[BB] Late Breaking News
 

Late Breaking News
Good EveningTeams,

Stand by. Late breaking information on the location of the 2011, 2012, & 2013 FRC Championships should be available soon on the usfirst.org website. Check it out.

94 days until the 2010 Kickoff
See you there!



A new championship location starting in 2011?!?!?!? I hope it is near where I end up going to college next year!

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??? FRC Championship coming to a town near you?

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It's likely closer to a great number of teams. We outliers will remain as outliers.

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does anybody know where on the website this information will be posted?

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I'll bet $25 that it goes to Indiana.... any takers???:cool:

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I had to do a double take at your Location block. What if they Average your two locations?

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That'd probably put the Championship somewhere in Wyoming or South Dakota. That wouldn't be good for anyone. :)

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Sucker's bet. Doesn't everyone already know it's Indy if it's not Atlanta?

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Y'all come to Indy and see us, ya hear!

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Hey! You're forgetting the Colorado teams! (And the Wyoming teams, Montana teams, Nebraska teams, Idaho teams, and Utah teams, for that matter...)

Oh, and see my location...

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...Except for us... :D

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My first thought was that they were going to be held in a farmer's field in Nebraska as a cost-cutting measure....

But there have been several threads here on CD discussing possible locations. A significant limitation is the need to have large pit spaces located near a domed stadium and there are only a few locations that combine that with relatively easy air access.

But it's kind of boring to let reality restrict one's imagination... I say they've swung a deal with the US Navy to borrow an aircraft carrier for a week every year (housing, food... playing and pit space...) and will cruise up and down alternate coasts each year. We might need to pitch tents on the deck to make room for everyone... but I'd be good with that.

Jason

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I would be amazed if it were in the northern half of the country (don't hate me, I'm originally NJ - VT - MI - MA). Why? Weather. Think FIRST wants to deal with flight delays for the Championships? Of course, I'd love an excuse to visit Boston and MIT...

And it didn't say "new" location. Atlanta really wants to keep this thing. (But Disney would be nice too!)

Real bets: N'Orleans or Dallas. Imagine that massive HD screen in Dallas playing the Einstein match. Goosebumps!

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Whoa, St. Louis!

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Looks like St. Louis is the winner: http://usfirst.org/aboutus/content.aspx?id=15777

Like many others, I was expecting Indianapolis.

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Sweet! Now I can say that I've watched my robot on the same field that Adrian Peterson played on.

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The first thing I noticed was the dates, I think after this year FIRST is going back to a 6 week regional season.

or maybe we'll have a longer build season;)

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What better place than "Jerry Land" in Dallas. Plenty of space and whoa... what a video screen!

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Wow and we knew Dean was going to be in St. Louis today.

Epic fail by us watchers and predictors.

Grats St. Louis

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Truth be known, I was root, root, rooting for Indianapolis. I know it would be a terrific experience for everyone involved, on board, and participating. Indiana has a way of making everyone feel welcome and happy and would make it an amazing Championship.

That said, I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, and I think I can safely say that although the experience will not be Disney or Atlanta or Indianapolis or on an aircraft carrier (really - how cool would that be?!?) - St. Louis has a lot going for it as a city. They will do their best to welcome all of us and to put on a great Championship - just as Atlanta has done and Disney World has done before them. Boy - Atlanta is going to be sentimental - I've only ever known the Championship in Atlanta. Wow.

Congratulations to the cities that put in bids as serious contenders and to the folks that had to make the hard (and probably difficult) decisions. Thank you!

Jane

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Good thing no one took my bet....

Saint Louis sounds like fun though! :) Just hope to make it one of these years.:rolleyes:

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So I kinda go to Indy for the championship....on my way to St. Louis.

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For a brief moment, I felt as though this was the Brazil vs. Chicago tension for the olympics.

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And I turned down Wash U...

St. Louis wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm sure it'll be a good show. Might actually be within driving distance for 1714.

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You know that Greg Needel is giggling at his shop right now.

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Can anyone help me with the venue information and the actual location?

I would appreciate it mightily.

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All it says on the FIRST site is

The FIRST Championship games for 2011 – 2013 will be housed at the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis with a total of 502,000 contiguous square feet of exhibit space in six halls, 83 meeting rooms, the 1,411 fixed-seat Ferrara Theatre, the St. Louis Executive Conference Center and The Edward Jones Dome.

