Quote:
Originally Posted by joelg236
I don't have much to add other than this: We only went to worlds last year because of a quickly done RAS submission. Worlds completely changed the direction and motivation of our team. It's a huge motivator for the teams that just haven't fully understood what FIRST is about yet. Not sure if I would agree that that is a great reason to let them come, but it sure is a positive thing for a lot of teams.
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Hmm yeah, I am also a bit torn on this issue.
Full disclosure: Last year, 3929 was able to attend because we won the MAR Championship Rookie All Star award. At World Championships, we won Rookie Inspiration (and apparently the last non-divisional one). Our awards last year included Chestnut Hill District RAS and 14th seed (quarterfinalist), Mt. Olive District Champions as the 3rd bot for 222 and 25 and Mt. Olive RAS, then MAR Championship RAS. Though we were extremely lucky to be picked by 25, at least it was some minimum competitive level.
I think that Rookie All Stars should be able to attend and compete, purely due to the incredible amount of motivation and inspiration that comes from attending. My students had much more motivation and determination after attending, and I would hate to see a first year team miss that chance.
When it comes to auto-bid with Chairman's, I do think that there needs to be a universal point based minimum competitive level for these teams in order to be able to compete with their robots. This minimum point count doesn't even need to be much, but I think it needs to be there. I've seen Chairman's winners with semi-functional robots, which I am not sure I want to publicize as the ideal role model teams for FIRST to the public and to their peers. I know this sounds harsh, but even my rookie students were more inspired by teams with excellent and decent machines and Chairman's awards than a team with just a Chairman's award and a mediocre robot. But again, this methodology can only exist with a universal point system based off of FiM and MAR district models.
There needs to be a minimum competitiveness standard for veterans, but most probably not for rookies. Rookies really need World Championships to be inspired, whereas if you are capable of winning Chairman's, you have probably already been inspired.
With that said, I'm pretty positive the students and mentors of 3929 are pretty confident that they would not want to attend Champs based on luck of the waitlist, unless a universal point system deems them worthy of competing.