I hope you have the chance to experience a Championship at Epcot. If you you do, it is very likely that you will find, as most of us do, that there is no comparison in the overall experience between an event at Epcot and the one in Houston. The event at Epcot just has an atmosphere and color that would be hard to come up with anywhere else in the world.

I have been to seven Championships at Epcot, and while there was more of a thrill to the non-competition aspects of the first one than the seventh, it continued to be a place where students and adults alike could have good, worry-free fun. If you stay in the "All Star" hotels, there are swimming pools, arcades, snacks, and interteam comraderia available right there. Probably a majority of the teams stay at All Star Sports/Music/Movies which are within walking distance of each other. Having lots of teams together just adds to the FIRST experience, beyond the competition itself.

There is transportation between the parks and hotels any time the parks are open. The food which comes with the team packages, while not great, is certainly ok. You have a number of choices, and get a desert with each lunch. If you have the time, you can use the meal tickets at some of the eateries at Epcot and the other WDW parks.

I am not a Disney emplyee, nor do I own Disney stock. It has just been my experience that WDW is a great place for an event like the FIRST Championship, and it is unlikely that anything can be done with two sports stadiums, hotels scattered around a city, and a substandard amusement park that can provide an experience as good. I do not intend to fault FIRST for the job they did in organizing the recent Championship. They had to put the event together in a short period of time, and under the circumstances, did the best they could.

I think the only thing FIRST could possibly do, that would be better than EPCOT - would be to charter a cruise ship, and have the championship be a 5 day cruise through the Bahamas :c)

Aw Ken.:rolleyes:
The Championship should be about the competition first and a vacation second. That's why I was one of the few people who actually liked Houston. For the sake of the competition.
I thought Epcot was a terrible place for the competition. I can't remember much about the actually competition than I do about the park and the heat and the struggle to find someplace to sit. That's not the way the championship event should be remembered.

Would you like to know if Chuck Yeager is on crack?

Instead of grego's aggressive viewpoint, I believe Chuck was looking at this from the standpoint that American lives would be saved if such technology were employed.

He's a career military man. As such, war and conflict have become permanently embedded into his life. He's seen a lot of his friends die on the battlefield. If he believed the use of robotic weaponry could save the lives of thousands of American soldiers, I can understand why he would advocate the use of such technology in battle.

I am sure his comments in Houston made many of the people in attendance cringe, however, especially Dean, who wants us to use our talents to build up the world's infrastructure, not destroy it.

I personally think Chuck's comments were out of line with the spirit of FIRST, but I can understand where he was coming from.

To make this post on-topic, here's my opinions on both Houston and EPCOT:

Houston:

Great weather! Low humidity - EPCOT is unbearable.

The area around the Galleria mall provided lots of entertainment and eating opportunities for the team

Great venue - good sightlines, comfortable seating. AIR CONDITIONING.

Spacious, well-lit pit area

Better indoor lighting overall - great for picture takers

The ramps were tedious, but the distance between pit and arena never interfered with our pre-match preparations in the pit, although we never had to make any major time consuming repairs to the robot.

Six Flags was dirty and showed its age, but most people on our team enjoyed their time there.

I didn't get the feeling that I was at an international competition. It felt more like a "super regional". I guess I'm just used to the Disney experience.

EPCOT:

The Disney venue had that true "Championship Event" feel that made it stand out above all regional competitions.

Safe - More freedom for kids - We stayed at a Disney hotel, and the adults normally turned the kids loose to experience Disney without chaperones. The great transportation system and safety of the park made this possible. It was difficult to do that in Houston.

Better pit/arena logistics

Einstein Field had its own stadium and spectator area built around it which gave it an aura of mystique and importance. It wasn't just another field in the middle of four identical divisional fields like it was in Houston. Plus the final light show/audiovisual extravaganza on Einstein at EPCOT was always a sight to behold (except for that Mandy Moore thing.....). I missed that in Houston.


Overall, I'd prefer to bear the heat and go back to EPCOT, but only if FIRST provides more and improved lighting/spectator seating/cooling at the playing fields.

It wasn't a nightmare - I was one of the two people coordinating scouting for my team and a 5-minute walk back and forth ain't bad at all. Twice an hour seems a little excessive. I was coordinating scouting the thursday and coordinating three video angles the rest of the time, yet none of it took any longer than was deemed necessary. I'll admit that cell phones helped achieve this (about 1/3 of the team had them), but it was good exercise. It's not like for scouting you have to carry anything heavier than a laptop or notebook, anyhow...

