Championships - Qualification Only Event?

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

We are not football, track, softball or any other organized sport. We are in the business of inspiring students. I think this system will limit the number of student we can inspire. I truly believe that EVERY team should have the opportunity to compete at champs at least once every 4 years. Yes, that means the level of competition will be lower. Yes, there might be brave little toasters at champs. That's how I think it should be.

But we live in a competitive world...if you want to get that job, or that contract, or make it to Championships; you have to beat out everyone else who is trying to do the same thing. The "C" in FRC stands for competition. Part of that inspiration needs to be the understanding that nothing in this world is handed to you - you need to work to make it happen.

I believe that the majority of inspiration comes from the six weeks of hard work in creating a robot to meet the challenge of the new game, and in getting that robot to a competition and competing. I applaud EVERY team that manages to do that - it is a huge accomplishment.

However, now we have a situation that not every team can go to the FIRST Championship - even if we rotate to once every 4 years. There would still be teams shut out - there is no way to make sure that EVERY student gets to compete at the Championships at least once in their high school career. It sucks, but that's the way it is. So the fair way to determine who goes would be based on performance.