Town Hall Meeting Video

[brandon.cottrell]

By the way for anyone who might be confused because you can't see it, the weird noise during the last question of the town hall meeting was the microphone randomly falling off the stand and the guy asking the question catching it. It was a sweet catch.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by brandon.cottrell

It was a sweet catch.

Thanks!

[steelerborn]

I am a mentor in California, and hearing the comments made about my state essentially being lazy and taking too long to make a decision on districts really made me upset. It seemed that every single question that was asked from Michael was fielded with something about how California needs to get on the ball. Just really upset me because I feel that there were some great questions that were not answered fully. I am so ready to help with this in anyway I can! Michael if you are reading this let me know how I can help out with the districts!

I personally like the two championship idea, as long as there is some "final" match event with the winners of both. And some other things will need to be adjusted. But I think it is wrong how it was done without notifying or asking for input from important members of the FIRST community.

Concerning the safety issues about Detroit... St. Louis is second in the country when it comes to crime... And Atlanta is also in the top 6 at least.
FIRST has had championships in some "dangerous" places, and I haven't heard very many reports from teams about how bad the cities were.

[meg]

Originally Posted by steelerborn

I personally like the two championship idea, as long as there is some "final" match event with the winners of both. And some other things will need to be adjusted. But I think it is wrong how it was done without notifying or asking for input from important members of the FIRST community.

I think it would need to be more than just the top 2 teams competing. What if the top 4 teams at one event were better than the winner of the other?

Since the two events are on different weeks, there will be significant advantage to the teams playing that week. Not only do they have an extra week to prepare (and let's be honest here, most of the teams on Einstein have 2 robots), but they will be able to see how the first championship event did things and be able to take those and improve upon them. Which is in the spirit of FIRST, but hardly makes the Championships even playing ground

Originally Posted by steelerborn

Concerning the safety issues about Detroit... St. Louis is second in the country when it comes to crime... And Atlanta is also in the top 6 at least.
FIRST has had championships in some "dangerous" places, and I haven't heard very many reports from teams about how bad the cities were.

Did you see this thread? There was also a murder just a few blocks from the dome on Friday. The safety of St. Louis is also a very serious concern for me. Our team specifically chose to have the students miss more school and drive instead of fly because we were so concerned about safety on the public transit in St. Louis.


In a slightly different note, I did my best to express a concern instead of being aggressive the panelists, I understand that they're working hard. I definitely didn't appreciate being asked if I "believed everything I read in the papers". It was insulting to me to be dismissed so easily.

[steelerborn]

Originally Posted by meg

I think it would need to be more than just the top 2 teams competing. What if the top 4 teams at one event were better than the winner of the other?

Since the two events are on different weeks, there will be significant advantage to the teams playing that week. Not only do they have an extra week to prepare (and let's be honest here, most of the teams on Einstein have 2 robots), but they will be able to see how the first championship event did things and be able to take those and improve upon them. Which is in the spirit of FIRST, but hardly makes the Championships even playing ground



Did you see this thread? There was also a murder just a few blocks from the dome on Friday. The safety of St. Louis is also a very serious concern for me. Our team specifically chose to have the students miss more school and drive instead of fly because we were so concerned about safety on the public transit in St. Louis.


In a slightly different note, I did my best to express a concern instead of being aggressive the panelists, I understand that they're working hard. I definitely didn't appreciate being asked if I "believed everything I read in the papers". It was insulting to me to be dismissed so easily.

Meg, I hope I am not coming across as mean or argumentative since we were also just talking in a previous thread.


I did not see that thread thank you for bringing that to my attention. And I also did not hear about the murder not far from the dome. I knew there was one on the metrolink I believe several months ago. St. Louis is not a safe city, Detroit is not a safe city. Big cities will naturally have higher crime rates. I am very protective of all of my students whenever I go to nationals, and I also used to live near Detroit so I know how it is.


About the extra time the First champ winners will receive I think that this is an excellent point. I could think of a couple of solutions (but doesn't matter since FIRST did not ask on input). One could be to hold them alternating every year (St. Louis, then Houston, and then the next year Houston, Detroit). Another is that the teams could ship their bot right after the championship to the other event, and sign a form stating that they will not use their practice bots in the meantime. I think that this would be acceptable, and also play best of 5 instead of best of three.

I don't think the top 4 alliances should get to go. FIRST is a competition and the reason people don't like the 2 champ idea is because it (to an extent) is taking this aspect out of FIRST. By taking the top 4 you are essentially taking the competition out as well by making 4 alliances winners. Also FIRST would/should pay for all the travel, shipping, and hotel costs for the teams that win the first event. I feel like this is within reason to do for the 4 winning teams on the winning alliance.