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In my experience with FIRST, I have seen two sometimes-competing messages that have to do with the Championships. Some people would like to see every team be able to go to every Championship event if they so desire, because in FIRST's and our own eyes we're all winners and we deserve to be there. Then there are others who believe that the Championships should live up to their namesake, and those that are the best should attend.
For the past couple of years, the Championships with their even/odd system, combined with their registration system, seem to be playing to both views, and personally I don't believe that's right. I think that FIRST should either emphasize that the Championships are truly the "superbowl of smarts", where the best of the best come to play, or they're completely open to everyone. Unfortunately, having championships completely open to everyone won't work.
Here's my idea. At the beginning of the season, FIRST should offer "interest registration" in Championships. This would require a downpayment ($1000?) on the part of teams to make sure they would be able to attend the event, but would not guarantee entry (unless the teams are Chairman's Award winners or original FIRST teams). Once this registration is complete, FIRST would know what teams would attend Championships if they had the chance.
Here's the tough part. From this, taking a census of the number of team members each team would bring from the "interest registration" (or limiting teams to a certain number of people), FIRST should pre-reserve hotels to accomodate their maximum number of team members attending the event. This would make last-minute travel plans that much easier, which will be discussed later in this section.
Now, the awards should be made so that any award FIRST deems worthy to be given out is worthy enough to qualify a team for the Championships. I agree with the idea that a team should only be eligible to receive awards from one regional; why should a team be honored by multiple regionals for the same action? The theme here should be "if you can't do it for the Chairman's award, you can't do it for other awards". Obviously this doesn't work for first seed and all that, but those are different types of awards.
Once a team qualifies for an award, and they have registered their interest with FIRST, all that is left to do is claim their number of hotel rooms. Yes, travel plans have to be accounted for, but I do not believe that can be avoided.
Once all the regionals have been completed, there may be spots open in the Championships after all the awards have been given out. FIRST can then use it's "interest registration" pool, choose teams at random lottery-style, and inform those teams at a certain date that they can go. If a team chooses not to go after they have filed their "interest registration", FIRST could choose not to return their downpayment. Otherwise, all teams that have filed their "interest registrations" and did not get a chance to attend Championships should get their downpayments of $1000 back.
Sorry for the length!
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Gui Cavalcanti
All-Purpose College Mentor with a Mechanical Specialty
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Class of 2008
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