A total of 21 area hotels will provide rooms for the participants.

The dates for the FIRST Championships in St. Louis, Missouri are: April 28-30, 2011; April 26-28, 2012 and April 25-27, 2013.

Heh, if you think about it, at least we've been told a few years in advance about a big change ;)

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from the press release

The FIRST Championship games for 2011 – 2013 will be housed at the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis with a total of 502,000 contiguous square feet of exhibit space in six halls, 83 meeting rooms, the 1,411 fixed-seat Ferrara Theatre, the St. Louis Executive Conference Center and The Edward Jones Dome.

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Downtown.

Thank you, Akash and Ed.

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The cool thing about the venue is the dome is literally attached to the convention center. You come out of hall 5 and you are on the floor of the dome.

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Dean's speaking engagement in St. Louis this evening had actually been on the calendar for months.

His talk was inspirational, as we have come to expect. Uncharacteristically, he devoted much of his time (over an hour) to a history of his major product developments -- followed by a very quick history of FIRST. The audience was spellbound. Most of us were long-time St. Louis FIRST participants, sponsors, and volunteers.

On a personal note: I first visted Deka in January 1996. My first time hearing Dean speak about why FIRST is needed was at Kick-Off the next morning, at the Center of New Hampshire, just up the street from Deka. Tonight's talk in St. Louis brought up many memories of that first time for me -- after all these years Dean is still on message, and the message still resonates. :)

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Knowing that St.Louis was in the running I took the trip there a couple weeks ago and to make sure that the stadium was nice I had to go see the packers play the rams. :D


In all seriousness I really liked st.louis and their setup. The stadium was easy walking distance to numerous places to eat and hotels. There are many attractions in the city which can occupy time and it is slightly more centrally located then Atlanta.


http://map.mapnetwork.com/destination/stlouis/

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St. Louis sounds good to me, closer to drive then Atlanta. Glad to hear the walk to the floor will be shorter. I think we will all miss Atlanta, it is a great setup for the Championship, one that will be hard to match in St. Louis.

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Right up against AP exams now. Tough choice for kids... not to mention possibly irritated AP instructors. It's better than being during AP testing I suppose.

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I attended a convention at the America's Center this summer, and actually found it very difficult to get food quickly and easily. Downtown St. Louis is an absolute ghost town on the weekends, and I've heard countless people listing the food situation as their top reason for not wanting that event to return to St. Louis. I'm hoping (and expecting) that FIRST will be setting up vendors inside the venue, much like we've had in Atlanta.

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Nice, this just saved the teams/volunteers who fly a lot of hassle.

Why? The one thing I didn't like about Indy was that they have no real transit system. (No, I don't consider once-an-hour-buses as "real" transit). Atlanta was great. You land at the airport, take MARTA into downtown, and pretty much either just walk to your destination or take the train. All said and done, it costs a few bucks for the trip. The last time I was in Indy, a one way cab trip from the airport was $80! :ahh: Indy, you may have great people and great hospitality, but you're really lagging behind most other cities when it comes to real transit systems.

But after I saw St. Loius was selected, I immediately looked into their transit system and found they have a light rail line running from their airport to the downtown central business district, including a stop right at the America’s Center Convention Complex, where the Championships will be held, with plenty of hotels along the route and in the central business district. My wallet breathes a sigh of relief.

I've been to a lot of cities which only seem to cater to the 9-5, Monday through Friday business crowd. They built massive super highways from the downtown CBD to the wealthy suburbs, plowing through every neighborhood of character around the downtown, and destroying hopes of a "livable" downtown. It's sad to see urban areas neglected that much.

Getting back to your quote, where were you in downtown St Louis? Google seems to show quite an abundance of places to eat...

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Can't get much closer to the population centre of the USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_ce...tes_population

And we like St. Louis up here in Vancouver... the Blues were really nice to the Canucks last year.

Jason

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I don't know how i feel about STL, i'll definitely have to sleep on it. it's a good thing i got time.

This runs right up against finals for most college students (student mentors) and AP exams for students. This could be a tricky situation. otherwise, everything else looks legit reading the previous posts regarding transit and food. Im looking forward to a new city....

