Championships for dummies

[Simon Strauss]

This year is going to be my first time attending nationals and hopefully not my last, and as someone on a team that has also never been i am left with many questions about how Nationals operates, how it is different from regionals and how to prepare. Many of these are questions that so far have not been answered by friends and family that have previously attended nationals, nor can be easily found on these forums. So as a solution to this problem that I'm sure many of you share, I've decided that CD needs its own addition of the famous book series, Championships for dummies (n00bs, newbies, 1st timers, whatever name for us you please)

My intention is that this Thread will be able to function as a quick way for those who have any type of question concerning nationals in Atlanta, even if they have already attended, can find or ask for the information that they are looking for. In order for this thread to complete its goal i am going to have to kindly ask all of you to try to avoid rambunctious posts, insanely long answers to simple questions(feel free to extrapolate on any point in a PM if the rest of us don't need to know it) and any type of double answering already answered questions unless you have a very important point to, add, contradict, or if done in a very close time range, and all those other things that i along with most of the FIRST community are often guilty of.

That being said id like to start this off by asking what the deal is with scouting at nationals, in general and in particular for those of us who aren't expecting to go far, but are instead attending for the experience.

thanks,
Simon