Best Practices to make State

[IKE]

Your team was sooo close last year:

Strive to be about top 10% at the district (IE one of the top 4 teams). Last year only 25% of teams qualified for States. For the most part, teams that would be top 20% at a competition (top 8), made it, but some did not. this can be due to bad performance, or just a bit of bad luck at one of your district event. IE, if you get knocked out in quarters at one event, you almost have to win the other event. If you can get to the top 10%, you are likely a lock for States, but that is not an easy thing to achieve.

Put a decent amount of effort in winning a couple awards. While it is good to shoot for "all" the awards, having a good solid foundation for a couple of them can raise your chances at winning an award. Awards are a good chunk of points.

Make sure you are ready to compete at your first competition. Some teams have plans to get better as the season progresses. this can be very good, but if you do not do well enough at your first event, it can be hard to make it up.

I will sight 910 as an example:
https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/910/2016
They had a good robot that just wasn't ready yet at their first or really even their second competition and got knocked out in the quarters and did not qualify for States.
Fortunately, they got the bugs worked out for a late season regional, won it, and had a robot that did really well at Worlds, and even got invited to IRI.
They missed States by about 10 points (scored 70, and cut-off for points was about 80 pts last year).

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Speaking for your team specifically, I would do everything as well as last year performance-wise, and put some extra effort at a couple of awards. A trip to the Semi-finals at your second event, or a couple tech awards would have been the difference last year.