Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I don't think it would ever happen, but I wonder if the Twin Cities could be a site in the future.

Amenities:
-'Fargo' and 'Grumpy Old Men' were filmed here ;)
-FRC at the new Vikings Stadium (larger than the former Metrodome)
-FTC/FLL could be at the Minneapolis Convention Center
-Former HUB of Northwest Airlines/Delta
- So it has the infrastructure
- There is a regional Airport in St Cloud that does a lot of flights to Chicago and the SW USA
-Mall of America could host many events
-Target Field could host a Twins night
-New Soccer Venue (if MN United and Twins can get a stadium built)
-2nd only to New York City in live theater per capita
-Is the third-largest theater market in the U.S.
-Has an expansive enclosed skyway that connects MPLS.
-THe area has an abundance of hotels and entertainment venues
-Is relatively safe *as long as you stay away from North MPLS
-has ever-increasing lines of Light Rail
(connecting from DTWN MPLS to MOA to StPaul to near StCloud).
-Has many Fortune 500 Corporations (Best Buy, PTC, Target, 3M, Medtronic, etc) to aid in the sponsorship.

Also, it already hosts the largest FRC event outside of the FRC Championships (MN North Star and 10,000 Lakes) - so it has the background of what to expect.

Any thoughts?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

It might take some doing. There isn't a one single giant open hall in the Convention Center like the one in St Louis, but if things were able to be spread out a little, it might work. The Convention Center is at the north end of the bus tunnel, one stop away from Westlake Center, which is the terminus of both the Light Rail to/from the airport and the monorail to/from Seattle Center. It isn't too far from Pike Place Market, and there are hotels nearby. Pretty much everything is within decent walking distance, as long as you don't mind hills.

As another option, the Tacoma Dome is about thirty miles south, and it is a giant domed field. It also has hotels nearby, though the transportation to/from the airport is a bit more difficult. (Our public transportation isn't that bad, as long as you're only trying to get in and out of Seattle. Elsewhere, it gets a bit spotty.)

More general pros: SeaTac airport is a decent sized hub, and there's no danger of either tornados or hurricanes (though April might be the wrong time of year for hurricanes anyway).

Cons: We're kind of all alone in our little corner of the country, and teams from elsewhere might have some trouble getting here as easily as they would to a more central (read: midwest) location.

Anyway, just the $0.02 of a local.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Midwest is usually best when it comes travelling for everyone. I think FIRST would like to keep it that way in order to make robot transport easiest.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

As an FLL team at the championships for the first time this year, we had mixed emotions when we heard this.

One one hand, it would be nice to have a shot at qualifying again next year because of the expanded field. On the other hand, one of the great things about the event was that all the programs were in the same location. We didn't have much down time to visit the FRC/FTC pits as it was this year (we really wanted to spend time there), and when the venue is at a different location next year, I don't see how that can happen at all. I have kids who are now FIRSTers for life because they can see their path forward in the progression of programs.

Another thought: FLL is hard to qualify for the World Festival (less than 0.5% of teams in the world get an invite, as opposed to about 10% - I think - of FRC teams). So, most FLL kids will never get the opportunity to attend anyway. Unless they are directly mentored by an FRC team, it doesn't seem likely that they will make the connection.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

It has been suggested :) I would be surprised if it happened as early as 2018, but give it another decade of infrastructure, growth, and FIRST development, but at that point we're so far into the future it's relatively impossible to predict.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I was all giddy with excitement about having 6 to 8 fields in the dome next year and then eliminations happened and Archimedes took up space on the backside of my field blocking my exit and Galileo was backing all the way up towards my front.
Now I'm concerned where are we supposed to put all these teams during elims.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I am not sure if I follow you here. The infrastructure (planes, trains,automobiles and walking) is better than what St Louis has or has proposed.

The growth is a question when it comes to FRC involvement - but considering the vast structure of MnSCU or UofM - the bodies are there if FRC MN is ready to ask. Between students from MSU-Mankato, SCSU, UM-TC, and UMD, there are more than enough bodies to help coordinate if FRC MN wanted to push this.

