Just wondering for those teams that went to MIT and PUSO, which one did you prefer? Princeton was by far the best invitational I have ever attended. Everything ran very smoothly, on time, and directions (map/campus) were easy to follow. I heard about the Game On debacle at MIT as well as the Towers issue and how Code Busters actually didn't have enough copies for each team.
Just my two cents: PUSO was the better invitational but MIT is the traditional place for top teams. Where are you guys thinking of going next year?
I've only been to one invite: MIT. And that was this year. That being said, our team noticed there were less signs (albeit still plenty of signs but there were plastic fold-able easel-like holders that usually sit in the middle of a path, if that makes any sense) around the different buildings to direct us to places compared to at Nats in the past couple years. The signs also didn't list the directions to all of the events, so you would have to make a couple inferences and have good map reading skills (which our team was unfortunately lacking in), which was especially important since there was a decent bit of detours due to construction. A couple of my teammates and I went in a circle to get to home base.
And then my Forensics partner and I were late to Forensics because of:
1) A wrong turn (which was kind of our fault)
2) We arrived at the building with two minutes to go...only to find the outside door with the sign on it to be locked. We had to follow a couple of MIT students through the basement (due to construction) with another lost competitor, then couldn't find the room because sign near the elevator was inconclusive (the other competitor who was with us actually had gotten into the building before but couldn't find the room so he left, and was now stuck with us). Somehow we made our way to the room after we ran into another MIT student who showed us there.
That, to say the least, was a nightmare. Thankfully, the event supervisor was nice enough to let us in at all (thanks Pikachu
). We lost 5-15 minutes total on the test from the setup lecture/being late, which goes to saying that directions could have been a bit more clear and the door could have not been locked.
The only reason we didn't go to Princeton this year as our primary choice was because it was a week after our regional tournament, so the turnaround time would have been very bad, especially since it would have been our first competitive out of state invite in our team's recent years. If it had been held on a different weekend, perhaps earlier, we might have gone there instead.
could just be the fact that I wasn’t a student there, but yes, everything was much easier to find at Princeton (then again idk if I can say much about that since the lab I was in for Princeton was basically across the street from HQ...only annoying thing was that someone had to come with me in the case that the building was card-locked, but that’s also something that comes with being there but not being a student that actually goes there)
