paper: In state vs. out of state awards

[marshall]

My, I do have some industrious students.

As a bit of a back story, it was remarked to me in St Louis by a mentor from another team (that will go unnamed) that the NC Regional was not fair to out-of-state teams and biased towards in-state teams. I can't speak for their particular award or their particular circumstance but it did make me think about regional events and if this was a problem. I mentioned this to some students and set them about collecting the data.

We're definitely not pointing fingers or accusing anyone of anything. We just wanted to make the data available to teams and to start the conversation. No matter where you stand, the district model definitely removes any notion of bias (at least as it currently stands with teams not being able to move between districts).

Most importantly, I'm grateful to the students who spent a long time pulling this data together (especially during their final exams and summer free time). You guys are awesome, you know who you are.