Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Another thread got me thinking about how we could improve the championship event, and below is what I would propose when we next change venues:

The Championship has pretty much expanded beyond the point where it comfortably fits in one dome, we would be better served in a convention center style venue (The Los Angeles Convention Center and the The Staples Center or something similar) This would be the schedule:

Wednesday - Practice matches and the first qualification matches in 8 divisions 60 team divisions, in the exhibition halls.
Thursday - More Qualification Matches
Friday - Qualification Matches, Alliance Selections, Division Elimination Matches and Awards.
Saturday - Now we get to the fun part. At this point, we move everyone into the Staples Centre for the "Einstein" Division. All the teams from each winning alliance and the captains of each finalist alliance are part of this 32 team division. They play a handful of round-robin style matches in this divisions. Each team's QS is the sum of the points earned in the round robin with 1 additional QS point for each win that they achieved in their divisions (this helps sort the rankings and also handicaps the finalist team). Then Alliance selections and Eliminations for the World Championship :).

There are a number of reasons that I believe this would be a superior system:

• We now include an incredible 480 teams at worlds.
• Everyone gets more qualification matches
• We end with the absolute best talent in the world winning. (No more getting stuck in the wrong division).
• Saturday provides an awesome show that is watchable to a wide audience. Because the level of play is incredible and the number of teams is reasonable to follow.

Hopefully this inspires some interesting discussion,

- Alex

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I think there are a lot of great ideas here. I'm not sure how many of our students or mentors could take an entire week off a school or work to attend, though. Most of us are already feeling the effects of taking three days off for this years championship.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Personally all I want is FIRST to adopt the Battlecry model and have 16 alliances battling all Saturday long (with full individual awards ceremonies afterwards for each division) til the survivors settle it on Einstein in the early evening.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Since this seems to concern a number of people, I have condensed it to three days.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The Astrodome has been closed for a few years, so it's really just one stadium now.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The 2003 FIRST Championship was held in Reliant Park. I don't think many miss the walk to the field.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I definitely think your on the right track. Even if we just increased the number of division to 8 with 70 teams each and continued with the same format each team would get more matches, approximately 12 compared to the 10 now. Einstein would then become an 8 team tournament to decide the champion.

To facilitate the expansion of Championship from ~360 to 560 teams the current World Championship would have to just become the FRC World Championship with FLL and FTC either moving to earlier in the week or more likely to their own event earlier in the year.

We should still be able to host it at the EJD in St. Louis

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I was glad someone else said it! Championships in this place was a mess and that's all I'm going to say.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Perhaps a convention center would be a better fit. (I have changed the original proposal to use the LA Convention Center, and the Staples Center for finals.)

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The reasons the most recent set of Championships have been where they were is because they are, relatively, centrally located for all teams. If Championships were in LA, then >70% of teams would incur costs of flights that are astronomical. Finding the best location for any type of Championship for this program is difficult.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

McCormick Convention Center followed by United Center (Madhouse on Madison) in Chicago. Has an international airport (O'Hare) and is centrally located in the US.

-Nick

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Largest convention center in the world and you cant beat what Orlando has to offer for high schoolers.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

United Center is nowhere near McCormick.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

If you really want to expand the number of teams you can have, hold it at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington Texas.

I dare you to find a bigger venue.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Since I live in Canada I have had to pay for the flights to all 4 championships I have/will attend, so I hadn't really thought about this. The point of using the LA Convention Center is to prove that facilities exist that would fit the proposal, its not central to the changes that would be made to the championship event.

- Alex

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

We could put 8 fields and the pits in Lucas Oil but the FTC and FLL wouldn't fit and would have to stay next door in the convention center.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

It is much more expensive for us to fly to St. Louis than to anywhere that's a major air hub. If it was in, say, Detroit or Atlanta, we could probably afford to fly rather than take a 14 hour bus ride.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I know a place with many convention center options, where airfare is almost always cheap, and there's a few nearby hotel options as well. If championship had to be extended a day, I get the feeling many mentors would take it a little better than some other places...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Probably one of the funniest posts ever.

This is probably a topic for another thread, but who would the new divisions be named after? Would Franklin/da Vinci be recycled from FTC? My money's on Tesla.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

If we are going to throw around location ideas, the DC Convention Center has at least 4 halls, each one with more than enough space to support a 65 team regional. The issue would come, I think, when you have to put 4 or 5 sets of bleachers up at once. And I believe DC has airport hubs for United, US Air, and Delta.

