less resources, but way more elegant designs. 330 is a team that doesn't get enough credit for elegance in design. Year after year they turn out one of the best robots around with very simple fabrication techniques. Elegance is often harder than complicated machines.

All that aside, 503 is a great team. You guys won the Chairman's at MSC. This is an amazing feat that you should be very proud of. There are many teams that left MSC and the Championship with only memories. That is still a success in many people's minds (as it should be).