Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Line
My biggest hope is that they don't intend to do bleacher-style fields in Cobo Hall like they did when the Black Eyed Peas played at Championships. That was an utter failure. It was miserably uncomfortable, there was only about 1/3 the seating that was needed, the sound systems stunk, and the screens were hard to see.
Please let FIRST have learned from that experience.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Basel A
Is there a different way to have a field in a convention center? The grapevine says that's where FRC will be through division elims, then move to Ford Field for Einstein.
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This I think is one of my biggest frustrations with the Split-CMP plan... it is based on the foundational assumption that with split championships more teams will get the "World CMP" level of inspiration with two CMPs. But really, I expect the level of inspiration felt by each team to be much smaller with all the compromises they have to make inherent to the split CMPs and tangentially caused by the split CMPs (less competitive field, only meeting teams from half the country/world, fields in convention center, etc). Honestly, for me those three things were what made CMP so inspiring and exciting as a student... how overwhelmingly competitive the field was, being able to see the very best teams from throughout all of FRC in the pits, and competing in the Georgia Dome, the home of the Olympics (and I mean
our team competing in the Georgia Dome, not just the top teams who already felt far-removed from our own). With the split CMP, it won't just be the arena that is cheapened, it'll be all three of those points... That is a recipe for much less inspiration!
I'm still a little surprised FIRST HQ made such a huge, binding, and team-impacting decision without the slightest bit of input from the FIRST community... FIRST HQ (Frank Merrick, specifically, but also all of FIRST HQ to a lesser extent) have really impressed me over the last several years with their team-oriented decisions and the visibility they've allowed... in stark contrast to the 2011 CMP field arrangement debacle where FIRST HQ insisted that somehow all the fields wouldn't fit in the EJD until they mysteriously managed to fit all the fields in 2012.
I would MUCH prefer if FIRST HQ tried to instead make the quality of the DCMPs even higher (provide resources to make them even grander and have some of the 'extras' that the CMP has like conferences, quality sponsor booths, etc.) and then just allowed "only" 600 or so teams come to CMP. Make 450 or so based on merit and the other 150 or so drawn from the waitlist (with preference given to teams that haven't visited in the past 2+ years). Yes, not every student on a team for 4 years would get to go to CMP... but honestly, the number of teams that have the resources to go to CMP is FAR smaller than the number of teams in FIRST. Many teams struggle to have the organization and money to attend a regional or two districts! Perhaps more energy should be focused on that problem and less on the "problem" of only 600 FRC teams going to CMP?