Quote:
Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan
After the game last year I don't really think FIRST can get much more cunfusing. I do think that putting all the ideas together at once is really rough especially all in the first year of actually having a limited Championship.
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I think I may have mentioned this somewhere else already, but while FIRST may have chosen a confusing way of selecting teams for nationals, based on what their goals were when they developed the system of qualifying, they did the best they could, for these reasons:
1. At least at the MI forum, it was a general consensus that you could not solely base qualifying on performance in the current year's competition. If they did, the problem of the few teams this year who may have to make last-minute plans for nationals would expand to everybody. Thus, the qualification criteria based on previous years.
2. At the same time, if a team performed extremely well this year at a regional competition, it doesn't seem right to say to them, "OK, you did great this year, so you can go to Nationals NEXT year." Thus, the qualification criteria based on this year's regionals. Yes, it does put a little more last-minute pressure on some teams to make travel arrangements, but as I've said before, this is no different than any other HS sports team qualifying for state or nationals, and then having to come up with the funding to get there.
3. Even with all the past year qualifying and this year's qualifying, if you figure it all out, there's a lot of overlap there, and then teams that are no longer in the competition take the number down even further. And based on the comments I've seen here, it's a general consensus that part of the draw of the National Competition is its size. Therefore, in an attempt to keep Nationals close to its previous size, they needed some way to get additional teams there. Implementing an even/odd structure like they have gives every team a chance of getting to nationals every year, and not limiting the "wild card" slots to those teams that register at 8:01 on opening day every year.
Is the system perfect? By no means. However, considering the goals that FIRST had in front of them when they were developing this system(as little last-minute planning as possible, reward this year's award and event winners, give as many other teams a chance to get in as possible), I think they did the best they could with what they had to work with.
Also, for those teams or team members who feel that their FIRST season won't be complete without a trip down to Disney, I pose this to you: make your reservations now for Nationals. If your performance this year provides you with the opportunity to compete, then I congratulate you and wish you the best of luck down in Florida. If, however, you do not qualify, still make the trip down to Disney, but before you do, e-mail FIRST and tell them that you want to volunteer at the event. Their staff of about 20 will have been traveling all over the country for the past 4 weeks, and pulling off an event the size of Disney is no small task. They can use all the help they can get. One of the teams I am currently assisting has openly said that they will not be going down to Florida this year. Is that stopping me? No...