Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

The neighborhood directly behind the Volunteer Parking on Cole street was deemed the 22nd most dangerous neighborhood in the US in 2014. It wasn't on the list this year. I drove through it. It was uncomfortable. It looks half abandoned.
Truth be told I don't get too bent out of shape personally about US cities anymore ever since I went to Jamaica. They average over 1200 murders a year. How do they not run out of people?

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

As somebody who lives in the Detroit area, parts are bad, but the area where world's will be held is more or less safe. There are parts that are bad but the downtown area itself isn't terrible. I don't worry about walking the mile or so from say, the Cobo center to Hard Rock Cafe, and the walk back, in the evening. It's well lit and not in a dangerous area. Flint, MI is actually more dangerous than Detroit.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

Realize any urban area large enough to support a 400 team plus world event is going to have sketchy areas. Often close to the venues. Some of the basic ones: Travel in groups. Don't park overnight in open lots without security. Be aware of your surroundings.

St Louis really wanted us here. Too bad that secure parking for team trailers was not on the negotiated list of items for St Louis to provide.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

There have been problems every year in that north parking lot.

You would think you could hire the PD to put in a few of these for a few days. They are effective

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

We have attended the past 3 years, and have always been able to park our RV in the parking lot right outside the main entrance to the Dome which had an attendant in the lot. This year, the attendant said that any oversize vehicles had to park in the team parking lot where the trailers were located. We saw 2-3 security guards in that lot and had not heard about prior break-ins in previous years so we thought with security at the parking lot we would be ok just like previous years. The break-in happened in daylight not evening. This leads me to two conclusions, people have not reported to FIRST so FIRST was not able to coordinate proper security or the security guards just didn't care and let anyone do what they wanted in that parking lot.

Needless to say it is over and yes they took over $15k worth of computers, tablets, electronics, and all our clothes, but we are safe and that all can be replaced. It is just disappointing that with the 200 extra teams and roughly $1M more for those teams FIRST could not coordinate better security on the outside of the dome as they did with the badges on the inside.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

As someone who lives near Detroit, (about 45 min West of Detroit) there are some areas that are very bad neighborhoods, but along the river, downtown, where the possible venues are for the championships, it's not bad at all.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

Yeah, my boss had a conference there in Detroit last fall and he said it really isn't too bad if you stay downtown.

For tips on securing trailers, check this thread suggested in another thread about stolen trailers: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=107113

Also take a look at http://www.dewaltmobilelock.com/prod...nd-gps-locator (looks like it's $250ish and $19/mo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AzenSPDJqE < there's a project a team could do ;)

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but personally I think that team trailers put a HUGE glaring target on your stuff saying "hey, I have lots of valuable electronics inside of me!".
If a bunch of teams rented uhauls and flooded the lot with them, I'd imagine that it would have the thieves working long enough to catch them (maybe -- Thinking of probability here lol, feel free to comment other mathmatical deterrents here xD) :P

Remember, use the buddy system!

I feel like first seems to pick the wrong cities. I say we have worlds #1 in Pittsburgh at the consol energy center. Then worlds #2 in Vegas. Opposite ends of the us. Decent cities.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

Could you provide us with the specific considerations you've made to regarding venue, geographic location, cost, impact to the city and surrounding area, hotel capacity, airport capacity, ect. that make these cities better than the ones FIRST has identified?

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

One of those cities is a desolate wasteland and the other one is Las Vegas.

Wow alright

1.Pittsburgh - consol energy center is gigantic I've competed there (gymnastics) and its a beautiful venue. It's blocks away from a great convention center and its a pretty good neighborhood. There's a ton of restaurants in walking distance along with quite a bit of parking around the stadium. Hotel wise there are numerous. Hotels right there including a Hilton and Marriott across the street. It's also close to carnegie melon who I am sure being the engineering school they are would support the event.

Pittsburgh is a declining city but it's not at a decline where it becomes dangerous.
The only thing bad about Pittsburgh is everything closes very early.
Vegas is not bad. Yes it has its quirks but it is filled with convention centers, hotels, and stadiums. It's also in a harsh decline. The area isn't awful as it's filled with police 24/7.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

What about my other questions?

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

"Blocks away" doesn't work here. "Gigantic"--let's just say there's a lot of places that could be described that way and very few can handle a FRC Championship.

As a baseline: Seating for about 25K-30K persons. Absolute minimum floorspace requirement is 4 basketball courts including benches, football field preferred. Pit area of 10' square pits, with aisles at least 1.5 pits wide (15'), for 400 teams, preferably in one room, with another large area immediately nearby if not in the room for all the "pit administrivia" like inspections, Pit Admin, Spare Parts, practice fields. Competition and pit must have covered connection, and must be reasonably close (preferably next door to each other with at least one common wall); must be on same level or moderate ramps.

Now, can you still advocate for Pittsburgh?

Houston is looking pretty good now.

But in all seriousness regardless of how good the city is in regards to stadiums. It has to be geographically smart. I vote let's go back to Disney.

Re: Go to worlds and get your car broke into...
 

Can you explain how Disney is "geographically smart"? Seems like a venue in a corner of the country isn't as good as a venue on an edge (i.e. Houston/Detroit), and definitely not as good as one roughly in the middle (St. Louis).