Aaron Knight
Webmaster and Videographer
Team 891: Neverending Chaos....
http://first891.topcities.com

I would really like to see nationals go back to Epcot... They only thing I would say for Epcot was make another playing field and make the stands bigger... I think this year nationals was way to big of an area for that amount of teams... If you want to have nationals in Houston than I say let almost double the teams that were there this year...

If you did, you would have to move back to Kokomo and go back to work at Delphi to make up for the money you would lose :D :p


----

Ok, Ive heard some rumors that if the Championships go back to Houston, they have fixed some of the problems (most of the complaints on here) to make it run smoother....heck we can't expect a place to understand how we FIRSTers work especially the first year. It will improve. Trust me. The only left for you to complain about is Six Flags, but who cares. Having fun and hanging out with your buddies from other teams should cancel all of that out anyway.

i agree with almost everybody here. EPCOT was SO much better than Houston. The food, environment, excitement, atmosphere and entertainment. however, we're all complaing about how bad Houston was, and how we wish that FIRST would go back to Disney World. I was wondering if there was anything we could do to help influence the people deciding where to hold the nationals at? is there anyway to directly contact dean? maybe we can start an online petition? just an idea...

i know what im going to say is going to be basically already on this thread but what the heck.. here we go:

I would have to say that I, at first, thought that Epcot was better. and i mostly thought of that because the walk from the pits to the fields were not desirable at all.. but you kinda get used to it after a while. i do wish there could be a different way to get robots there, but since no one has found a way to get "beamed" to another place in the matter of 2 seconds then the walk is mandatory.
People complained about pricing at houston, but how different was the pricing at Epcot? i know that my team found out that, at epcot, if you just bought your drink, chips, main food item, and dessert all seperately that it was actually cheaper than the meal plan they had going. So i dont think that the price of food is a big deal.. if it means that much then take the team to a grocery and sit in the van.. or go to a fast food restaurant.
I really liked the space that there was at Houston. instead of trying to find a spot in the bleachers at epcot you had your choice of seats. sure it got pretty spread out at finals but again that also happened at epcot.. so now you have the spread out feeling without the sun or rain or whatever weather florida is having at the time.
My team didnt go to six flags but from what i thought, epcot wasnt that great either.. there were the lines and the buses came pretty early and the food was sometimes cold, and again there were people everywhere.
so basically i wouldnt mind if nationals stayed at houston. it was more spacious but yet maybe a little too spread out.. but whatever FIRST decides im sure they will think hard on their decision.

I agree with Koko Ed.

I loved Houston about a million times more than Disney. Plus, it was a larger venue, so potentially, more teams could compete, with more room in the pits, stands, etc. for additional teams.

Disney was cramped, hot, humid, and was boring.

And we did not have to listen to annoying Disney pop stars either.

Besides Disney is educational!!!! (At least EPCOT)

The competition at EPCOT had much more spirit in the air...

I had three great years at EPCOT and would lick to see it return. Houston seemed to shut down well before 10:00, who is done for the night by than? As far as the comp went, it just wasn't as exciting. There didn't seem to be as much enthusiasm in the air. I believe maybe with some work over the years it could be as good as EPCOT, but I'm skeptical of that. If they can't have it at EPCOT next year, I'd like to see Nationals move around a bit. Maybe some day in WI, or not?

If we cant have the championship at EPCOT anymore, can we at least have a regional there? :c)

It depended on which bathrooms you used. There were some near the tents that were porter potties and those sucked! But the 4 stall things they had near the picnic tables and the food lines were indeed nice. Occasionally smelly, but they were a lot cooler than the hot Florida sun...
speaking of that - did anyone notice how not nice the weather was in Houston? Where was the nice southern warmth and sun?

When the competition was at epcot, there was more than one park to visit, so it split up all the people that were there so lines were more tolerable and the disney fast passes helped a lot too! you were able to go on soooo many more rides.
I was able to go on about 4 rides a night at 6 flags. :(
Also the team party was much better because they only allowed FIRST people in to them. The team party this year was a mixture of tourists in Houston and then FIRST people. This was worsened by the fact that it was the first day 6 Flags opened. Lines were horrible! I thought the team party last year stunk, but this year was just plain horrible. At least the food last year didn't make me vomit into one of the park's nasty digusting bathrooms. They were so filthy and dirty!