In all honesty, the space we had for the first 2 years of the DC regional could have squeezed close to an entire second regional into, so my guess is that someone, with a lot of planning and measuring, could get 6 regional sized setups in there no problem. But somehow I don't think space is FIRST's biggest concern with the championships...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

My proposal:



Offer awards to the Quarter-finalists, Semi-finalists, Championship Finalist and Championship Winners. Thats a total of 24 awards (if no backups), better than the 30 as current (if no backups) - thus aiding FIRST in their "award problem". The division fields will be where the 1st, 2nd and quarterfinal rounds are played, with the 1st/8th seed playing on their "home court". Semifinal and Final rounds are played on Einstein as they are now.

Drive teams would be awarded with their finalist trophies after their match, either on the Field they play on, or onto the stage set up beside Einstein. This way, after the teams lose the event, their drive teams can be given that "lets give a hand to this great alliance."

The reason I would drop the whole "Division" thing, and settle for more "finalist" awards, is because divisions alter every year. The word can be used in another way for FIRST by dropping it from the current use. Divisional Finalists are nothing more than Championship Quarter-Finalists anyway. Rather than saying you are in the "Curie Division", you would say "Curie Field" or in this year's game: "Curie Court".

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Best idea put forth so far. I bet you could get most teams to vote yes for this change.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Best idea in this thread. Count me in.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The Bahamas. I like the idea of a neutral site.



I know he means Las Vegas

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I really like the idea of moving FLL and FTC to before or after the FRC championships. This allows for more space to be used in the same venue to create a larger FRC championship.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I like the idea of moving the FLL and FTC events because some of our best students are on our FTC teams as well.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I"m just curious: How many of you are actually serious about finding a great new proposal, and going into action to make it happen? If anyone can go from idea to final creation, it's FIRSTers. I love all the ideas so far, and would be willing to help push any one of them (Go champs in Las Vegas!) if people were serious about it.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Staples Center is no go due to the NBA and NHL playoffs being in the same time frame as Championship.

Related:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95097

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

There are three major issues that need to be addressed when one considers changing the format for the Championship Event

+ The Setting: Location is key. The location has to be somewhat centralized, in a major city, with reasonable logistic options. (for example: i've heard the reason Indianapolis got turned down for the 2011-2013 Championship Event was because all they had was a bus service as a form of public transportation. St. Louis and Atlanta both had rail services running directly from the airports to a location which was walking distance away from the main venue). An International airport is a must at this point. There have to be things of interest besides the Championship Event itself that attract people to that particular city. For example, Atlanta had the Coca-Cola Factory, CNN, and the Aquarium, St. Louis has the Arch. Indianapolis has the motor speedway. The city also has to have a reasonable amount of hotel rooms, everyone needs a bed to sleep on and a place to crash. These hotels also have to be relativity close to the event venue. Visitors also need a place to eat nearby as well. a reasonable amount of food options nearby also need to be accounted for when selecting a city. FIRST transports the various fields using trucks, these trucks need to arrive in the city in a timely manner as well so that they can be set up for the big show. These things factor into the selection for a Championship site.

+ The Venue itself: I believe the city dictates the venue, and the venue will dictate the format of the event. Is it plausible for FIRST to switch over to a convention center style setup? or does FIRST have to stick to the Stadium/Convention Center Hybrid? (Note: the only cites with active dome type stadiums are Atlanta GA, Arlington TX, Detroit MI, Glendale AZ, Houston TX, Indianapolis IN, Minneapolis MN, New Orleans LA, and St. Louis MO.) These are questions that need to be answered before one can move on to selecting a proper venue. The America's Center has a little more than 500,000 square feet of exhibit space, including the dome. The Championship Event took up everything except for some of the ballrooms upstairs. For the championship event to expand, your going to need more exhibit space for pits and fields. As i mentioned above, you need numerous options for dining and lodging nearby the venue. The venue also has to be available for the dates listed. A major flaw with a venue like the LA live event complex is that it includes Staples Center, the home of the Las Angeles Lakers, Las Angeles Clippers of the NBA, and the Las Angeles Kings of the NHL. As most sports fans know, the playoff seasons for the NHL and NBA traditionally start in mid-April. thus, putting the availability for some portions of these venues into question.

