[jweston]

This is one those growing pains that FIRST is inevitably going to go through if it is successful in its mission to expand. It's not practical to maintain what is effectively 8-10+ district-championship-sized fields in one location. As FRC continues to grow, it becomes incredibly difficult to coordinate the logistics, not to mention ensuring safety, due to the number of people gathering in one place. There will not be a satisfactory solution if people want to keep everything about World Championship as it currently stands.

The next best solution I can think of is to create some sort of intermediate global regional championship level between district and world. That has its own problems with costs, lengthening the calendar, and requiring even more time from students during a school year. Pretty much anything that allows for growth is going to involve trade-offs. I have a hunch that these ChampionSplits may become that if FIRST finds it desirable to have a single Einstein field.

From a more personal perspective on what World Championships is about, this was the first year our team made it to World Championship since 2010. This means none of our current students have been there. One of the things our team loved most about going to World was the opportunity to meet in person teams from all over the planet. And not just the legendary teams but teams from places like the West Coast, Canada, Mexico, and Israel; teams we'd never, ever get to meet in New England. The students really connected because they all loved FRC and everything that goes into it, but they also got to share a little bit of their respective culture with each other.

Another big highlight were the workshops given by some of the most experienced and talented teams around. They are still talking about Karthik's strategy workshop. OTOH, our students certainly weren't able to meet every team at World. One of the downsides of it being so big.

Was our team excited to play in Hopper and watch Einstein in person? Of course! But the point is that the overall experience of being at World was a lot bigger than that. It wasn't about figuring out which alliance was the best but which teams were the ones to watch this year.

The ChampionSplit won't necessarily mean that the teams in any given ChampionSplit will be any less diverse or legendary (at least I hope not), but it will mean that attending World won't guarantee that you'll have the chance to meet specific people also attending World. But then, with so many attending now, that might already be true. It also might mean that certain teams that we're accustomed to seeing in the Einstein finals may not be together on the same field. But this might also be good since it widens the spotlight a little to other fantastic teams.

I understand the desire to have a single grand champion alliance. I appreciate how that plays into the marketability of FIRST to the general public and to sponsors. I understand how satisfying it is to have that goal as to be on _the_ Einstein winning alliance. But given the continued expansion, there is a necessity to either limit the number of teams to a much smaller percentage than 25% or to split World. For now, it's probably better for FIRST to focus on making World managable and accessible to teams. Once they find a method that works with the current growth, they can focus on something that sells.

Anyway, that's my two cents from a first year mentor's perspective, never having been involved with FIRST before.

P.S. I don't understand the rationale of making it cheaper to travel. That may be true for teams in the center of the US, but there are a whole lot of teams that doesn't cover. It will definitely become more expensive for our team... not that I'm complaining if we make it to World again.