[FRC Blog] We're Listening

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I'm okay with the proposal that only the best should compete at the Championship event. But my belief is that the more teams who can attend, the better. Seeing those "best" teams at work, going to the conference presentations, volunteering as field crew and crowd control and pit admin assistant and any of a hundred possibilities.... If you can get your team there, you should do it.

I've always entertained the idea of separating the teams who qualify. If FIRST chooses to inspire more students by inviting more teams to the championship and not make higher quality district championships, why not have all teams who qualified via success in the robot game (ie. winning/wildcards) compete in the robot game, have all those who qualified via chairmans/engineering inspiration compete in the outreach game, and find a way to have a separate group for the waitlist teams (or figure out how to determine which ones compete where via some kind of points system). It would allow more students to be inspired at championships without lessening the value of any individual area.

Is this ideal? Far from it. I wouldn't even want it. A single, smaller championship event with more celebrated district championships would solve all these problems in a much more effective manner. But if FIRST is insistent on using the championship event(s) to be their main method of inspiration, then this unfortunate idea of segregation becomes a more viable reality.