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Re: Championship 2007 - Atlanta - What Needs To Be Improved
I agree with many of the comments made so far. Here is my list, which may be a bit repetitive, but from a different perspective.
* FREE TUBES
It was disappointed that someone like Mike Wade from NASA Goddard, who works so hard to supply field and field manager for many events on the East Coast, was not able to get ANY of the tubes that FIRST was using during the Championship. I don't mind if extras were given away. However, they would definitely be put to good use if Mike W. had a full-field set of them. Have someone truck them over to the wrap party and distribute thre rest if there were extras.
* TIME FOR FINALS / AWARDS
Either FIRST should shorten the awards/finals or incorporate the actual running time in the program. For the past X years, this part of the Championship has taken longer than allotted in the schedule. Let's just modify the schedule to indicate their true length. Then teams can plan accordingly and, perhaps, will not need to leave before they are complete.
* ENGINEERING INSPIRATION / CHAIRMANS AWARD
Last year, MOE won the CMP Engineering Inspiration Award. Since FIRST considers is the second highest award they present, this award should come right before the Chairman's Award and be given the honor it deserves.
Having won the Chairman's Award, our team was more excited than concerned about teams leaving early. I can understand why some might leave if they had transportation issues and needed to go to the wrap party, which they may have paid for but, due to the length of the finals/awards, could not stay at for long before they had to leave.
With all the emotion at the time, I hardly noticed teams leaving, but considered the comments here, I wish that it would have been run more effectively. Confetti, fireworks, or some special effect would have been nice to demonstrate the importance of the award. I can understand why confetti balls would not be used, but there are also confetti "shooters" which are unobtrusive and just as fun.
The best part of Houston Championship a few years ago for me was the balloons falling all around at the end of the Chairman's Award presentation. That was a reason to stay!!
* GETTING DOWN TO THE FIELD
Due to seating, our team stayed in our Curie seats throughout the finals. When we learned we won the Chairman's Award, we thought we could use the stairs right in front of us to get down to the field. Unfortunately, they had been locked up, so we had to walk up to the concourse, through lots of people, and back down the main aisleway. This took a long time. I felt bad that we did not have more MOEboteers down on the field, but we could not get their easily. It would have been very easy to have someone open the stairs for us. We could have saved 5-10 minutes.
Alternatively, it was very nice to walk by many teams who gave high fives and congratulated us.
* FINAL VIDEO COLLAGE
I remember the video collage at Disney World in 2000, our rookie year. It was awesome and was followed by fireworks and laser lights. It had a profound affect on me and reinforced what was so special about FIRST and the event my team had just completed. It was a fitting close for the event. It's a shame for the people and hours it took to compile that video to not have it more prominently displayed before everyone took off for the wrap party. I only caught glimpses of it as I made my way down to the field.
* WRAP PARTY
Not enough drinks (one whole row was empty) and the sound from the main stage was too loud to have a decent conversation (might be my "old ears").
FIRST did some great planning and execution for much of this event. However, the issues above bring down their overall rating for me.
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MOE Celebrates 18 Years in FIRST this season!
2007 CMP Chairmans Award - thanks to all MOEboteers, past and present!
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