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Looks like I just might be testing out that transit system--I'll be spending close to a week in/around the Edward Jones Arena over Christmas break. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out why, and almighty guru points to anyone who is going to the same event and can find me.)

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Wasnt there another thread that said unofficially, Championships was moving to St. Louis?
I swear I heard it somewhere........just cant remember.

I think its a great move. Time for a change of scenery finally.
The only question I have is why so late in April? More regionals? More weeks? Is build season moving back a week or two?
Personally, I like it better.
It makes attending a week 1 regional, not so cold!

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Maybe 7 weeks. Which makes some sense - if the district model expands a lot, can you have all the championships scheduled for just one weekend? Weeks 1-5 for districts, weeks 6-7 for championships. And for that matter, if you bag rather than ship, why can't the first events be the same week as bag/ship day?

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Not bad, this decision cut our teams potential driving time in half!!!!!

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I wonder if that had anything to do with the time of the year for you or me. I was there for a home NFL game and there was no lack of things open. Maybe things are different during the summer? Not sure about this but I hope the ST.Louis committee notifies vendors and they will provide similar service to what I saw 2 weeks ago.

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You know that Belle Fouche, S.D. is the geographical center of the US including Hawaii and Alaska.

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One of the really cool things about STL is that *most* things are free. The science center is really cool and the zoo is nice. So, teams potentially arriving Wednesday could find things to do for VERY cheap.

Though my heart is in Indy, STL should be great, too.

Now we just have to secure one of those every-year invitations to make sure we can go.

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Couldn't have said it better myself and I'm sure this factored into FIRST's decision. Indianapolis has a lot going for it, but one thing it doesn't have is a solid public transit system.

Congratulations St. Louis, it will be nice to get a change of venue and scenery after being in Atlanta for so many years.

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Congrats to St. Louis!!!!

Atlanta has been great, Indy would have been great, but it looks like the decision-makers in FIRST believe that St. Louis will be greater.

I'm looking forward to St. Louis in 2011, for sure.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

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One drawback I noticed about Indy (and this was only from driving past the sites, so I may be wrong) is that they would have had to move the FTC and FLL to separate buildings. It looks like St Louis (my birthplace, BTW) can accommodate all three in at least walking distance. I firmly believe that the three events should be co-mingled, so that:

1) the team members in one program can see the other parts of FIRST
2) spectators can view all three easily
3) mentors who are involved in more than one program don't have to choose

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It would be an interesting exercise to see how this differs from the mean center of FRC teams.

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Those dates are much better for us University mentors, should be after all our exams. I know last year attending the Championship was right in the middle of my exams... the last half of my exams did not get enough attention.

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It would probably be cheaper for the city to provide a free rental car to every visitor to the city than to build a transit system. :)

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Canada, yes.

America, probably not. Most American college students exams fall between the new St. Louis dates and the couple weeks after that. This is going to make it much tougher for American college students to make it to Championship.

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Exciting news! Should be a nice change of pace.

Anyone know of some interesting attractions/destinations/eateries that St. Louis is famous for (obviously the arch)? I'm already planning my trip. :D

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I agree! Why let reality restrict the imagination? How about a cruise in the Bahamas or South Pacific? I am sure a cruise ship could arrange for enough room for four or five fields. :cool:

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But a CVN [Aircraft Carrier] would be sooooo much cooler!

Only problem is we would need secret clearances for everyone who wants to go to Championship. :(

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But an aircraft carrier doesn't have a water slide.;)

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You clearly haven't tried to ride the aircraft catapults, then, have you? ;)

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Here's a start.

Check out the St. Louis for Kids section. :) (I like that section.)


Jane

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You can tour the Budweiser factory (probably not HS friendly, but cool for adults). Also, the Cardinals and Blues should be playing. You'll have to wait for schedules to be released to know if they'll have home games that weekend or not.

The Science Center is cool. The Zoo is nice, but it might be a little chilly. Grant's Farm is also an option.

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Things I highly recommend checking out while here: The City Musuem, The Arch (of course), any of the handful of venues in Forest Park (Science Center, Art Museum, etc) and the Botanical Gardens. All of this is within City Limits - not sure if it's all reachable by public transit though. And be warned - it could be 80 degrees, or snowing. St. Louis weather is not predictable.

