How does Nationals work??
 

I'm a SparX (1126) member and was wondering what will happen in nationals, I hear there are divisions and such. Is there anything enormously different from regionals. P.S. Check out "Bulldog" running around at http://robots.nasa.gov/events/webcasts/buckeye.htm!!

At Nat's there are 4 divisions, with the teams evenly spread among those divisions.. Each division operates just like a regional, and the champions then advance to a 'final' round where they match up with eachother.. It's pretty wild with over 250 teams there..

Pits and field
 

Does anyone know how the pits and field will work at the championship?

I remember hearing something about two stadiums...??

Two stadiums - one for the Pit, one for 5 stages.

After all regionals are complete, teams will be "randomly" assigned to a division. There are 4 divisions.

KA-108 :cool:

Pits and Field
 

Anybody know how far apart the two stadiums are??

How many playing field will be in operation?

The Pits are in the Astrodome. The fields will be in the Reliant Stadium. THey are parts of the same complex so they are close. I assume four field will run at once, but I've never been to nats. Hopefully this year.

Randomly spread
 

With the random splitting of the divisions, will all the division be in one, with chairmans award winners in another, with the odd teams in another or all intertwined.

If they did it like they did last year there willbe four divisions the size of a large regional doing their matches simultaneously. They will do matches on each of the playing fields switching every couple of matches. The winner of each divison play in the final four to the eventual champion.
I hope it's less spread out and chaotic than it was at Disney. It wasn't anything like a regional. You were so disconnected from all the action and everything was so srpead out you barely knew anything that was going on.

The pits are in the astrodome, which is about a 1/4 mile away from reliant park. There will probably be some kind of people mover or transportation so teams dont need to carry their bots back and forth. Im also not sure of this, but i was told that there would be free public transportaion for the commute between hotels/competition/six flags.

If you look at the aerial photos, the two are right next to each other. It probably is at least 1/4 mile of travel from the pits to the field, though. The buildings are closer than that, but you have to account for getting inside and down to the stadium floor.

Not that it's on topic with this, it's stratying a little, but still dealing with nats. Does anyone know exactly if the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship award lets you qualify to be nationals? I'm only wondering because we won this award at the UTC regional.

no it doesnt, only technical awards or the chairmens will allow you to go to nats.

Cory

I was wondering the same about the Inspiring Engineering award let you go to nats.

Last year there was a division rotation, teams started out on their home field, switched about halfway into the day Saturday, and once again Sunday...they then returned to their home field for the Divison Championship, and out to Einstien for the Finals..