"Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I have paid nearly double in airfare flying to St. Louis vs Atlanta. Being the biggest Delta hub in the world, it was both easy to find a pair of flights to Atlanta and didn't cost a fortune. St. Louis has always been more expensive for me. I'll do some research after this exam and see if that's changed recently; maybe Atlanta got more expensive or is harder to move 40 students at a time through or something. No comment on hotels though.

Atlanta has way more flights than STL, but it is cheaper from the east coast, between 40 and $200 cheaper, from a quick search for BOS, PHL, and JFK. St Louis is generally more expensive for those of us on the west coast.

I don't remember the FIRST hotel packages costing any more in Atlanta than they do now. I am convinced there were both more and higher quality hotel rooms available in close proximity to the venue in Atlanta though.

I slightly prefer the actual venue in St Louis because it's easier to walk from the dome to the pits, but everything else about St Louis sucks in comparison to Atlanta, in my opinion. The airport is smaller and has way fewer direct flights (one a day, on one airline, for the Bay Area. Atlanta probably has 20+ direct flights a day), there's less to do in the immediate area of the venue for students, there's fewer food choices, it's impossible to eat a good meal during event hours as all the food in the venue is either bad or bad for you and overpriced (CNN center was great for this), the weather isn't as good, etc etc.

The one thing it does have going for it is it seems nominally safer, as the entire place is pretty much a ghost town and you run pretty good odds of never seeing anyone on the streets after 8 or 9 PM. Atlanta had homeless people that were fairly shameless about approaching people and trying to get money and if you went a few blocks in the wrong direction things could get a little sketchy, but I never felt threatened.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

In Atlanta, I don't like the walk between the convention center Pits and the Dome for competition. It takes a good 10 minutes to walk it. If you have a short window between matches you can't get back to the pits for repairs, or even to send a runner for supplies. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but, aren't they planning on tearing down the existing Georgia Dome?\

The new stadium is planned to be done by 2017, so if the bid is for 2014-2017, we'll be good.

- Sunny G.

[eli2410]

I found out that Indy does in fact a tunnel from Lucas Oil to the convention center. http://visitindy.com/web_files/map/D...ks_c012711.pdf

I did have an entire thing almost completely typed up with pluses and minuses of the five cities, but my computer froze and I had to restart it, and I'm too lazy to type up the whole thing again. My personal ranking of where it should be is Indy, St. Louis/Atlanta (don't care which), then Louisville. I know that the Indy Airport is small and doesn't serve a lot of places, but the city would really get behind it, and with the 12 hotels and the Circle Center Mall all connected by the skywalk and 2 more right by those plus 3 by the stadium, weather and transportation in the city wouldn't be that bad of an issue. I went to Indy for the 2010 Final Four and they did a great job. My coach and I both would like it to be there.

My other idea (mostly joking, of course, unless people would actually want it) is that Kansas City, Kansas could host it, using the Kansas Speedway's infield as pits and Sporting Park for the fields, since we never even get close to filling up the stands and they are next door to each other, literally. The reason championships requires the NFL stadiums, in my mind, is that not many other places have the floor space we need for 5 complete fields and stands. Sporting Park would have the floor space for it, and with 20,000+ seats, it has the seats for it too. The airport serves lots of cities, and we have a lot of sponsors located in KC. Of course, both the Speedway and Sporting Park are outdoors and our hotel rooms are spread out over KCK and KCMO, with no real public transport infrastructure.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Really, I'm saying that even though having FLL, FTC, and FRC all under the same roof sounds great on paper, how many people would it affect how much to have the programs in adjacent/nearby buildings? If I'm in the minority and many people are actually checking out FIRST as a whole, then perhaps this is quite important; however, I'm just curious how much this argument is "real" and not just "on paper."

A major reason our elementary school has an FLL program is that in 2010 we were on Curie, which was right next to Einstein, which was where the FLL tables were set up. My wife -- a 5th grade teacher -- spent time watching FLL when the FRC matches weren't going on. And decided that her students could do that. We're now starting our 4th year of FLL at the school.

That's hardly "many people," but how many does it take to make a success? All other things being equal, even one or two cases of programs being started because someone saw them at Worlds is worth it. I'm sure that all other things aren't equal among the various sites, but since we're in the business of Inspiration I think it behooves FIRST to try really hard to keep everyone together.

