Moving Championships back

[Poseidon5817]

We all know that AP testing is one of the severe limiters to the length of the FRC season. However, what would happen if the championships were moved to AFTER AP testing, such as near the end of May. The result would be in a 3-4 week gap between when champs would normally be and when it would be with the change. This would have a few advantages and disadvantages as to what I can see.

Some pros:
- Teams have another month to work.
- Waitlisted teams have more time to sort out their affairs before champs.
- Competition season is not as rushed.
- You could theoretically have both champs at the same time.
- No chance of conflict with VEX champs.

Some cons:
- Teams have another month to work.
- Depending on where you live and when your school lets out, champs could be during the beginning of summer vacation.
- Having champs after AP testing could lead to students still pulling long hours during testing and adversely affecting their scores.

What are your thoughts on this?

[ThaddeusMaximus]

"Competition season is not as rushed."

That's a lot of the point of competition season.

[Harrison.Smith]

A few things that could be conflicts that immediately come to mind are

1. Studying for final exams.
2. Some schools end in mid/late May so champs could potentially be during the last week of school and therefore interfere with final exams.
3. Lots of other school clubs/teams/organizations start to have their banquets around mid/late May.
4. Extending the season further puts more pressure on mentors/teachers/students/parents.
5. Some states have state champs starting in May.

[adciv]

One more for the "Pro" list:
More time to develop uses for the 30lb weight withholding allowance.

Some teams (us included some years) will add/improve capability under the weight withholding allowance. The extra weeks would allow further refinement and improvement. I also see this as a drawback for the same reasons.

[frcguy]

I love the idea. It makes it so much less stressful for teams qualifying at later regionals. For us, we qualified at SVR (Week 6) and we had a huge time crunch to get everything together, so much that we almost didn't go. It also gives way more time to iterate, because we had very little time (<1 week) to get everything together and get it shipped. Thus, we had to focus our time on making spares for damaged components at SVR.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Many schools wouldn't allow recently graduated seniors to travel with the team if the school year ends before championships happen. For that sole reason, I am opposed to moving championships back.

[Jon Stratis]

We promote robotics as a "winter sport", and stretch that definition a little by running all the way to the end of April. Students get involved with other things - tennis, soccer, golf, baseball, to name a few. I know my team has lost students to these other activities during our week-6 regional and Champs as it is (for example, one of our best builders the past few years is also a star in golf in the State, and we lose her as soon as that season starts up)... pushing it back even more would only make the problem worse and introduce additional conflicts for people.

As much as many of us treat robotics as a year-round commitment, a large number of students and teams can't treat it like that. We need to work to keep it within a single, typical sports season as much as possible, with off-season activities helping to spread it out for those that have the time and energy to do it year-round.

[Cory]

Not going to happen. Some schools will not allow travel outside of the school year. FIRST would NEVER do this.

Not even worth discussing.

[tjf]

This would occur after a lot of schools end, and many schools forbid access to workshops / student travel "with" the school outside of the school year.

Why would FIRST do something that would only hurt their teams that qualify for champs?

(Opinions are my own.)

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by Cory

Not going to happen. Some schools will not allow travel outside of the school year. FIRST would NEVER do this.

Not even worth discussing.

Hey, I agree with you!

If I may, however, it seems the tone of your message may come off as slightly negative, with the all capitalized NEVER and your final comment of "Not even worth discussing.".

Now, does that bother me? Not at all, but Poseidon5817 appears to be a student, and shutting down a student's idea in a harsh way may lead to students shying away from sharing their new ideas to the public (especially when it comes from a mentor of 254, whom students look up to on this site). The idea may not work out, but next time I'd suggest explaining your thought process as to why it may not work as well as the student intended and avoid the phrasing that makes it sound like "No, your idea is terrible!". That way next time this student has a good idea (and while it doesn't work, I still think this is a good idea to combat a well-known problem in FRC), the student will feel more comfortable sharing what he/she thinks up and instead isn't hesitant to speak because previously others shut him/her down right away.

Just an idea Let's build students up instead of breaking them down.

[Hitchhiker 42]

I like this, but (emphasis on the but), for me if we put it after AP exams, then we have to also start dodging final exams, which start for some schools immediately after that, and for other school occur at the end of June. Basically, this means that to not have students missing both study time and the actual exams, Champs would land somewhere in the end of June/beginning of July.

That I would find problematic for the obvious reasons stated above already.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by FarmerJohn

it seems the tone of your message may come off as slightly negative

It seems you've never gone through Cory's post history, or met him.


And in all honesty, Cory IS right. There's no reason not to be blunt about it.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by bkahl

It seems you've never gone through Cory's post history, or met him.


And in all honesty, Cory IS right. There's no reason not to be blunt about it.

I'm pretty Sure Farmer John is Andrew Lawrence, so they've met.

I've been wrong before though.

[Poseidon5817]

Originally Posted by bkahl

It seems you've never gone through Cory's post history, or met him.


And in all honesty, Cory IS right.

Alright guys, rather than debating this and turning this thread into another one of those threads, let's use the thread for its intended purpose: discussing the pros and cons of this idea. Everyone has an opinion and that's to be respected, but let's not put anyone down. It's not becoming of respected mentors and students of FRC to put people down or be short in a public forum. There's no right or wrong here, it's a discussion.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Poseidon5817

Alright guys, rather than debating this and turning this thread into another one of those threads, let's use the thread for its intended purpose: discussing the pros and cons of this idea. Everyone has an opinion and that's to be respected, but let's not put anyone down. It's not becoming of respected mentors and students of FRC to put people down or be short in a public forum. There's no right or wrong here, it's a discussion.

Biggest con: FIRST Will never implement this. There isint much else to say.