[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 04/11/2001 8:48 AM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Re: Way back there. Size of Nationals, and a solution
Posted by Jason Iannuzzi on 04/11/2001 7:41 AM EST:



It may be that 340 teams is the max that Disney is willing to accept.

It may also be that FIRST is unwilling to leave Disney in order to make the Nationals larger.

How to proceed?

If you limit teams by some qualification criteria, this is going to make travel very tricky, as airline tickets and hotels will be more expensive to work out at the last moment.

If you limit teams based on signing up in December, many worthy teams will be missing from the Nationals.

Perhaps there is a middle ground.

Allow 80% of the slots to be filled on a first-come-first-served basis.

FIRST can then keep a waiting list that they alone control.

Teams that they deem to be worthy but not already scheduled to attend the Nationals (based on robot performance or Chairman's Award submission or perhaps some other criteria FIRST may choose) would be given the opportunity to fill those 20% of slots.

Any remaining slots would be filled on a first-come-first-served basis from the waiting list.

In this way, most teams that attend Disney could make plans early enough to save money, while those who did not sign up early but "belong" at the Nationals can still attend.

Thoughts?

Joe J.

P.S. Perhaps FIRST can even hold hotel reservations for these teams to take advantage of. These and other details can be worked out as plans progress.