Anyone concerned about the possibility of not being allowed to go to Nationals?
 

At the risk of attracting bad thoughts, this one keeps creeping into my head. :(

Re: Anyone concerned about the possibility of not being allowed to go to Nationals?
 

If war happens there is a good chance of alot of teams not showing(either due to their own, the parents or the school districts choices) or the competition being placed on the back burner or even outright cancelled.

FIRST has already posted on their site no matter what happens with the whole war situation, nationals is still going to be held.

war..
 

we haven't qualified for nats yet, but if war does happen, my school district says we cant fly! so we would have to drive from columbus, ohio to Houston texas..ekk...and another team from my school district is going to nats...

Well If there is a travel issue (like the days after 9/11, all civilian planes where grounded cept one Suadi Jet) what do you think they will do? They will kinda need to cancel it... noone will be there.

well i dont think they will stop the nats enlse they feel threaten but if we are at war there will be tighter security

I agree, if we are @ War... I dont think they will cancel it. But if there is like a threat of a "terror attack" they just might change their plans. I guess we will find out tomarrow night if we will infact being launching a full attack on Iraq.

I've been told that if we are at war, we will not be allowed to go. However, if I give the airline tickets to the kids...it is up to their parents if they want to send them...just wouldn't be a "school-sponsored" event. I will go no matter what...so if the parents wish to send those kids on the trip, that is up to the parents. I think that the kids would have two unexcused days at school, though.

It's a way around it! :)

Um...they wont have to cancel it...there is this thing called a bus that works just as well...plus you get quality bonding time with your team

Well, most of our team can't go anyway (anyone who can pay, runs up to about 1000 and chances are our robot won't even be competing, we'd just be volunteering, not that thats bad), and I don't know what our school districts (2) would do about it.

Even so, the price might be higher since we didn't qualify for nationals yet, so we would have to put in a last minute flight plan (talking 4 days) if we qualify at So. Cal regional.

A bus isn't actually a bad idea...

I for one will be at nationals in chance of war or a likely terrorist attack, I've worked to hard to be scared off by a billion to one chance of harm.

Its a long bus ride from Manchester NH to Texas.

although I enjoyed the last road trip I took, that was down the east coast. I should head out west in a car or something.... it would be fun

our team is taking a bus (from north carolina) anyway cause we dont have the money to fly, but.....

yeah - i am actually really worried about what our school district is gonna say - because if they cancel out of state field trips, our team cant go. theres pretty much no doubt about that. And our team has worked INSANELY hard to get the money to go, and im sure many other teams have done the same thing.

im not saying that FIRST should cancel or postpone nationals, they should just think of what the teams (since they are school based) are going to be doing about the situation, and then take appropriate action.

as pointed up above if we are at war some schools wont sponsor the event. and the trip is expensive i mean i live in fr lauderdale and there is no way i am making a bus ride there its like a U but i know if we go to war and my school deonst sponsor i will still fly there cause i didnt work 6 weeks on a robot to lose out to sadam

My team isn't really sponsored by a certain school so we shouldn't have that problem. We'll be taking a van to Houston (if we qualify, *crossed fingers*). We live in AR so it won't be too bad. The drive to St.Louis was pretty long but overall fairly pleasant (except for the whole re-learning how to walk after your legs have been in the same position for 6 & a half hours).