[ChuckDickerson]

FIRST is a family. The family that plays together stays together. I hope wherever we go in the future FLL, FTC, and FRC stay together. Simply put that's what makes it the World Festival rather than individual championships.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by luckof13

There are numerous rooms that branch off from the tunnel, although I doubt that there is enough room for all of the pits. The tunnel is also at a steep incline.
The planned new Red Wings arena and "entertainment district" might be more viable.

As someone who has carried a robot up that incline multiple times (Youth Engineering Science Expo), my vote is against Ford Field. I've been in the under tunnels and locker rooms (for marching band state championship) and there is no place for the pits down there. The Detroit bid is definitely Cobo and the Joe. Also if Detroit (magically) wins, don't tell anyone about the free parking at Greek Town, I don't want it to fill up!

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by eli2410

I found out that Indy does in fact a tunnel from Lucas Oil to the convention center. http://visitindy.com/web_files/map/D...ks_c012711.pdf

I did have an entire thing almost completely typed up with pluses and minuses of the five cities, but my computer froze and I had to restart it, and I'm too lazy to type up the whole thing again. My personal ranking of where it should be is Indy, St. Louis/Atlanta (don't care which), then Louisville. I know that the Indy Airport is small and doesn't serve a lot of places, but the city would really get behind it, and with the 12 hotels and the Circle Center Mall all connected by the skywalk and 2 more right by those plus 3 by the stadium, weather and transportation in the city wouldn't be that bad of an issue. I went to Indy for the 2010 Final Four and they did a great job. My coach and I both would like it to be there.

Something tells me that would turn into Robotics city for the weekend, sounds awesome!

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by eli2410

My other idea (mostly joking, of course, unless people would actually want it) is that Kansas City, Kansas could host it, using the Kansas Speedway's infield as pits and Sporting Park for the fields,

Is there really a Kansas City in KS?

Hm, an outdoor speedway. Sounds challenging.

Let's face it: As victims of our own success, there are not many venues that might accomodate CMP. None of the ones mentioned are 'perfect'. STL is not bad, especially for the walk from the field to the pits (for both robots and spectators) and so that's my fave so far.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

Something tells me that would turn into Robotics city for the weekend, sounds awesome!

That's exactly what would happen. That's what Indy did for the Super Bowl, that's what it does annually for the GenCon and FFA conventions, that's what it does for the Indy500.

[eli2410]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

Something tells me that would turn into Robotics city for the weekend, sounds awesome!

That was my thought. Indy seems to really embrace these types of things, it doesn't swallow it up like large cities, such as NYC (no offense to anyone). When I was there for the 2010 Final Four, the city embraced it, and everything was about it. I could totally see that happening with FIRST Championships.

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Is there really a Kansas City in KS?

Hm, an outdoor speedway. Sounds challenging.

Let's face it: As victims of our own success, there are not many venues that might accomodate CMP. None of the ones mentioned are 'perfect'. STL is not bad, especially for the walk from the field to the pits (for both robots and spectators) and so that's my fave so far.

Yep, that's who originally got Google Fiber, KCMO was announced a week later. For anyone who is interested here ( here) is the map. Note that the directions and time for walking is completely wrong, as it is taking the longest route possible. Frances Family Drive between the Best Western and Sporting Park would make the route 5-10 minutes tops, as it runs right to the infield of the Speedway and right next to Sporting's garage doors that can lead you to the field. Of course, like I said, this is still half jokingly, unless anyone actually wants to do it.

[BBray_T1296]

Too bad Jerry won't offer his palace and put World's here in Dallas

[eli2410]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

Too bad Jerry won't offer his palace and put World's here in Dallas

I had been looking last year around the country for places. Jerry's house (Cowboys Stadium for those who don't know) has only a tiny convention center roughly a mile away.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Cory

Atlanta had homeless people that were fairly shameless about approaching people and trying to get money and if you went a few blocks in the wrong direction things could get a little sketchy, but I never felt threatened.

You're fortunate. It happened to us twice in the same week. One even started shoving one of our students around, and then started trailing us. Felt much safer in downtown STL.

[dustinjones36]

As a Louisville local, I would imagine they proposed using the Kentucky State Fairgrounds down near the airport. It has over 1 million square feet under roof and connected, with an enourmous amount of parking.

http://www.kyfairexpo.org/meetingplanners.aspx