Championship 2011 - St Louis - Your Thoughts Please?

[Grim Tuesday]

Watching the Einstein webcast, they didn't play music, or the music wasn't broadcasted to the web viewers. It make the whole event seem toned down.

I was forced to play thunderstruck in the backround myself

[elemental]

Pros:
- Fields in the pits
- Roboprom
- Black Eyed Peas Concert (Letting Chairman's teams have floor tickets was a nice touch.)
- Meeting Hall of Fame teams
- Attending the Chief Delphi WebHug
- Aerial Robotics!

Cons:
- Little space outdoors or indoors to decompress. It seemed that anywhere I went was loud and crowded.
- The Black Eyed Peas concert. Taking up half of the arena made the commute to Galileo/Newton much longer as everyone had to use the same route.
- The wrap party. It was extremely chaotic and my team decided to leave earlier than planned to because of the crowds.
- Seating for the fields in the pits.
- Having Chairman's interviews on Thursday.

[lpickett]

I have only been to Atlanta once, so I do not have a lot to judge this by. That being said, there are definately pros and cons. Pros: short distance from pits to dome for robot traffic. Parking was close and not too bad on cost. The bleachers were not big enough. Missouri/Illinois teams had large groups since it was such a short trip for us. I was disappointed in the cleanliness of the center and dome. When we arrived Saturday morning, there was still trash-filled containers outside the dome. This did not present a good look for Missouri or St. Louis. There were not enought trash containers in the pit areas for the number of people. The robot crossing route was right by the bathrooms. Needed to be better monitored and maybe routed away from bathrooms and water fountains. Food venues closed earlier than pits. Not handicap friendly for movement from pits to dome, especially if you are on the other side of the dome. It took me two days to figure out how to get my husband from one place to another easily with his oxygen tank.

[DeAnnaC]

Just a few more thoughts (and I'm from St. Louis):

Pros:
It was nice sleeping at home each night!

I thought for the most part, the layout in the Convention Center with pits and vendors was good, there were some traffic jams (esp when returning from the dome at the first corner).

The St. Louis Planning group did a good job of getting the word out - we saw it on multiple billboards, soda cans, at the little screens at gas stations, on sheets attached to pizza boxes, etc. We ran into a family in the dome who had seen it on tv and drove over from Illinois. We helped them into the convention center and gave them info to navigate around (do we need a 'Are you new to FIRST? ' table?

I had a blast at all the events, and it may be next weekend before I've recovered. The Black Eyed Peas - I'm glad we went, I thought the video clips (esp Jack Black's) was hilarious. It was good to laugh. We decided we were way too old to be down on the floor, lol.

The talent show - we are just glad more people were able to witness Fishboy. And it's always nice to see the variety of talent that these kids have.

The collegiate teams - that was very interesting - they need more seating and a posted schedule


Cons:
The price of parking, even at the same lot. On 2 days we had to leave and return, and the price at the same lot had changed while we were gone.

The STINKY tennis shoes from our team mates after standing in the 6 inches of water to unload - they were dry by the next day but in a small vehicle each day back down there the smell was awful, maybe the shoes need replaced? Ugh.

Lack of things for younger visitors to do on Saturday - the Lego booth should have stuck around for local people who came down.

At the Georgia Dome, there was more than 1 set of doors to enter the building - routing everyone thru the same set of doors every day and for the concert was a mess. I know that this event lacked some volunteers, perhaps this is the reason other doors were not open?

I can't wait for next year though.

DeAnna
FEED THE FISH!

[Refresh]

The Good:
St. Louis:Wonderful Venue. The Commute across the field wasn't that bad and didn't take much time to get from one place to another.
The Concert:Really enjoyed the Black Eyed Peas.
CARD matches:With me being a College student, I've really missed participating in this year's game. This just might be a cool challenge to participate
The Lego station: The whole station was great. From the structures of the Arch and Boba Fett to the Lego Chess board really made the place enjoyable.

the Bad:
The Concert: Our team got to be all the way up in the nosebleed seats and we weren't able to see any of the video's or the special effects that were displayed on the back screen. If they had put it on the front screen that was down between acts, people at the top would probably have had a chance to see the videos.
Pit seating:The fields in the pit were fine really, the only thing that needs to change is more seating. The stands were packed with people and even the steps had people with it. Apart from that, I didn't really have a problem with the stands being in the pits.