Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankJ
If Michigan is there yet, don't expect the other districts to be close. At PCH, the district championship experience isn't even close to a large regional. Not a complaint. It is not really an apple to oranges comparison. A large regional experience doesn't compare to worlds.
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I personally think that New England is actually pretty close. The level of play is already >= Worlds. While the wow-factor may not be as large as Worlds, as someone who went to Worlds for the first time after DCMPs this year (Note: I had also never been to a regional, but I had been to 2 DCMPs), I was pretty blown away by DCMPs.
While it didn't have a lot of the fluff of Worlds, when you strip it down to what it is at its core, a robotics competition, I truly think it rivaled Worlds. The matches were exciting to watch and it is the only competition I watched that I actually expected teams to capture the tower in quals. While it didn't have the diversity of Worlds, it was still great to be able to walk the pits and see some incredible robots from teams that, while they are in our district, we still rarely see. It did have that wow-factor in sheer size for all but those who have been to St. Louis (The walk from the pits to the practice field was actually probably further than the walk to queue for those lucky teams in Newton). For a spectator/sponsor walking in off the street or a new team, it definitely still was an incredible and inspiring experience.
And as far as all that fluff at Worlds, while some of it added to the event, some of it was definitely a waste of money. Sure the fancy signs looked nice, but I do not even want to know how many grants could be given out to struggling teams for the cost of the signs alone. Some of the other stuff like Scholarship Row and social events do already exist and can be expanded fairly easily (at least relative to the work required to keep adding new CMPs, so more people can get the "Championship Experience" that way). I think the only thing that NE DCMP is missing is conferences and more of a supplier and sponsor presence, all of which would also not be that hard to implement. Even increasing the production value and adding entertainment would cost nothing relative to the cost of more CMPs.
Ultimately, while NE DCMP is not, and will never be, as fun of a vacation as Worlds, I do think it is fairly close to being as fun of a robotics competition and CMPs will be all the more special if you do qualify. Also, if what people want is a vacation, then I will steal someone from CD's proposal: Move 2 Champs to Disney World and Disney Land and let everyone go.