+ The format of the event itself: does FIRST want the event to stick to it's traditional roots, with load in being late Wednesday afternoon going into Wednesday night? or are they willing to push this back further so that more things can be put on the event agenda / more teams can participate in the Championship event? does the venue dictate that FIRST has to be limited to x number of FRC/FTC/FLL/JFLL teams/fields? can FIRST expand this in any way. What should teams expect to pay when it comes to expenditures for the expansion of the Championship Event? Can students afford extra days off from school, can mentors/teachers/volunteers afford extra days out of school/work to attend the event? These are the types of questions FIRST should be asking when selecting a new location for Championship.

now, onto my opinion

I think within a couple of years, the event will either have to move back to Atlanta, or move to Chicago/Dallas. Cities like Las Angeles, Orlando, Las Vegas and New Orleans are also viable options, although these cities are not centralized. If FIRST somehow makes it tougher for teams to get into the Championship event, keeping roughly the same number of teams/fields, then options like Denver, Indianapolis, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Houston and Phoenix become available.

Up until the end of build season this year, i was firmly a believer that having fields and pits next door in a convention center setup was a bad idea. that was until i saw this


Panoramic / Seating Chart

That is the Adidas Center Court, which is a part of the NBA Jam Session that takes place during the NBA All Star Weekend. If FIRST could get bleachers like that for their fields. (there is seating just like that on the other side, and there was plenty of seating from behind that viewpoint as well.) then i don't think a lot of people would have a problem with fields being right next to pits in the convention hall. (Seating and noise were the two major concerns that i heard from people after last year's Championship Event regarding the fields in the pits. There's plenty of seating here, and those bleachers covering three sides of the field can create a good noise buffer between the field and pits.)

This is the qualification system I would prefer FIRST use, I believe it balances both the Competition and Award components of the program out evenly. (sorry for it being technical and everything, if there is anything you don't understand please feel free to PM me.)

I also think FIRST would like to keep the FLL and FTC championships under one roof with the FRC events. This is because the kids in these programs are inspired by what we do in FRC. Why should the have that opportunity taken away from them? (this is why the field setup last year was the way it was. they could have fit three fields on the dome floor along with the BEP stage, but they choose not to partially because of this reason).

Personally, I'd love to go "all in" on Vegas. I think the mentors would have a blast, but im not so sure about all the students, and getting parental approval from stricter parents. (Not to mention getting the school board to approve the trip for those teams that have to jump through that flaming hoop).

Edit: I also like Tetraman's idea, although i think some teams/alliances may find that confusing.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I also put my vote in for how awesome this would be. Would you run this tournament on one central field?? or two (four?)??

This would make scouting really tough. You would basically have to scout every division...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I'm not sure of it in comparison to some of the other locations, but as a freshman I was in awe of the size of the New Orleans Morial Convention Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orl...vention_Center

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I'm in. I could drive to it. Plus, it's a convention capitol of the world. However, I do mind the smoke.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The first, second and quarterfinal rounds would be played on the seperate 4 fields with the semifinal and finals on Einstein. That's exactly how it is played out currently, just we don't have a large extended bracket. Division Finalists are the Championship Quarter-finalists already, we don't don't call them that.

It would make scouting a bit wonky, but that is why I set each division up against themselves first, that way scouts have two or three matches to see what teams can do before they go up against them. And there is the thought of so many teams having to swap seating before the elimination matches and letting everyone know which Field they will be moved to. That can't really be fixed.

However if a change to how the elimination matches are played is something FIRSTers are looking for (and I'm not sure it is), this is an easy change that wouldn't take additional time than is already slotted and end up a more interesting tournament allowing top seeds from same divisions a shot at the prize.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

In all honesty, Detroit, New Orleans, and Las Vegas would all be great places to have CMP for so many reasons, but varying fair/unfair perceptions about each of these cities could scare away FIRST.

I think FIRST will never sacrifice these two things:
All age groups of the sport under one roof
The roof is a convention center/arena hybrid. Personally, I feel weird even thinking about playing Einstein in an Exhibit hall...

