Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbo493
The problem of splitting FRC and FTC/FLL is that you make it highly unaccessible for a lot of teams, because now the Championships aren't centrally located. If our team got invited to Houston we would have a much harder time than we are with St. Louis. One way we could have a top winner is to work a little like the NCAA March Madness where Midwest/West and North/South never meet until the title game, So the winning alliance would come from Houston to Detroit/St. Louis, maybe with some FIRST sponsoring, for the final matches, since the two events take place on two weekends. Not sure how cost-effective and time consuming this would be, but the team would really only need to be there Saturday. And to keep it fair they wouldn't have much time to work on their bot between the two competitions.
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I agree. I think splitting FTC/FLL and FRC is a poor decision. There are teams which participate in both/all three and that would be just about the most taxing, most expensive situation one could find themselves in. Having successful FTC/FLL team(s) and successful FRC team(s) should not be punished. Also, the inspiration people see from seeing other leagues is awesome.
My post above describes a way to combat region lock and theoretically one being weaker than the other. This post describes one way to crown a true world champion.
Play out the semifinal rounds at each 'championship' and take the finals rounds to this 3rd location. Immediately after the last semifinal match, the winning robots and necessary tools are bagged and shipped(on FIRST's dime) to a one day, televised "true world championship" which would be done on a third weekend in a different smaller arena that is a huge airport hub(Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, LA, NYC).
There would be just 4 alliances to make it to this final level. The teams(a skeleton crew, maybe just drive team and elims pit crew) would be flown out for a single saturday, on FIRST's(or hopefully the broadcast sponsors') dime. You could of course bring the whole team, but it would cost you, and they wouldn't be allowed on the field except for pictures at the end (as is usually the case for elims pit crew). This whole event would take less than 2 hours, and could be easily televised, with interviews with drivers and whatever.
Highest seeded north plays lower seeded south, Lower seeded north plays Higher seeded south, winners of those play each other. This final championship is one day, so shouldn't be TOO taxing on everyone. Its free, and awesome, and you would assume anyone would go. Because FIRST has the robots in their control, you could hold this at any time, the next weekend, or even the summer, and the season is essentially frozen in time. Don't allow any witholding allowance for superchamps. Allow minimal time to work on robots so they are in a very close state to how they were at the end of their championship.
It also could be an intimate place to roll out a red carpet and really schmooze some sponsors, as well as bring FIRST more into the public eye.
This idea is way too specific. I just had to make some arbitrary decisions to write it out coherently, so it of course needs tweaking.
Also, its not my idea, I put it together from reading that super long thread