As for future - yes, 2018 seems a little too soon, but not out of the realm of possibility.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

well it might be big enough for all the fields, but it's not exactly a good spectator arena (which was what i meant, there is no place big enough in seattle to hold more than 2 fields and have seats for them, etc.)

-edit-
just saw the other post above about this and i agree the tacoma dome could potentially work (though it's still fairly small compared to the venue in st.louis)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Pits
The pits for FRC take up about 2 and 1/3 of 6 halls. So, pits could double to 4 2/3, leaving 1 1/3 halls for the displays and stores.

Fields
While the Field could physically hold 8 fields, the issues are:
1) Spectator viewing of the fields; and
2) Traffic lanes.

You could have 2 fields on each end like Newton/Archimedes for 4 fields; and
2 fields on the far side from Alley; and
Possibly one more field on the side with the Alley.

While more fields could fit, it would be hard to get spectators (in the center of the field), or one would be right in front of the Alley. Maybe the Center is reserved for the Einstein field and stage.

Volunteers

About the only staff you could "share" with an adjacent field are the Refs and some of the Field Reset people. The FTA's, queuing, announcers, and others, are needed for the entire play and staging time.

Divisions

Assuming there are 7 fields, I think there should be dedicated divisions for:

1) Rookie teams. A rookie team that made it through winning a region/district could chose to compete with the rookies or in the regular divisions.

2) Teams that did not win a regional/district.

Let's say that leaves 4 divisions made up of solely Regional/District winners. Those would be the ones to compete on the Einstein field. In this configuration, the 4 Competing division fields would be the two on each end of the stadium. The other fields could be done by Friday night, and be torn down and out of the way for the Einstein finals, leaving a lot of seating with a view of the center of the stadium.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Just gonna throw out a two problems with this.

1. Where do you put the teams who qualified under the district system that didn't win there district championship or even a single district such as 1640 our Einstein Finalist
2. Do wild card winners go in the non-win division or the winner divisions like 1477 our Archimedes winner or 2848 our Einstein Winner

I am just going to say that splitting divisions by how you got here is a slippery slope and should not be done.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

It did get very crammed behind Archimedes and Curie with how close those two fields were on the corner. When you stop and think about it, due to the 4 team alliance set up it added 32 teams to the elimations meaning compared to previous years you had more than a division added to the crowds behind the fields.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

1) 1640 qualified through being one of the highest ranked teams in MAR after the final points sort. District Finalist, District Championship Alliance Captain, and played in Elims at their first district.... and a Division Winner in 2013.

2) 1477 was the reigning world champion.

There NEEDS to be a split at the championship, or there will never be a TRUE championship. The fact that there are teams that cannot control a game piece or positively contribute to an alliances overall effort really lowers the overall caliber of an event that is considered to be our 'Championship.' With that being said, we are fortunate enough to have crowned the best teams for the past few years, but not without a lot of undo stress along the way.

A team doesn't need to 'Win' to qualify for the championship, they can qualify however they make it work. But to truly play for a championship, that team should at least be able to complete the game objective.

There are a bunch of ways to make this work, one is putting them in their own division, with creates a lot of its own issues - mainly being that many of these teams will never get to interact with some of the most inspirational teams in FRC, but at the same time, ruining a top teams season isn't all that inspirational either....

An off the wall idea is to use some portion of load in day to give each team a chance to show their stuff on an open field... Those who cannot actually complete the game objective at some basic level are put into the match schedule differently, in a different 'class' or something, and any matches that are played with them (or an unbalanced amount from one alliance to the other) are treated as surrogate matches for the teams that are truly there to compete for the championship.... Now they're interacting with the top teams, and being inspired by the best, and at the same time those 'best teams' aren't being punished by the luck of the schedule at our 'Championship' event.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Galois.

Would be nice to have the 'M' in STEM get some representation ;)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

+1 for the Galois Field joke :)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Perhaps we could call the winning alliance the "Galois group?" :P