Who would like to see longer matches?

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by nukemknight

Sure it would be nice to see matches a bit longer, maybe extended to a total of three minutes in length. Not only would it increase excitement excitement of the game, but scores as well. I think the main problem with this is that there are some very large regionals where there are barely enough matches to create an accurate ranking list to begin with. Accuracy is of course dependent upon who you ask...

For example lets look at the Virginia Regional. There are normally at least 62 teams registered, which equals out to about 9 qualification matches per team. Extending the length of the matches would cause teams to play less matches and create a less accurate ranking system.

Last year, the Virginia Regional played 95 qualification matches. At the current guide of 6 minute matches, that equals to 570 minutes. Increasing matches by just one minute would drop the number of matches available to be played to 81, reducing teams from 9 matches each to 8.

If my team is paying $5,000 to attend a regional, I want the students to be able to participate in as many matches as possible.

Plus, with the complexity of the robots being produced in recent years, can the batteries withstand longer matches?

You bring up some really good points, maybe FIRST would have to limit the # of teams allowed to register for an event. At BAE we had 11 matches even with an hour delay.

The battery issue brought up the idea for a pit crew to me. I think it would be awesome to see the human player change out a teams battery in the middle of a match.

I totally understand wanting to get your $s worth. WPI has come up with a model for doing regionals at a fraction of the cost as FIRST so hopefully FIRST will get on board so all teams have at least 2 regionals. It would be nice if we could have a FIRST season rather than a FIRST regional.

This could be done by having university events, and then regional events, and finally the championship event