2013 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[GBK]

The camps were amazing and we were honored to be there.
That being said some adjustments need to be made to make it better for everyone.
Too many teams in a division and too few matches. The speeches are way too long. Too few good seats for Einstein.
If the Einstein speeches were cut way back there would be time to do a normal QF, SF, and finals match set up. This would require more divisions. More divisions means less teams for each division. Less teams per division means more matches.
Einstein needs to be setup on one of the long sides of the dome like it was in Atlanta. This would allow for better seating for Einstein.
Some people don't like the paper airplanes (I think they are just fine) if the speeches were shorter and more matches were being played, there would be less students and mentor bored and maybe less airplanes.
Some might ask where would you put the extra fields for the additional divisions... Why doe FTC need to be at the same championship. FTC is being limited at the championship by FRC just as much as FRC is being limited by FTC. Michigan has adapted FTC as a middle school program and the season as been adjusted so it does not interfere with FRC. This allows us coaches/mentor to do both teams. Makes for a great feeder system for FRC and allows 7th and 8th graders to be involved in something more challenging than Lego. Most of that age group is not interested in Lego any way. Michigan is still only allowed to send 2 teams to camps. This limits the growth of FTC in our state. If FIRST is going to continue to grow the way it should, some hard decisions need to be made.