Just a quick note --
two years ago, my team went to championships, and upon arriving there we fond a number of our other georgia teams had suddenly gotten off the waiting list (like within 3-4 days of champs starting
) Turns out, that year was the same one that a NY regional was held the week before championships. The reason those teams got picked out of wherever they were on the waiting list is because they were local enough that hey didn't need a lot of time to figure out logistics.
That is probably my only reason for liking the idea that champs moves to St. Louis next year. A lot more teams will be "local" (ish) and not have to worry about last minute plane flights and things. I say that's my only reason because i enjoyed having champs in my backyard ever since i joined the first community in 2003
i will sorely miss volunteering when our team wasn't able to attend, but hey, i'm sure it'll come around again another time
The one thing i like about the open slots is that teams who can build good robots (or will) and happen to be the ones that don't win regionals (maybe #2
) can go, and they don't lessen the calibur of teams there. True, there are teams that signed up and then managed not to build good robots, and those teams don't generally make it into finals for any division or einstein, so why worry about it really?