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Re: New FIRST competition structure in Michigan
Is there an advantage to this competition structure? One hopes so, else why would we be trying something that is worse than what is already in place? But even so, it will have positive and negative impacts for individual teams. The question the pilot will attempt to answer is whether the positives outweigh the negatives for FIRST in Michigan, and then whether that can be scaled up to FIRST overall and remain positive.
One thing I would note in the +/- figures given above, is that you are somewhat comparing apples to oranges. Or maybe valencias to navels. There is not a direct comparison of costs. If your only concern is getting to Atlanta in the least expensive manner, then Michigan teams come out ahead by $1000 (although they may have to pay shipping to get the robot to Atlanta, I forget how that works). MI teams pay $5000 entry for two district competitions plus pre-pay $5000 for the Championship; other teams pay $6000 entry for one regional competition and pre-pay $5000 for the Championship. If you want to get to Atlanta by the cheapest method of qualifying, the MI teams would have to pay the additional $4000 for the State Championship and gamble on qualifying, while the non-MI team would have to gamble on qualifying from their sole competition.
The real difference is what happens to teams along the way to Atlanta, and especially what happens to teams that don't advance anywhere. Teams that would have spent $6000 to enter one regional now pay $1000 less to get two districts.
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(since 2004)
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