hopefully Fed Ex will do free- shipping again. I doubt that it would cause problems. they'll just have to put some boxes express overnighters thats all. just charge teams for the express shipping for the back to back competitions that teams will be participating in.

There was talk before of FIRST holding the Championship in April, inistead of in the first week of May. If that is the case, how will this affect FIRST teams that have to qualify to go to the Championship? Let's say team A attends a regional during week one and qualifies to go. They will be fine for airfare prices, hotel reservations, etc. However, team B attends a regional during week five and qualifies to go to the Championship. If FIRST moves the Championship back into April ... how is Team B going to afford airfare and make hotel reservations on that short of a notice? This was an issue last year with some teams, when there were three weeks between the final week of regionals and Nationals. Just some food for thought...

- Katie

i say move nats to after APs and iBs. if i qualify, and can't go cause it coincides with an AP test, i know i would be pissed. the best thing to do is move either the APs/iBs (Which is impossible) or to move nats. sure, it's hotter (but it can only get so hot during the summer). it might cost a little more, but i'd pay the extra money. also, it makes nats much more fun. last year, i was worrying about the APs while i was driving a robot, not much fun. this year, i'd be much better if you don't have to worry, but instead can concentrate fully on having fun. besides, after APs, school is over for the most part. sure, there's regents or finals or whatnot, but those are easy, and no one pays attention to them. so, the best solution is to move nats to late may, after testing.

One thing to keep in mind with this scenario...some schools are already getting out in early to mid-May, and pushing the Championship back much later would run into issues with graduating seniors not being available. Having worked on quite a few different organizations during my high school career, I know that no matter how good people's intentions are, any school-related event taking place after the end of the school year will have a signifigantly lower attendance than one happening during the school year.

why does planning an event have to be so complicated? :p

Goooood question! :cool:

- Katie

Something I just noticed is that the UTC regional, according to the FIRST site, is going to be in Hartford again. Whether that means that it will be back at the Meadows Music Center or possibly somewhere else like the Hartford Civic Center(?) who knows but for all we know it could be back in New Haven again.

Only time will tell I guess.

I would definitely say FIRST should avoid having Nationals during AP time. Given the amount of high-level students in FIRST, having Nationals during the AP weeks would cause a significant problem for a good number of people. Teachers on teams could have problems with that, too. Really, for it to work, Nationals must either be late April or mid-May.

One of the teachers on our team is the AP Calculus teacher at our school, and she had to miss her first nationals because she couldn't leave her students with a sub for a week near the date of the AP test, thats a BIG disadvantage to having the championship at the end of April.

I also noticed, the SAT will be given on May 3rd, 2003. So if FIRST goes with the tenitive date of May 1st- May 3rd, many students won't be there because they can't miss the SAT, but the good news is there is another SAT at the beginning of June.


With more and more teams comming in, it makes things more difficult, FIRST can't push nationals up to the first week of april like in 2001 because they can't get all the regionals in. The only way I see they can do is have regionals from the last weekend in Febuary to the 2nd to last weekend in march and then just have several on a certain weekend, but that requires a lot of volunteers, referees, and judges.

What should FIRST do to deal with this? I have no idea :confused:

Bagh AP exams
 

No matter when FIRST schedules Nationals... there will be a conflict with somebody somewhere. It all comes down to what is your priority. Indeed, it may be more difficult for teachers and mentors do drop everything and go, but students... you're young and you do have a choice. When it comes to SAT's, schedule them for a different date. When it comes to AP's... if the test isn't absolutely necessary... don't take it. Where I come from (and this may apply to many who live in CT) you get automatic college credit from UCONN if you take certain AP courses, that credit transfers to nearly every university or college except Ivy league or MIT type schools. If you know what your major is and the AP test you are taking isn't even going to be in the curriculum, why take it? If your school is asking for a 4 or 5 on the exam in order to skip the class, and you are not incredibly strong in that topic... WHY TAKE IT? Your future school probably has a good reason for you to take their version of the class. Also, if you do get out of a class... schools are going to make you replace it with something else anyway. So you are really not saving time or money. You just might be able to take more electives or do a stronger minor. I'm saying all this because AP tests were a waste of time for me. I got a 2 in English... but because of UCONN credit I'm out of two sememsters of english in college. I got a 1 on the Calc AP exam too, and because of UCONN credit I had a choice to get out of Calc 1 + 2 next year. You see? AP tests are annoying, only take them if YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO! As for your teachers scheduling tests during Nats... just talk to them... most of them should be understanding. I might have a problem next year with having mid-term or final exams during competitions... I'll figure that out as I go. Oh yea... a friend of mine got a speeding ticket and his court date was during Nats. He just said 'forget it,' paid the ticket, and went to Nats. Sometimes sacrifices must be made... but C'mon! NOTHING beats Nats!

the problem is that many schools you must take the AP test if you take the class. we don't have a state college that will just take the credits. sure, if you get at least a 3, any state school will accept it (at least in NY), but you need to take the test. now, i took ap bio last year. i hated it. i don't want bio to have anything to do with my career when i get older. but, i took the ap bio coruse for a few reasons. one, to get away from the idiots who populate the regents classes, two, because i want to look well rounded to colleges, and three, i got a 4 on the test, so that means i can most likely get a semester of bio taken away in college (i don't really plan on going to a ivy league school). but, i need to take the ap bio test if i take the class, no exceptions. hell, i probably saved myself a few thousand dollars by taking bio in high school, instead of college.

also, you must remember, teachers of ap classes can't just leave for a week, the week before the test. even if they have tenure, it's pushing it. so, because AP testing is such a big problem for such a huge amount of FIRST, you can't really have nats during AP testing. iB testing i'm not familar with, but i'm sure there is a similar, just slightly smaller, problem. FIRST also needs to plan around the spring holidays (easter/passover). all these factors come together, and they're all equally important. FIRST can't just say, screw all AP students, nats is during AP testing. it goes against everything FIRST stands for (education and such).

i think i'm done rambling now... :D

I do know that FIRST's plan down the road is to send a minimum of actual FIRST staff to any given event, and have the majority of the event staff be local, mostly volunteer, but with a few paid local positions...

Regional Competitions
 

Re: SAT & AP Exams. Is it possible that the exams could be rescheduled because of the Competition? ETS allows exams to be reschueduled for individual students because of athletic competitions. Would they allow the exams to be on a different date for students taking part in this academic competition?

Yea, I'm certain that the importance of AP Exams differ from state to state. Unfortunately I'm only speaking in my point of view as a Connecticut resident. I honestly hope they push Nats back into April anyway because May is getting late... but if they do keep them in May, you may luck out that your exam isn't even during a Nats day (you may only have to worry about that Friday and Monday.) And if you say that they'll re-schedule exams for athletic events... then they will probably do the same for robotics. Stinks that you'll have to worry about studying though. Do those classes treat AP exams as part of the course grade, like a final or something?