Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiztobe
Regionals usually start with a low cap and raise it later in the registration timetable, to reserve spots for rookies, local teams, etc. This cap will likely go up at a later date.
GTR West last year (2014) was only 30 teams, and was hosted at Crescent High School, where 610 originates. It's possible that the venue for GTR Central is also smallish, and they only plan to invite 30-40 teams.
As Ontario continues to develop their infrastructure (fields, volunteers, etc.) I could see that they are gradually moving towards something like a district system, with more, smaller events hosted in venues which aren't quite as fancy as expensive, and which keep the competition pool small and each team's match count high. Even if they aren't officially a district, they can still get some of benefits while slowing building towards the transition. But someone from FIRST Canada would have to say more about this, if it's even anywhere close to the truth at all. Merely speculation on my part.
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I'm pretty curious about how this event will work. The venue, listed as Mattamy Athletic Centre, has a basketball court with seating for 1000 on the second floor and a hockey rink with seating for 2500 on the third floor. Their website has pictures showing the ice rink covered and in use for other events. There's a lot of space on the fourth floor, which circles the rink.The venue also has Google Streetview of some of the interior, but I don't see any large ramps or a way to move robots between floors other than the elevators. Load-in might be fun if you're limited to what would fit in a standard elevator (unless I'm missing a freight elevator or some large ramps). I'm concerned about queuing involving moving between floors, assuming that the pits are in the basketball court and the field is over the hockey rink or vice versa.
Also, one side-effect of smaller Canadian Regionals is that a higher percentage of Ontario teams make it to the Championship than in other regions. If they switched to districts they might actually lose spots. Last year Ontario had 115 teams and 5 Regionals, giving them a maximum of 30 unique spots at CMP, which comes out to 26% of Ontario teams. Just under 15% of all teams made it to CMP last year. I can't think of any way that that over-representation would cause any problems, especially given that CMP is growing for next year. Then again, if 26% of all teams went last year, there would have been 704 to deal with.