What did I miss?

[Mr V]

Welcome back.

I'll expand on the switch to the district system a bit.

It has been a boon to the mid and lower tier teams that couldn't afford to do two of the traditional regionals. They now have a chance to do the full engineering process of testing their machines in the real world of a competition, learning from that and tweaking on their robot in hopes of improving its performance in their second event or at the District Championship (DCMP).

It has also opened up Championship to more of those mid tier teams because you qualify on points. As mentioned you earn points at your district events to qualify for DCMP. What wasn't mentioned is that you carry those points with you to DCMP where you earn more points. The points structure is same but points earned at DCMP are tripled before being added to the points you already earned. This means that teams that had perennially done well but never won it all or earned one of the automatic advancement awards now have a chance at attending CMP.

Earning Chairman's at a district event is an automatic qualification for DCMP for the team and Robot. Earning Engineering Inspiration or Rookie All Star at a district event earns the team, but not the robot, an automatic qualification for DCMP, but their robot can still qualify by earning enough points. At DCMP only those teams that won one of those awards at a district event are eligible to compete for that award at DCMP.

Because the number of events has increased significantly there is a huge need for event volunteers. Yes the events are smaller but many positions such as ref, field reset still need the same number of volunteers whether there are 32 teams at the event or 64. Because of this I highly recommend volunteering at an event, you will be welcomed and needed. Here is Indiana FIRST's website where you can get more information about being an event volunteer. http://www.indianafirst.org/