2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[apples000]

I agree with many of the points in this thread, but I found the finale to be dangerously overcrowded. I watched several students fall down the stairs, and by the time the bus I was on arrived, all we could find to eat were the cookies. Also, while down on the field during elims, I noticed that the back up robots (there were four per division) and their teams needed to be in the center area where they needed to sit still and wait. The kids weren't allowed to watch the matches, and a group of kids who worked hard, built a great robot, ranked 12, and weren't picked were forced to sit where they couldn't see the elimination rounds for any division is not a nice thing to do to a dedicated group of students. Also, I agree that 8 matches is not enough. Teams that didn't build great robots ended up in the top 8, and bad robots were chosen for alliance partners(making it easier for us to get far in elims).