Things could be crazy in Downtown St. Louis in April:
The Cardinals will be playing baseball, the Blues could still be playing hockey, depending on their schedule and if they make it to playoffs.

Any questions, please feel free to PM me. I've always lived in the St. Louis area.

DeAnna

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But free rental cars would only last a weekend. A good transit system lasts 50, 75, 100+ years.

I may be going to college for robotics engineering, but I love transportation, energy, and city planning politics. Why? It's the closest politics comes to engineering. We have problems, and we have various methods of providing solutions. Perhaps because I grew up in New England, but I've always taken strongly to New Urbanism, as it's pretty much the traditional way cities were built in New England.

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As a Washington University in St. Louis student, I am half thrilled, because I am so close to an event my team never was, and half depressed, because our finals are the last week of April ;(

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As I said, I was at the America's Center, where the Championship is going to be held. I did eventually find places to eat lunch, but they were certainly not the type that could support gaggles of high schoolers. I'm confident that the arena and convention center will have a food setup not dissimilar to what we have in the Georgia Dome and GWCC, and that will be great... all I'm saying is that I wouldn't tout the food situation as a particular benefit of this venue, because in comparison to the accessibility of the CNN Center, this is actually one of the few negatives I see in this change.

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I disagree.

I have a pick-up that seats 5, and has room for my stuff in the bed.

That is real transit.


:cool:


PS - congrats to St. Louis.

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Actually, a lot of public California schools are not on that "American schedule". All three of those dates are on the 4th to 5th week of classes.

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Well, at least nobody can argue that FIRST is trying to hide anything. I am sure it is just a coincidence, but this thread talks about better transparency, and here is a perfect example of the efforts they are taking to do just that.

St Louis has always been a place I wanted to visit. And you can take a train there!*

Don


*(Yes, but why would you? They already have plenty of trains there already....:p )

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If you're willing to drive 4,000 round trips, I can't argue with that hospitality. ;)

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That's the Kind of Fella I Am - John Mellencamp

oh wait, wrong thread .....

:D

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If you had a real pick-up it would have a bench seat and room for like 8. I am reminded of the time our crew rode in the back of a pick-up with the tools in the snow in swanky downtown Evanston to get to the MWR. No one thought anything of it once they saw the AR license tag.

Indy would have been great - you all are so professional. We appreciate your effort and hospitality.


_

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Video of Dean's announcement is here.

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Ha, Dean was pretty funny! Thanks for posting this!

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Oh boy i can feel the neg rep coming already, here i go. I have the same problem with stl (St Louis) as i do with ind (Indy) there is not enough seats on planes for teams to get there in a affordable fashion (seat per day available below). I fly for the 5th largest airline in the world and one of there hubs is ewr (Newark NJ). Another problem is type of planes that fly into stl we call them barbie jets (really small jets). There the first to get canceled in bad weather and get this really cool thing call weight restrictions. 4 teams with 30 people going would take half the flights off the market raising prices to double what they are now. I am sure first got a great deal for stl and i hope it will improve the product first can put out. But its going to price teams out of the champs.

direct flights only as of 11/3/09

250 ewr-stl
2162 ewr-atl
2350 ewr-mco

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Merry Christmas.

There is a Christian convention this year on December 27 to January 31 that I am planning to attend with my wife. The main event will be at Edward Jones Dome : http://www.urbana09.org/

I plan to write a short report on things like transportation and food and share in this forum.....Is there a face book group for FIRST Robotics Competition 2011 ?

Cheers,
Marcos.
:)

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Hey my brother is driving out with a bunch of kids from UNH and southern New Hampshire tomorrow.

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I fly out tomorrow. See anyone that is going there!

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Matt 18:20
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Very Cool !. I will be wearing my FIRST Mentor/Coach pin, maybe we can spot each other at the conference !

Marcos

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Man, I wanted to go when my brother first started talking about it months ago, but now darn! :)

Have a nice God filled week guys!

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Do you think that more teams will be able to go to the championship when it moves to St Louis?

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Probably not. The Championships are already limited to four divisions (due to Einstein) of a max of about 80 teams each. More division [fields] won't fit into a sports stadium, and more teams per division will drastically cut down on the already low number of qualification matches per team.