Other logistics issues: New Orleans and Detroit aren't really airport hubs like Atlanta, St. Louis, and Vegas are. While every city makes a proposal, I feel like FIRST liked St. Louis for its flights and central location over others. I'm not saying a city won't offer a better deal later and FIRST the deal just under the pretense of location in the contiguous states, but it's something they are considering now.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I've seen this mentioned in other threads before so I just wanted to mention it. Atlanta is NOT centralized. It was a good venue and it is the busiest airport in the US in terms of passenger volume, however it is no closer to the center of the country than Las Vegas, and is quite a bit further than the current championships in St. Louis. Once the championship is more than a 6 hour drive away flying begins to look like a better option and many teams will always be forced to fly to attend, so a good international airport is more important than a centralized location IMO.

I also wouldn't mind seeing FIRST rotate the championships once every 3 or 4 years. It'd be nice if only from a perspective of letting other areas see what it is like once in a while.

I like your ideas on a qualifying score system, though I think it should be simplified quite a bit. The idea of a Pre-elimination tournament seems like a pricey proposition though, I know my team could not pay to fly out for a "pre-qualifying" tournament where we may only be competing for one day, and it would be impossible to book hotels after winning (since you wouldn't want to book them before you know if you are staying).

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I've been told that San Antonio wants to get in on the fun. When I was down for the Alamo Regional I walked from the parking to the Convention Center. If it did end up there robots would have to go outside, cross a road, go under a shockingly low highway overpass and across a large open area to get into the Alamodome. I don't think teams would much care for that.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Hope it doesn't rain! (Though I guess there are worse places to bank on it not raining)

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

#2014HawaiiChampionship
It'll happen.

In all honesty though, why extend what already works? Granted I have not attended the St. Louis Championships yet (That's this year for me :D) but from what I heard, it seemed to have worked. The fields-in-the-pit thing would probably have to be worked out, but apart from that I think it went swimingly.
One of the best parts of keeping FLL and FTC at the same time is that it gives the younger kids (Mainly FLL) something to look up to. I imagine there is nothing more impressive to an elementary or middle school kid than walking into an arena or convention center and seeing THOUSANDS of High Schoolers eagerly awaiting to come talk to you about your lego robot. Heck, that's what keep me awe struck my freshman year when we qualified for Atlanta by winning Oklahoma as a #1 seed.

There's a quote that I love from The New Cool which (paraphrasing; I don't have the book with me at school) "You've seen the robots on the internet, and now you're seeing them in person. You realize that this is it.. You're here, and you may never be here again."

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I'm still proposing a FIRST Championship in Toronto.

The SkyDome/Metro Convention Centre combo is perfect. (Yes, I still refuse to call it the Rogers Center)

I know it won't happen though, since FIRST would rather hassle the ~100 FRC teams from Canada with border crossing than the ~2000 FRC teams from the states.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

On this topic, I did a little research into airfares to the various cities we've been talking about. (Sorry, didn't get to San Antonio.)

These are the cheapest roundtrip fares (all US$) Expedia is currently offering for Wed-Sun of this year's Championship (April 25-29). Granted, they fluctuate, but from my back-checking they don't seem to change too much to offer a general idea. The columns are (most?) the venue cities mentioned in this thread. The rows are the kinda-sorta most populous FIRST cities/areas based on the EWCP 2012 map, kinda-sorta in order, with some weighting towards checking different geographic areas. My minimum flight distance was 9-10hrs by car (whoops?). I also threw in Honolulu, Tel Aviv (do you guys fly out of TLV?), and Istanbul for reference. The averages are not weighted. If someone has better location data than me trying to slog through a heat map, I'd be happy to weight them.

Initial Thoughts:
1. <3 Chicago
2. Is Vegas inflated for some reason? (e.g. did we hit peak season/spring break for something?)
3. LA, while not geographically central to CONUS, seems quite well-priced. And it's not even the most expensive for our Eurasian continent friends.
4. Toronto is probably having an overly strong affect on price averages for venues out of driving distance. (It's disproportionately expensive for the number of teams there.) This also goes for any possibility of it housing a venue itself--flights are expensive!
5. Denver (listed only as a row) seems to have a lot of cheap flights. No good venues, huh?

Based on that Chicago seems to be the best, is there a place we could host it there?

