Championship Location Announced

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I was actually aware that the Grade 10 Literacy Test is an Ontario-only thing, but, I'll admit my post made it sound like a Canada-wide thing. The truth of the matter is that until 2012, there were no regionals outside Ontario. It frequently is an issue for the ~70+ Ontario teams who have to leave several of their students home for at least one day of their competitions.

This is an issue that "just has to exist". The 2011 NJ Regional coincided with the HSPAs(NJ state-wide proficiency test). MAR events often collide with this(though I believe MAR tries to avoid/have one of the two PA events that weekend). Now, I had trouble finding exact dates of the test via Google(seeing various dates in March-May), but as Ontario eventually moves towards the district structure, provided the test doesn't collide with Championships, that will eliminate the issue by having SatSun events or off-weeks.


I think we just need to accept that until the FRC event structure is significantly redefined, we're unlikely to see the lifting of major collisions.

And I don't believe my question earlier was answered: other than Easter and existing venue contracts is there anything, competition structurewise, preventing VEX Worlds from being during the weekend between Week 7 and Championships?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

I think we just need to accept that until the FRC event structure is significantly redefined, we're unlikely to see the lifting of major collisions.

And I don't believe my question earlier was answered: other than Easter and existing venue contracts is there anything, competition structurewise, preventing VEX Worlds from being during the weekend between Week 7 and Championships?

I've been under the impression that the VEX competition structure is more flexible than the FRC structure, but I assume that the Anaheim Convention Center is a very popular venue for a lot of events and it's a favorite of the organizers and attendees for VEX worlds. There are key members of both competitions, and I assume one of the groups got backed into a corner where they had to take the dates. It's not ideal for anyone, but it is what it is.

I know people recognize the necessity of moving to a larger venue to support CMP yesterday, but I imagine FIRST HQ has to be getting a very beneficial deal to themselves and for the city for them to take this offer. Halfway through this extension on the venue agreement, half of the FRC population is going to be under the district system (assuming Eastern Canada, the Capital Region, and a few other locales put it together by then) which is going to streamline the competition and greatly slow the pace of increasing merit-based slots for CMP, and may even cause a small dip in the count. (For example, if slots are appropriated to an area under a district system relative to the population of teams in FRC, Ontario/Montreal could lose at least 10 "redundant" slots).

It feels like the program is crossing the canyon a lot of people saw coming 5 years ago and now they have to build the bridge across it on the fly. Under the existing system you're going to really feel the burn in CMP in 2-3 years spacewise even if they do everything possible, so this deal might just work well enough for where the program is now.

There are things FIRST can do: set minimum and maximum occupancy for a regional event to event out the probability of securing a merit-based slot from one of these events, add in more teams to CMP while definitely adding at least 1 more division, shrink pit size or size of something else... it can work. No venue is perfect and St Louis may not jive with long-term goals of the organization, but smart people work in HQ and they know what needs improving and they think they can work it all out in St Louis.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

...And I don't believe my question earlier was answered: other than Easter and existing venue contracts is there anything, competition structurewise, preventing VEX Worlds from being during the weekend between Week 7 and Championships?

Moving the VRC World Championship forward would require moving all of the VRC regional qualifying events forward, too.

That would mean moving forward all of the tournaments required to qualify for regional qualifying tournaments. Speaking as a VRC event/region organizer... the thought doesn't excite me.

Is it possible? Perhaps. But it is also equally possible to move the FRC build period into the six weeks before Christmas, and start the FRC competition season in January.

Equally impossible? Maybe that would have been better wording.

Jason