2007 Championship dates
 

Does anyone know when will the 2007 FIRST Championship in Atlanta be?
Is there someplace where I can see all the 2007's dates (from the Kickoff till the Championship), or they have yet been published?

Thanks, Guy

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Not all of the dates have been announced, but I got an email from FIRST saying the 2007 Championship will be April 12-14.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

It begins April 12th, 2007.
If I find a full list of 2007 events, I'll post it. I hadn't looked, but I know that Champs is already scheduled.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

If I'm not mistaken, Kickoff is always the first Saturday of January. So that would be January 6th. After that you can calculate in 6 weeks for build to determine ship date. As far as regionals, the dates will be similar, but of course anything could change.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Didn't FIRST's contract with the Atl. people end this year? If so did they resign for a few more years or will thier be a venue change?

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

I heard that they resigned for 4 more years.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Usually the Tuesday after the sixth week is ship so, for 2007 I would guess the build to run from January 6 - February 20.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

If memory serves yes the original 3 year contract was up after 2006, but a few months ago FIRST announced the they renewed it for 2007 and retained the option of renewing for 2008 & 2009.

/Edit/ Here's the FIRST Announcement:

Thread on announcement

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Oh god please do not keep sending us to alt

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Logistically, there are not many cities in the United States that can host the Championships. You can't just say "The Championships should be held in X city because they have X stadium." There are many more factors that go into choosing the location for the Championships, and FIRST will pick the best location because of these factors.

Atlanta is particularly well suited for hosting the Championships, and that is probably where it will remain for the foreseeable future.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

If your interested in the discussion on possible Championship sites, the Championships location from 07 and onwards thread has 20 pages worth.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

It's also on the GA dome website.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

to be honest, i want to see the championship over here on the west side. i mean no offense but there are a bit more teams over in the west side.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

^That is very true. I am starting to kinda want to be more than a 15 minute drive away from the Championships. I hear it doesn't have the same feel when you live next to it as it does when it is have way across the country. Atleast it is a lot cheaper for us lol ;)

But does anyone know why it was moved up 2 weeks earlier. Was it to stop conflicting with prom, I doubt that, or was it to stop conflicting with AP Test studying?

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

Outside of California I think the East has more teams than the west does. If they do change the championship it'll probably go the the midwest.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

The date varies slightly from year to year (it was a couple of weeks earlier back in 2004 also), and I suspect has more to do with when the venue is available than anything else.

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

This is about the same time of the month that Nationals was in 2003, and possibly 2001 (though my memory on that one is less clear). There are lots of factors that go into it, among them venue availability, the timing of Easter (spring break makes a big impact on venue availability, plus hotels and other travel arrangements), and the date of kickoff (a later kickoff means competition season starts later). In 6 years, I've seen everything from the second weekend of April to the last.

Looking at this year's schedule, we had:
Kickoff: January 7
Ship Day: Feb 21
First Regional: Mar 2-4
Last Regional: Mar 30-Apr 1
Easter: Apr 16
Championship: Apr 27-Apr 29

Judging by this, FIRST probably chose the later date because they didn't want to have the Championship right after the last week of regionals, Easter was the following weekend, and the weekend after that would be part of most schools' spring break. Thus, the last weekend would be preferable.

Going by a similar schedule, next year might look something like this:
Kickoff: January 6
Ship Day: Feb 20
First Regional: Mar 1-3
Last Regional: Mar 29-31
Easter: Apr 8
Championship: Apr 12-Apr 14

With this schedule, the Championship would be during a lot of schools' spring break, so that was probably not a deciding factor this time around. Looking at the Georgia Dome calendar though, there was the "2007 ASUG Annual Conference-SAPPHIRE'07 " scheduled from 4/22-4/26, which would likely tie up both of the last 2 weekends in April. So, if that event was scheduled first, it's most likely the reason for an earlier date.

Interestingly enough, the calendar also lists "FIRST Robotics Championship" on 4/16-4/19/08 ;)

Re: 2007 Championship dates
 

With dates like that, it might affect many Florida proms. I know my schools this year was April 8th.

It would be hard to find a date that wouldn't affect anyone's schedule.