Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Have the prize of winning the Championship event be an all expenses paid trip to FIRST HQ some amount of time later (maybe a month or two?) for some number of people (6-12)... Winning alliances play each other best 3 out of 5 with a broadcast deal by whoever. Other teams or people are allowed in by invitation only, small event.


Makes scheduling travel easier, keeps costs near zero for teams, crowns a champion.

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Three letters: IRI

The best teams are already there, what better way to start the event then having Houston champ vs St. Louis champ.

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

i think they should keep the same alliance partners that they played with at their championship, and just go head to head on a single day event best outta five finals matches

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

If the location was Minnesota, there are several venue options. The one that is most interesting for me is the rotunda at Mall of America. The Rotunda can support large events with several thousand spectators. It would be an excellent location for a live broadcast.

MSP airport has direct flights to about 175 locations.

Teams could take the Green Line train 4 stops (about 10 minutes) from inside the airport to the station in the mall, and stay in one of the two hotels in the mall (850 rooms).

MN FRC volunteers are used to running big events (we have two double regionals)

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Championship Winning Alliances play head to head to determine who the actual "World Champions" are.

Loser burns their Championship Blue Banners, since they are clearly no longer the best alliance in the World, aka the "winner" of the "World Championship"

I'd much rather have a finalist award, than a Blue Banner after I lost this "final" set of matches. We got the finalist award last year, and we are so proud to have gotten so far.

Like Siri said, this is a fringe issue, and FIRST is not likely to do anything like this anyway. They've made their priorities clear, and this "demo match" is not in line with those priorities.

-Mike

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

I have not read the 500+ posts on the dual championship complaint thread but thr proposal presented here seems like a bad idea. I look at it from a different perspective. You spend 10,000 man-hours, $50,000+ to be the best of the best in FIRST, you play your hearts out against 400 other teams and WIN the "World Championship" (one of them anyhow) , and that's still not enough? Now you have to give up MORE time, more money, to go play at a tiny short event where after having won the "World Championship" now you're going risk losing, and let a different team be declared the real World Champion? No thanks. When is enough enough?

And for the other 2500 teams in FIRST, we're paying registration fees which in part pay for yet another event we will never attend, just so we can see who the four "real" champions are, instead of just accepting and being happy with the eight that have already been determined?

Bring on the state championships. Especially in California. But this national play until you drop dead style that this program has taken on is just too much.

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Or, we could invite a bunch of the top teams to Indiana to compete in a robotics invitational ;)

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

As long as FIRST has no touching games like this year then it is just high score wins. In that case the highest score from one of the 2 championships would be the champ. All FIRST would have to do is make sure there are no common game pieces in the finals like the center cans. This maybe one of the reasons for this years game format.

Having another play off for crowning the champ is hard on students. Some students need time in school to get the grades for the FIRST scholarships.

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Given the general opinion on this years "no defence" game I don't think that will happen. Defence and strategy were what made 2012, 2013, and especially 2014 such an amazing games to watch, the best alliances weren't just the alliance that had the 3 robots that could solo the most points.

Re: Arranging Houston vs St. Louis
 

Two won't work unless there are two divisions. One way out of this is have the top N teams from each national qualify for a world series. So a smaller venue that can hold 50 to 100 teams or so would work. This fits into the current way of things.