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Chicago isn't too bad coming from San Jose. Plus, if we play in any of their basketball stadiums, we NEED to have the Chicago Bulls intro (Sirus/Eye in the sky) played during alliance intros!

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I think it would be fun if this elimination bracket was held all (or most of) Saturday on a central field or two, and was a fully produced show like Einstein is now. They could run it like a double regional alternating between fields for the different sides of the bracket until the final match. That way all the teams could see the great elimination matches. I personally think that would be quite a show...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

It would provide a unique, "extended scouting" experience for the elimination alliances if chosen at the end of the previous day, too. Imagine meeting with your alliance partner drive teams and key people, going over tape, crafting the perfect autonomous strategy.... *drool*

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

You could conceivably substitute Toronto (YYZ) for Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG) or Buffalo (BUF).

Both are within a two hour drive of Toronto, and typically YYZ commands a 50% or greater price premium over them. Most pleasure travellers I know steadfastly refuse to fly from Pearson, preferring instead to drive over the border and fly from Buffalo or Niagara. It means you don't have to deal with customs in the airport (the land crossing guards are much easier to deal with) AND its substantially cheaper.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Thanks for the tip; I retract Thought #4 about Toronto. BUF seemed to have the best prices. (IAG doesn't seem to fly many places?)

This also brought the Vegas average down. Still, pretty high.


Also, I used MCO for Orlando. I think this is reasonable. Should I check Sanford as well? Note that I did use all LA and NYC airports (for some reason Expedia doesn't want to search all of Orlando at once).

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Probably not, unless it's for international flights (if tel aviv/istubal connect through any of the London airports, Sanford would then become an option to fly into.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Maybe I'm a little biased, but I loved the championship in Atlanta. And if FIRST really wanted to expand the event, I don't believe they have ever used the full GWCC. It may be too far down the road to even think about, but there are plans in Atlanta for a new transportation hub and hotel area right next to the GA Dome.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Is it just me, or did you not include the "driving" cities (not $0, but certainly not as much) into your average? That would certainly skew the real average cost for teams...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Remember, going from 4 to 8 divisions will require double the volunteers.

Going forward, I see a step between regionals and championships, have 4-6 'super regionals' (for lack of a better name) and regionals will qualify you into those. Sort of like the district model, but not as dense and the 'super regionals' could have 160 teams over 2 fields.

Wetzel

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I have deliberately omitted these for now because I do not have anything even approaching appropriate guesses. The goal of this chart is to contribute to the numerous "but it's an air travel hub" discussions that have arisen in this thread. (To be honest, I wasn't anticipating just how many "drivable pairs" would show up.) If someone has driving prices, team density numbers, other cities, or anything else, please feel free.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Yeah; there's been an ongoing battle for a while in our political arena here arguing that airport taxes, especially at Pearson, but country-wide as well, are far too high, and its costing them business to nearby US airports like Buffalo.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

if you think 14 hours is bad. Team 180 drives 23 hours plus bus driver changes! but we get by just cuz our normal driver is amazing and is a FRC volunteer.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I gave it a shot with driving included in the average at a value of 0. There were three apparent groups (internal sorting in in increasing order of price):

<200
Chicago

255-300
Atlanta
Los Angeles
Dallas
Indianapolis
St. Louis
Houston
Phoenix
Orlando

375+
New Orleans
Vegas

This data is not particularly authoritative, however it needs more information before we can draw any definitive conclusions. Some interesting observations:

• Chicago is in a league of its own!
• Los Angeles isn't measurably more expensive than Atlanta

If we could get a complete list of team postal codes, or even cities, that would go a long way to making an authoritative chart.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Take this:
https://my.usfirst.org/frc/scoring/i...?page=teamlist

... and make it less of a mess by:
1. Copying everything.
2. Opening Excel, going to "Paste Special", and then "Unicode Text".

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

How many of these cities are actually actively interested in hosting the Championships? As I recall from the 2010 craziness to host in 2011, the only three serious considerations were Atlanta, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.
I'll have to say STL certainly did it right last year, and they're already promoting it this year. However, and this may be the townie bias in me talking, but if a city can host a Super Bowl, and do it remarkably and unequivocally well, then in my eyes that city would be the frontrunner to host the next round of FIRST Championships.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

How about hosting the NBA All-Star game and all the other festivities that go with it for the entire week?

