Quote:
Originally Posted by Conor Ryan
Awesome! Those are surprises I love to hear! Hopefully it'll be used in more places in the future, 2 volunteers per team is a good place to start. More key volunteers are what is really needed, and that can't be provided on demand really.
1) Playing matches isn't everything either, especially for the teams that had a rough year with the robot they put on the field.
2) If you want to get more funding, the show part really is great for going after money. I've seen prospective sponsors turn into actual sponsors much faster at a Regional than a District. It adds to the awe and gives the whole organization a much more professional face. In particular its helpful for raising funding at the event level, regionals wouldn't cost so much if the events were able to fundraise for themselves better.
I guess the best way to summarize my complaint with the current district model/format/presentation is that it lost too much of the professionalism associated with a regional in order to cut costs of events.
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As a one regional team before MAR due to a serious lack of funding, and barely scraping entry each year, I can attest that the number of matches and events for my money is more important than the "snazz" of an event - thats what the regional champs are for. I can see it not making a huge difference to more fortunate teams.
I believe seeing the robot the students put together for the last 1008 hours of their lives succeed is greater than a good sound system and light show in terms of inspiration.
Perfect example, TCNJ this year was a pure disaster for us. Couldn't get the robot running whatsoever. We used the time while eliminations were going on to figure out what was wrong and come up with a game plan for our next district, which, we won.
With our team being in such a high density area getting sponsors is pretty tough, I'd rather pay 4k for 24 matches at 2 events then play 8 matches with a boston regional setup for the same amount.
NOTE: Wheres everyone getting this 17k figure from? Districts+MAR CMP+CMP=13k, I'm assuming its the same for Michigan.
EDIT: I think I was missing the "super regional" step