[ManicMechanic]

For those of us who are hooked on FIRST, a 2-day event is very appealing. However, for rookies, I believe that a longer tournament would be a deterrent to participating because of the cost and time involved with a 2-day event. It is my hope that FIRST would keep its Championship events one day (except Atlanta) for the benefit of newcomers, at least until the program expands to the point of having regional qualifiers

When we told our school that we had qualified to go to the World Championship in Atlanta, they asked, "You're not planning on missing any school, are you, because we can't make that an excused absence." We assured them that it would be during spring break. I think they had no concept of what an honor this was, because the idea of a robotics team is still foreign to them (even though we've been affiliated with the the school all year). I can see other teams having problems getting time off from school if this is a Friday/Saturday event (and some, including myself, prefer to avoid competitive events on Sundays if possible). Having a hotel cost for Friday night is also a deterrent to some teams.

For bonding purposes, I highly recommend having one or more informal one-day scrimmage events prior to the tournament in your region. We went to 2 scrimmages and felt like we got to know 3 teams well enough that we are planning to get together in May and during the summer. We did a lot more bonding at scrimmages than at tournaments, because there was less pressure.

Because of the potential volume of teams, I think it's likely that eventually, FVC will more closely follow the model of FLL, where nearly all the teams attend regional qualifiers, about 1/3 advance to the Championship (formerly State) event, and only 1-2 % of those advance to the World Championship (Nationals) in Atlanta, rather the FRC model where most teams attend a regional event, and about 1/3 of those advance directly to Atlanta. If this is the case, a 2-day (State) Championship would be more palatable, because all the rookie teams could attend a lower-cost regional qualifier, getting the spirit of the competition, while advancing would require a higher level of commitment.