[Collin Fultz]

Dr. Joe - It's so funny you bring this up. Late last year I was surfing the Archives of CD (I lead such a glamorous life) and found your post (from around 1999?) highlighting your thoughts on how (at that time) Nationals needed to be restructured into it's current format. You even called the names of the divisions and naming the "big" field Einstein. I wish I could find that post again. It's incredible how many of your suggestions are now common rules and practices (I think in that thread you also advocated unlimited material usage).

I like the quasi-randomness of the way it currently is. I have been told that the GDC puts some thought into some of the division selection. I see it as similar to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Your Regionals are your conference. You typically play against the same group of teams each year. Win your conference (in FIRST, by any of the auto-qualification methods), you're guaranteed a spot in the Championship tournament. If you don't win, you have to hope for at "at-large" selection to the Championships (in FIRST, you have some control over this).

But the Champsionships are like the NCAA Tournament. The Regions in the Tourney aren't based on geographic location of the schools (except for the #1 seeds) but are supposed to make the Regions as balanced as possible. I believe that the GDC tries to do this each year with the Divisions at Champs.

Cyber Blue has not yet made it to Einstein. But, if we did, I'd be willing to bet I'd be more excited that we made it there then that we had specifically won the Curie Division. And if we happened to win the Division that was considered "weaker" than another, it wouldn't really bother me either, because we made FIRST's Final Four.

I don't think this is a problem that needs to be fixed. It's fun the way it is now. I do, however, fully support Mr. Baker's idea (linked earlier in the thread) about televising the "selection" show. If we'll all gather around for three hours to see exactly what the game is on a Saturday in January, I'd be willing to bet we'd watch a webcast as a team of them announcing the divisions.