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Unread 23-06-2002, 23:07
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#0047 (ChiefDelphi)
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Pontiac, MI
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Re: Eating lead in 2000

Posted by Andy Baker.

Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 6/2/99 12:34 AM MST


In Reply to: Eating lead in 2000 posted by michael bastoni on 5/31/99 9:00 AM MST:



OK, after reading all of you fanatics rant about this and that, I wanna weigh in and have a say also:

Although we disagree how to do it, I can safely say that we all want these two things:
1. Inspire Students
2. Grow FIRST

Now, the question is, how do we so this?

(I'm trying to summarize most of our opinions here, so bear with me.)

Here are the suggestions thus far:
1. Play more
2. Interact more with other teams
3. Keep the game the same for a few years
4. Make the game different and challenging every year
5. Have more summer contests (like Rumble)
6. Divide into different leagues

Here are the recent 'issues' from past competitions:
1. Nationals is getting too big for FIRST to handle
2. Too much waiting to compete after shipping 'bots
3. Not enough practice and play times
4. We didn't grow as fast as FIRST thought we would
5. Inequity between teams
6. Stadiums in parking lots aren't the best places to battle robots
7. Many communities don't quite 'get' what we are doing

After looking at these points I have a realization: let's de-emphasize Nationals and concentrate on Regionals!

Let's drop all of the shipping restrictions and let the teams play with their robots as much as they want to during the Competition Season.

Here are my reasons:
We started out with 28 teams, and it grew to what we have today. I'd bet good money that if we fenced of the entire state of Michigan (which has 45+ teams), and didn't let any teams leave the state, they'd have 300 teams in 5 years. That's what we have to do, grow the teams locally. We (in Indiana) have not done that, therefore only 6 teams reside in our state. The reason why is because FIRST hasn't made us do it by letting us depend on Nationals.

If we didn't go to Nationals, what would we do?
We'd go to more Regionals and make more efforts to get more teams around us. We'd get serious about making our own Regional. We'd call up teams like Beatty or Wildstang and say 'Our gymnasium. Next Friday night. Bring your robot and as many fans as you can stuff into a bus. Best of 7 matches with this year's machine... while your at it, bring last year's 'bot. We want a piece of it also.'

We'd say, 'if FIRST isn't going to provide a Nationals for all teams anymore, we're gonna take more time and effort to build teams around us' This will MAKE US challenge other local large cities involved with starting teams. Just off of the top of my head... Indianapolis has 1 team, Louisville = 0, Cincinatti = 0, St. Louis = 0, Nashville = 0, Memphis = 0, and on and on...

This would enable us to play more, making people like Bastoni happy. It would get communties more involved. Mayors and student board memebers would actually attend these competitions instead of seeing videos from Florida. Other communities would be more envious, and they can attend competitions.

We could still have National Competitions, but with less teams. Only the best of the best could go to Nationals, and the rest would watch the live televised event on Sunday afternoon, instead of the Pacers vs. Knicks.

The game is still new every year (keeping the engineers, student designers, and companies happy), but we all get to play more... on our terms. Where we want, against who we want, and when we want.

How is this bad?
We wouldn't get to interact with teams from other parts of the US (and world?). That's where the Rumble-like events come in to play. The same old teams could get together to beat on each other and talk about the old times over a beverage.
Also, there might be some differences between how 'the game' is being played in California vs. how it's played in Florida. Who cares? As long as we are inspriring kids and growing FIRST, we should be fine.

Anyway, feel free to chew on this. It's not a very well thought-out plan, so please take it and make it better.

Later,
Andy B.

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