Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

I'll wait and see what they come up with. There are lots of possibilities. I was really just building on the previous post that noted that the announcement didn't even say that the competition would involve playing the same game as the season. This announcement is so vague (probably deliberately so) that the possibilities are very, very, broad.

Wouldn't you like to see what teams of students have learned the most and can apply it without assistance? I would. Would I like that to be the culmination of the season? Well, that's a different story. The most sensible, easy, path to take would be to have a traditional match between the winning alliances. That would be one no risk way to do it. But, if that's not what they have in mind, all sorts of possibilities open up.

ETA: I guess what I mean is that if I were designing a "Festival of Chanpions", it wouldn't be "Einstein Field in New Hampshire". It would probably include that, but I would throw in something else. It would involve a multi-part competiton, only one aspect of which would involve the same old robots playing the same old game. Let's see what the Powers That Be have in mind.

Whatever it is, I still like the announcement. I'm for it.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Suggestion:

South Champs teams drive North Champs robots and North Champs teams drive South Champs robots. You have 3 months to prepare. Go.

But in all seriousness, I like the idea. I would have been thrilled for something like this when I was a championship driver (in my days, Einstein wasn't so glamorous...most people were off enjoying Disney after they were eliminated and the crowd was pretty thin for the final matches)

I do wonder if any of the winning teams will not go to IRI since it is the weekend prior though. MOST winning teams have traditionally participated in IRI, so the argument of "more vacation time" doesn't really apply* unless the teams do both IRI and FoC.

*Yes, I understand not everyone goes to IRI from a team, but more would likely be interested in going to this event as a celebration.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Who's going to volunteer to run the event?

They will need nearly as many volunteers for this festival as is needed for a full event. Certainly all the key volunteers and on-field volunteers. You need a FTA, FTAA, scorekeeper, Field Supervisor and full setup/takedown/reset team, Head Ref and Referees, Lead Queue and queue team, Spare Parts table ... the list goes on. You wouldn't need as many inspectors (perhaps they'll take a page from off-season playbooks and do away with inspection, but that brings up other potential issues). And not as many crowd control / safety glasses table / etc.

Hey, maybe the guy who wants to be an FTA will get his chance! ;)

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

It's not listed in VIMS. Maybe they're gonna hand pick their volunteers.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

I would be surprised if they DIDN'T hand pick their volunteers, or at least hand pick who got the opportunity. This seems like something they're going to need to get right the first time...

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

I am curious as to why they would need a Queue team if only two alliances are playing? (of course if that is not the case....ok..)
8 teams to inspect....

It would seem to me that the number of volunteers for the pits/inspection areas would be greatly diminished.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Keep in mind FIRST HQ will be right next door (most likely). They can probably get away with using just FIRST employees.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Getting the teams onto the fields in eliminations takes as much work - and more cajoling - as running the qualifications. Right Ed?

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

It's a finals match. They really shouldn't have to leave the field at all.
The ore I think about this the more I realize the event should only have an actual half hour of actual competition. That means an endless parade of speakers and skits. O joy....

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

If its anything like Champs, rather than two FTAAs supporting an FTA, it will simply be two FTAs in primary and secondary slot. Additionally, if its anything like Einstein, the FTA(s) will simply be there to facilitate robot connections, but anything important will actually be done by the FMS Support staff. Those are the guys furiously slapping at there keyboards into a Skype chat box when we run into issues at the regional.

With the high level of competition, I'd venture to guess there will a handful of FTAs around, but a couple with the most seniority will be playing the intermediary between teams and FMS Support.

While we're at it, we ought to recognize those FMS Support guys for giving up so many of their weekends during competition season to make sure all the events run smoothly. Their names are Danny, Matt, Alex, and Chuck. If you EVER get the opportunity to speak with one of these guys, wether it be at Champs, or if they are running wild at some other event for whatever reason, tell them thanks!

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

I for one am pretty excited about this. While I would have preferred a different model, I think this one has potential to do a tone for those teams as well as do a ton for FIRST.

#1: Televise it. Webcast live the day of, and then a nice hour TV special.
#2: What an opportunity for the teams! I hope that FIRST helps them out with some of the logistics costs, but teams are getting an opportunity that hasn't really been available since the early days of FIRST.

There are a lot of details to be worked out, but this could be a fantastic 1 hour special. My biggest question would be do you set the event up to have a good live TV format, or do you set it up to be a great event, and then do an edited TV special.
As much as I would like it to be a live program, due to the possible speakers and their tendency to go long, I would probably recommend the latter with a live Webcast and then a 1 hour special a few months before FIRST Registration deadline for FRC.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

We know far too little about this event to be jumping to that conclusion already.

For starters, we do know that there will also be the FIRST Tech Challenge winners from each Championship at the event. So there's potential for effectively twice as many matches (assuming they don't hold them simultaneously, which I don't see why they would with so few teams in attendance).

But we know very little about the nature of the competition. Will it simply be a best-of-three between the two alliances? If so, your fears may be validated. But they could extend that to a best-of-five or even best-of-seven. Or use some other format entirely. They could shuffle up the alliances. They could have the teams compete in parallel to set higher scores. They could extend the length of the matches like they did with the televised "Hall of Fame" matches before 2014 Championship. Heck, it was already pointed out previously in the thread that this announcement never declared these teams would even be playing STEAMworks. Teams could be building brand new robots (or updating existing ones) as part of the event. The FRC and FTC teams may even be competing in the same competition.

We simply don't know. To make the sorts of broad rushes to judgement we're seeing in this thread when we have so little information is rather ridiculous.

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

They could even be inviting past winners as well. Imagine a full bracket of the past 14 CMP winners (with backups/practice bots in to replace multiple time winners or dead teams) along with the 2 winners from the 2017 "championships".

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Totally unrelated to the discussions above but I think FIRST missed an opportunity to call it the "FIRSTeval of Champions".

Re: FIRST Festival of Champions
 

Why would they switch games and formats at all? That settles nothing and only adds fuel to the controversial fire.