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Robot vs. NBA player free-throw contest, anyone? :D

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

THIS!

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

It will never happen in DC, its just TOO expensive and its def not centrally located. The DC regional is about 2-3X more expensive than other regionals. It is the most expensive only FRC regional competition to run(there are other regionals, mainly New York, that put on FTC and i think FLL comps during the same weekend that raises the cost of their competition above DC, but DC is the most expensive competition that only runs FRC).

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

If it happens in D.C, it could be part of the Engineering & Science Fair activities.

ESF DC was an awesome event !. I recommend any team that plans financially to make it to championship, but not make it, should consider taking the money and go to DC for ESF

Missouri Pavilion went unconstested !.

The 2013 BERSDT ESF DC challenge is who can bring a demo robot that can help on the garden built out of FIRST Robotics kit (70% by market value >)

Cheers,
Marcos.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

After a year in MAR, I'd like to see the district models expanded, so that all teams are in 'district' with the same point system. Then teams can go outside the district and transfer points.

Then have two championships, (east and west coast?) 4 fields each.... The winners from the eight fields meet and compete for the worlds....

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Good idea. That way you could have 400 teams at both East and West coast. Makes for a very expensive season for the winning teams. But this is just dreaming right?

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Just some notes to take into account. The weather in many of the upper midwestern regions is usually pretty awful in April or May.

Coming from Chicago I can tell you that it would not be a very good city for an indoor based Championship unless you would like to have the entire show in McCormick Place. A Regional Championship, yes, but Nationals, no (unless FIRST can convince the city to put a dome on Soldier Field :) ).

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Except for the price tag to attend.:ahh:

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

It'd be worth every penny....and it wouldn't be that expensive for us :p

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

It's also fun to look at FLL teams and see what they have done (I retain interest as a former FLL-er).:]

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I'll be ecstatic if we return to Atlanta. I vastly prefer it to St Louis.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I agree 1,000,000%. Sorry St. Louis, but Atlanta fit the championship alot better.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Its not that it fit better its that there is more to do in ATL that is close to the venue and you didn't have to spend 12 bucks a meal to get a crappy ham sandwich, chips, tiny bottle of water, and a cookie/brownie.

The only thing that STL has over ATL is the walk from the pits to the field for both the drive teams and the people who walked from the pits to the stands is MUCH shorter. Otherwise STL is behind ATL by a huge margin.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The other benefit of STL is its location. While it doesn't matter so much to some teams who would have to fly regardless, there are many teams that are able to travel by bus who would have had to fly to ATL, or have a very long bus ride.

781 has travelled overnight on the bus to and from STL the last 2 years they have attended, leaving Tuesday night and arriving Wednesday around midday. When they attended at Epcot in 2002, they also took a bus, but more school/work time was lost for the trip.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

No hockey arena would work due to the possibility of the Stanley Cup playoffs (St. Louis was playing L.A. not to far from the Edward Jones Dome while the championships were wrapping up). This is why football stadiums are the prime choice, they are in their off-season.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

We used to be able to take a bus to Atlanta, a few years we were also able to share the cost with other teams(1902, 801, 233), which allowed us to be able to afford a travel regional that would allow us to fly farther away. Now that we have to fly to STL we are having to look at closer/drivable regionals which restricts us to the teams we interact with, the regionals we can attend, and the type of fun we want to have on our travel trips; the fun usually was with snow because kids that live in Florida will most likely never see snow.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

St. Louis is a much cleaner safer city though. We were assaulted TWICE in Atlanta during champs 2 years ago. We felt a lot better about our kids in St. Louis...

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

What happened?

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

That's what we loved best about this year.
Of the approx. 400 robots at CMP this year, our pit was THE closest to entering the fields.:p

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

The first time a guy off the street walked up and started pushing on a student, trying to start a fight I guess. Our student acted very mature and just stood there. The guy stopped, but we were followed by him and 2 of his friends all the way to the dome.

The second time a group of people came over and stole a hat off one of our mentors heads and started harassing the entire team.

Needless to say we had a much more pleasant experience in St. Louis. Especially downtown. We felt perfectly safe there. :p

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I was physically assaulted in St. Louis this year as well as later harassed. On the all it is probably better than Atlanta, though.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

Part of the selection criteria FIRST went through when finding a bidding out a new site for Championship was having a stadium with convention center attached. That chopped down the venue list drastically since there are only a few of those in the country. I hear it is still a requirement for when they re-bid next year.

