Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

I thought I heard somewhere about it being at the Science Center and City Museum, the rain driving away the City Museum because of the amount of stuff to do outside there.

Re: A Message from Bob Tuttle
 

Maybe there will be 4 robots per alliance! Chief Delphi Community, do you think that's stretching it a bit?

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

I wish that FIRST / Steele Meetings wouldn't force team to buy tickets for the FIRST Finale. When our team has gone through Steele Meetings we have never went to the finale because we want to stay till the end of Einstein (which is better then the Science Center).

Possible ways to increase matches at the Championship
- Less teams make it to the championship
- More Divisions
- No Practice Matches, Straight to Qualifications
- Faster Field Reset Times
- Stay Later on Thursday and/or Friday to play more matches
- Etc

-Clinton-

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

There was nothing about that released by FIRST at all this year. It was going to be the St. Louis Science Center and the planetarium and lawn across the highway bridge.

However, even if the outside wasn't ruined by the rain, the fact that the busses let us out at the front of the science center, when most people's final destination was probably the lawn and planetarium to watch the fireworks/participate in all the games and activities (which is BEHIND the science center, but has its own road and bus turn around), the science center would have still been extremely crowded with people just trying to get THROUGH it.

They should have dropped us off at the planetarium. That way, people that wanted to stay outside could do so without jamming into the science center, and those that wanted to see the science center could do so without the crowding of people that just wanted to get through.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

Science Center AND City Museum? They are not co-located and the Science Center requires transportation to get there from the Dome. I'm not sure how you could have a Finale event at both locations unless there was some transportation logistics setup in between, but that doesn't really make sense.

We walked to the City Museum on Friday night from our hotel near the Dome (and I had a ton of fun there).

Re: A Message from Bob Tuttle
 

I think it's real awesome FIRST goes through all this efforts to improve. I haven't been with FIRST for a long time, only three years, but I still can definitely see the difference between the way FIRST ran when I joined in 2011 and the way it runs now. Nowadays, with the new people in charge, and especially Frank, I feel a lot more involved in the organisation, even without doing anything related to it's management. I also really appreciate FIRST's guts in making all of the changes that were made this year, and surprised they all went well.

Definitely. Four robots per alliance will be too hard to watch and too hard to play. It will also demand changing the format of alliance selections, and I can't think of a format that doesn't make alliances 6-8 obsolete.

This is for another thread though... If you want and have the mental powers to search through 700+ posts, I remember a discussion about this in this year's game hint thread.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

What if they had two fields for each division. So when one match finished they next match started. This would require more space, people, a well thought out schedule to be successful.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

Or, more fields per division, which would be the better answer. More divisions would require 4 more, as a championship bracket wouldn't work out very well with just 2 extra divisions unless those 2 divisions had a bye.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

As someone who has been an advocate for a round robin with 4 divisions, it's also possible to have a round robin with 5 divisions where you play 10 matches and the two alliances with the best record play one-two more matches to decide the winner of the event. You also can fit a fifth FRC field on the existing arena floor.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/ Good, But Should Be Better
 

I think there was a little confusion between the Finale last year and this year. This year was just the Science Museum. Last year, there were a few other sites on the menu of activities, including the City Museum & Arch, with different buses servicing.

Also the Talent Show was at the Science Museum, instead of the Theater in the America's Center where it was held last year.

But because the finals/closing ceremonies in the Dome ran more than 1.5 hours long, it magnified some of the failure points as discussed in the posts above. I'm glad FIRST has addressed how disappointing this was on all sorts of levels.

11,000 people held wristbands for the Finale.