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FIRST has definite plans for expansion. The need for expansion was included as part of the bid package. The floor of Lucas Oils Stadium could easily hold 6 or more fields. It's floor is much larger than the Georgia Dome. I can only assume that St. Louis was also asked about expansion plans.

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But unless there is some shake-up of how Einstein works, there has to be a binary (1,2,4,8,16) number of FRC divisions. Since recent concerns over the available bandwidth in the 802.11 spectrum have come up, I sincerely doubt they'd ever go to eight divisions at one event. Thus, we end up with the same four divisions we've always had.

Floor plans for six field areas makes sense: four FRC divisions, one FTC dual-division, and one FLL/Einstein combo.

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I agree, only because it is more of a central location then Atlanta.

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The problem with Indiana is their poor Public Transit System. Atlanta has MARTA, St. Louis has a light rail system, Indianapolis has a bus system that runs buses once an hour. Until and unless the city of Indianapolis fixes this issue, I don't see FIRST moving championships there.

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Well, it's St. Louis for the next couple of years. I just don't think that my team will be going to Atlanta so often simply because we have to travel for worlds now. :P

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Indy takes care of that buy running special shuttles and buses for large events. We host the annual FFA convention and that is much larger than the championship.

But it doesn't really matter because it won't come up for re-bid for at least three years.

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there is alot of teams that are on the west coast that can't go because of the cost of airfare to atlanta. St. Louis is a great location... right smack dab in the middle of the US

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As someone who until 10 days ago had never been to St Louis, here's some advice: Book your hotels very close to the event (to the southwest is best, it's the "nicest" part of town). Do not take the lightrail at night. Don't even bother going out at night unless it's near the nice part of downtown.

Do the Arch. It's pretty awesome. The Royal Dumpe dinner theatre is hilarious (unless you've got an enormous stick up your rear end). Also.. Pappy's Smokehouse.

Also, watch your credit card receipts, and check your statements when you get home, though you should do this no matter where you go. People on our team got their CC numbers stolen at the Chaifetz Arena foodservice.

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Definitely visit the Arch. While you are there (probably waiting for your trip to the top), see the movie Monument To The Dream.

I lived in St. Louis for 15 years. I rode the light rail system at night many times without issue, for trips to the Arch, to Cardinals baseball games, downtown restaurants, etc.

As a clarification: the 2011-2013 FIRST Championship venue is downtown, near the Arch. The St. Louis Regional FRC venue (Chaifetz Arena) is on the campus of St. Louis University, a couple of miles west of downtown. A hotel that was convenient for the St. Louis Regional may not be as convenient for the FIRST Championship, and vice-versa.

Sorry to hear about your problems with Chaifetz concessions -- I will make sure the St. Louis Regional Planning Committee hears about that, too.

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I think if they can run 8 divisions then they should since it will make the finals on Einstein the same as they are at the regionals and divisions. It will also decrease the chances that the same teams are in alliances every year.

Plus in my option the more teams that make it to nationals the better.

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Atlanta is the busiest airport in the US. It's far cheaper for west coast teams to fly to Atlanta than St Louis, even though St Louis is closer.

The logistics of such a scenario make it nearly impossible. Where will FIRST find 2x the volunteers they currently have? There aren't that many qualified people.

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Trevor, you do realize they assign teams in order of who registers for the Champs, right. Starting with the lower numbered team, 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4...
WildStang and Beatty for instance are rarely in the same division.

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I was not aware of that, however I feel with more Divisions their would still be a lower chance of repeat alliance's especially in the divisions which are filled with teams that register latter in the season.

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OK Everyone, get ready!
Bill has announced on the blog that Wednesday is a go for inspections.

"It’s going to happen. I’ve found enough Inspectors and the set up crews promise they’ll have the stations ready. If you’re coming to Championship, plan to have up to five of your team members (at least one must be an adult mentor) ready to un-crate your robot, charge your batteries, encrypt your radio and get your robot inspected all on Wednesday night. You can even start to set up your pit if you have time. Pits open at 6PM and close at 9PM. We’ve made this change this year to help teams be ready to go at 1PM on Thursday when competition rounds begin.
Bill"

Emphasis is mine.