Then it moved to what cities have good public transportation, an airport that can accommodate a lot of people, and hotels near the venue.

I heard everyone would have loved to do Vegas since they could have put on a great show and handled the crowds but with so many kids Vegas probably wouldn't want us.

Re: Championship 2014 Proposal
 

I agree. Atlanta had a LOT more open space both within the venue and outside. Between Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Center, the huge plaza between the World Congress Center and the dome, and the HUGE lobby of the GWCC, it was able to accomodate us a lot better. I liked that everything was in one giant space, including the finale. As a freshman and junior, I was very impressed and awe-struck in ATL, but in STL I just feel cramped and crowded.

The CMP could always move to Morgantown, though :eek: We have a few hotels and a football stadium and an airport :D

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The George R. Brown Convention Center would easily host the 8 division and then you could have the finals at Reliant. It already hosts the Lone Star Regional in a small section every year so I can't imagine it being too difficult to expand it across the entire convention center. It might be a Texan's bias but Houston would be one of the best cities to use for Championship. It's central location is favorable to teams from all regions.

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Houston is really far from pretty much everyone when you look at driving distance.

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I would love to see the Championship in Indianapolis or at the United Center in Chicago.

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I must agree that we should keep all FIRST programs at the same Championship, I know as an FLL student I enjoyed looking at "the big robots" and as an FRC student, I do still enjoy looking through the FLL teams' work. I'm looking forward to it!

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I totally agree with Chicago. It is easy to fly there from many states being a major hub.

STL has been a LOT more expensive to fly to that ATL ever was.

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Championship may come back to Atl soon. At Peachtree, Atlanta sent a rep to tell us Atlanta is trying to get championship back.

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Our last year in Atlanta 2010, we were approached 3 times by different characters on the street. All 3 were dangerous situations. I grew up in Philly, so I know the difference.
The last incident happened about 5 blocks from the CNN Center, when two nuts with a Taser approached our group. We circled the wagons and silently stood our ground, so they got bored and left. I swore right then that we would never return to Atlanta as a team. I am ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of my students.

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I think 400 teams is the max we will ever see at championships. In fact, I can see FIRST implementing super regionals, and then having a much more intimate championship event only inviting the best of the best. Logistics become much easier, and just qualifying for championships becomes a prize in itself.

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Atlanta actually has a lower crime rate than St. Louis.
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ga/atlanta/crime/
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mo/st-louis/crime/

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Has anyone encountered (or heard of other teams encountering) dangerous situations in St. Louis?

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When Atlanta was home to championships it had the title of "Most dangerous city in america". As soon as we moved to St. Louis, the title transferred. Coincidence?

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The Championship needs to move back to Atlanta. This all I'm going to say.

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All those crazy teenagers walking around Atlanta trying to "Save the world" looking like gang members with their attire.


That could do it! ;)

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Also, I've heard through the grapevine that FTC is going to expand to a Super Regional/District Level competition before championships because of how much larger the program is than FRC now.

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FTC is actually smaller than FRC, with slightly fewer teams but less than half the number of students. It does have a few dozen more events; nothing overwhelming, but if the logistics and fees work out for them, the more play the better. Does that mean fewer FTC teams at championships, or will it be a FRC-district type "equivalent" qualification?

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That would probably require them to actually encounter people in St Louis, which we have never really seen.

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Yea thats the main thing that I've always been disappointed by St. Louis is how quiet and empty Downtown is during Championship, and how few good restaurants and amenities there are in the area. Its a clean city and I never felt in danger, but coming from a city like Toronto where people actually live downtown it's... well... different....

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Detroit is actually the Most Dangerous City in America. St. Louis is ranked 2nd and Atlanta is ranked 7th.

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In St. Louis last year, there were several times that I had to cross the street to avoid less then friendly individuals and was offered drugs on a few occasions. I was surprised at how little I saw St. Louis PD. I can handle myself and at no time did I feel in danger - but the possibility exists.

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I don't like the sounds of that. Half the point of Worlds as it stands is getting all the teams together, the atmosphere. I agree on the max 400 teams, but "super regionals" is just another financial barrier between teams and a world title.