[dtengineering]

I wonder if it was a poor choice of words for Bill to say the playing fields will be "in the pits." Perhaps, "near the pits" would have been a better choice. In Seattle this year, for instance, both fields were "in the pits", seperated by just a curtain. And it worked great. There was sufficient bleacher space, but not the empty voids of the upper levels of Key Arena from previous years.

I also played at a regional (GTR several years ago) where you alternated playing fields randomly from match to match. It wasn't that big of a deal. I'm sure teams can figure out how to move from one field to another at a pre-determined time. If they can't, then... well, "super bowl of smarts" is a bit of a misnomer, don't you think?

Sure, Atlanta was a great setup. This isn't Atlanta. Some things may be better, some may be worse, but as much as I've disagreed with some of the decisions made by the FIRST board in the past, FRC has continued to grow and continued to provide students with an awesome experience. These people are competent and make pretty good decisions most of the time.

So maybe it will be the worst championship ever, twenty-three people will die in the stampede from pit to field at lunch on Friday, everyone will agree that it was really not worth attending, and no one will ever go to championships again for the next two years... but do you really, REALLY think so?

Easy for me to say, of course... I'm not going... but the level of doom and gloom here just seems a bit over the top. The FIRST board usually has a good reason for what they do... even when some of us don't necessarily agree with them.

Jason