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Re: bill's latest
In my estimation, if you want to see the future of FRC, just look at the 2009 Michigan pilot.
If you are not familiar with it, it featured "district" events leading up to a State Championship. The events were locally managed, smaller in scale, limited to 40 teams, and ran Friday/Saturday only. Teams hauled their own robots, and had an "access window" in lieu of the practice day. Instead of $6000 for the KOP and 1 regional, we paid $5000 for the KOP and 2 districts.
We liked it very well. We had 12 matches at each competition (which is enough of a reason all by itself). Mentors (& students) only needed to miss one day of work (or school) per event. There was an "objective" rating system for ranking teams within the pilot area & to qualify for the championships. The robo-bagging has its quirks & opportunities for cheating, but generally worked out very well.
A few weeks ago, FIRST notified teams that they had "voted to make the District Event Model an approved alternative competition format for future FRC seasons" starting in 2011. The latest from Bill's blog is consistent with this direction. Reducing the overall cost of participation is necessary for continued FRC growth (or even maintenance in this economic environment).
I hope this happens. We had some concerns early on, but were very happy with the changes.
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