Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As a non-drive team member of a team who had to play in the pits, I appreciated being able to walk 100 ft from our pit to watch the matches, but I did not appreciate the severe lack of seating which made watching the matches near impossible unless you staked out a seat for the whole day. Unlike the dome where there's enough seating but not all may be "good" seats, there were not enough seats available for eliminations in the pit fields. I certainly am not a fan of the long, circuitous trek from our pits to the seats in the dome, but I at least have a seat when I arrive.

TL;DR - Pit seats are great, if there are enough.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As a Canadian? Bring CMP to Indianapolis. Or Toronto (I can dream...).

Toronto DOES actually have the Convention Space + Domed Stadium Combo going on, but I really can't see FIRST taking it out of the USA. Too many logistics issues for getting teams there.

Indy though, is only about 10 hours drive, give or take, and sounds like the only real viable candidate other than St Louis, Atlanta, or Orlando (which isn't even being considered AFAIK). Obviously, I'd prefer Detroit on distance, but I don't think they have an appropriate venue to do the event justice.

Remember folks, the 2015 Championship Event could be a VERY different event from Championship as we know it.

We're going to be sporting a new control system, which carries with it a strong likelihood of a revamped field management system. FIRST is looking for new host cities, a large portion of FIRST will have made the transition to a district system, complete with inter-district play, and HQ is trying to figure out how to get more teams to CMP, with more matches, without changing how long the event is.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that one of the best options is for FIRST to transition the divisions to having 2 fields each, which will allow more teams, with more matches, and not significantly changing the length of the event or its volunteer needs.

That type of a change could have a significant impact on the floorplan needs, and so moving away from cities with a Domed Stadium/Convention Center combo might be more viable than meets the eye.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I think the whole Louisville bidding thing is more of a self-promoting attempt by that Jim Wood, or whomever else is in charge of the bidding, than an actual attempt to bring CMP there (or just a simple PR trick).

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

On behalf of the Visit Indy bid for the Indianapolis FIRST Championships, we had a good crew working on layout solutions for FRC, FTC, and FLL in Lucas Oil Stadium (LOS) and the Indianapolis Convention Center (ICC).

To walk robots and drive teams back and forth between the ICC and LOS reminded us of Houston in 2003, which was not optimal. So, having FRC pits in ICC and fields (except for Einstein) in LOS was not an option. However, we still have two good layout plans.

Our #1 suggestion is to have all of FRC in the ICC and then FLL and FTC in LOS.

Our #2 suggestion is to have all of FRC in LOS, with pits and fields. FTC and FLL would then be in ICC.

Once FIRST makes their decision within a few weeks, we may post more regarding the details of this layout in Indy. I can attest that there have been many people working hard on this, and the above two options are good plans.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

How far apart are the LOS and ICC? I've always liked how the three programs have always been together under one roof, so that the participants of each program can check out the happenings of the other programs. To me this is a great way to enhance the unity of the programs; to show the world that the programs are a progression and not three separate paths. I'm willing to bet that a large proportion of the students there have never really watched a match from one or both of the other programs. If FTC/FLL are physically separated from FRC, I would be worried that very few participants and spectators would take the time to go visit the other location.

The same question would apply to the other cities as well - I'm not picking on beautiful Indianapolis.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

From the maps it looks like there's a loading dock, an underpass bridge for rail tracks, and a small parking lot. Yeah, not exactly an ideal connection, unless the parking lot gets converted to a "play field" like Atlanta's. No underground connections?

I'm sure the planning crew has something good figured out.

ICC is across the street from LOS, but there isn't a weatherproof connection that can handle over 6000 robot trips/day plus spectators in both directions. Hence the plan to split programs.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I second this. I've always loved being able to see all of the programs. Being an FLL veteran (competed 2005-2010/11*) and a mentor since, if I love to keep up on them there. I'm not sure that separating the program would be a good idea.

*If you're not aware, the FLL season runs from September until end of the year, but for the few teams competing at Worlds (last year about 0.41% of teams) it is of course the following year.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I've often heard this cited as a good reason (which I think it definitely is... theoretically) to keep FLL, FTC, and FRC close together at the World Championships... but I'm curious how many people take advantage of the relative ease we have to "get out and see the other programs?"

From personal experience, I actually don't think I've ever visited the other program fields or taken the time to tour the other program pits any of the times I've been to CMP (2003 and 2004 as an FLL student, and 2006, 2010, and 2011 as an FRC student or mentor)... with the exception of in 2003 when my FLL team was fortunate enough to win the 1st Place Director's award, we sat in on the Einstein matches and award ceremony, where we were re-awarded the Director's award. On that occasion - at least as a 11yo FLL student - I wasn't overly interested in the Einstein matches. (I actually found FRC kinda lame compared to FLL when I first started to transition from FLL to FRC... now I find the opposite.)

Am I the only one that's so absorbed in competing with my team for that particular program that I rarely take the time to check out what else is going on? If the MAYHEM FRC and FLL teams ever qualified for CMP in the same season, I almost certainly would pay more attention... but having relatively little invested in the other programs each year, I rarely paid much attention to anything but the program I was competing in. Is this different for spectators or people that have simultaneous involvement in the programs?

Really, I'm saying that even though having FLL, FTC, and FRC all under the same roof sounds great on paper, how many people would it affect how much to have the programs in adjacent/nearby buildings? If I'm in the minority and many people are actually checking out FIRST as a whole, then perhaps this is quite important; however, I'm just curious how much this argument is "real" and not just "on paper."

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

From a participant's perspective, I agree with what you're saying.

However, Worlds is a show. And from a viewer's perspective, the grandeur of having the entire show under one roof is too high to give up.

- Sunny G.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

The convention center is connected to Lucas Oil Stadium through underground passages.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Having the competitions in separate buildings across the street from each other would be fine with me. If that's a way to expand the list of possible cities beyond Atlanta + St. Louis, great.

Having pits close to the fields is more important than having FRC close to FLL and FTC.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Overwhelmingly agree. Other than the lack of seating at times, I really liked the 2011 setup when we were playing on the 'close to the pit' fields.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I'm hoping for Indianapolis.
Its nice to go to different venues and visit different cities when your team pays more than $1000 per ticket.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I thought the most interesting part was: "A decision is expected by the end of September."

Do you think they will tell us as soon as the decision is made, or make us wait til championships?