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#13
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The worst thing that FIRST could do would be to make a drastic change in qualfiying criteria just a few days before registration opens.
FIRST should release its eligibility criteria at least six months in advance so that teams have a chance to prepare. FIRST should figure out what it intends to accomplish with its Championship. It seems that we are vascillating between an open championship (which encourages lots of teams to get together and inspire each other) and a competitive championship. If FIRST intends to continue to swing the dial from "OPEN" to "COMPETITIVE" then here are my suggestions for this year. 1. Keep the past chairman's award winners and the original ten teams as pre-qualified. 2. Eliminate the Odd/Even open slots. 3. Increase the number of competitively pre-qualified slots. This can be done by lowering the pre-qualifying threshold. Teams which made it to the semi-finals, design award winners, chairman's award winners, etc. in 2003 would pre-qualify for 2004. 4. Increase the number of slots based on performance in 2004 regionals a. Both Finalist Alliances at a Regional qualify. b. Chairman's Award and Runner Up at a Regional Qualify 5. Require teams which attend Nationals to submit a Regional Chairman's Award. This criterion would use the slots at Nationals as an inducement for teams to do what FIRST is trying to get them to do. Since the registration deadline is so close, it would be impossible to implement this before this year's deadline. However, the submission might be required by the time that the second payment deadline occurs (in mid-February). Failure to pay and submit a Chairman's Award means that FIRST starts going down the wait-list. If FIRST really wanted to make this serious, it could also use the quality of the submission to decide who got in and who didn't. These criteria would greatly reduce rookie teams from nationals, since most of the pre-qualifying slots would be taken by teams which had competed for a year. However, only about 10-20 rookie teams signed up for nationals in the pre-season last year based on the odd/even open system. Perhaps a more rigorous Rookie All-Star award could serve as a qualifying award. 6. After a certain date, any remaining spots could be signed up for on a first come/first served basis, including wait list. |
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