[FRC Blog] We're Listening

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Squillo

Frankly, many the teams that inspired our team the most were not "the best of the best" - they were just other teams that had maybe done more with resources similar to ours, that had really, really nice members, that had come up with a unique solution to a particular problem, etc.

I will tell you that we will gladly take a spot at a "semi-championship" with the "best" from only half the world, over not getting to go at all to a "championship" where there would be a handful more of the "best of the best". Also, for the teams that will really miss building relationships with specific teams from the "other side," or feel they benefit that much more from the experience of meeting teams from a broader region (which I can totally understand - it was really cool having MORT and 610 at our regional this year, and I can see how many teams from 'back east' would really enjoy getting to meet the teams from Taiwan, Japan, Australia, etc., which probably wouldn't happen with the "semi-champs" arrangement as currently proposed), I like the "swap" idea. Is there any downside to allowing teams to swap like that?

The main problem I see with the swap idea is if Everyone decides, say, Houston is the premier Champs event and wants to come here. If there's only Detroit teams wanting to head to Houston, it's not likely to fix things. You could probably remedy that by randomizing the swapping, so there's less incentive for everyone to try to swap to one regional, since you don't know if you'll actually wind up with all the star teams.