Moving Championships back

[Poseidon5817]

Originally Posted by MikLast

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

Just saying FIRST will never implement this is not contributing to the thread. The whole point of this thread was to bring up discussion on the pros and cons of the idea. FIRST not ever doing it is not a pro or a con of AN IDEA as much as it is a result of the pros and cons. Just because a team will never implement a ball drive in competition season doesn't mean that we can't talk about it, guys.

[SpaceBiz]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Biggest con: FIRST Will never implement this. There isn't much else to say.

You seem to be forgetting about the upcoming water game where this idea would make total sense. Teams will definitely need extra time to modify their robot before champs because of the extra time to make everything water proof. Plus if you push Champs back after memorial day teams can use their local outdoor pools to have drive practice.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Poseidon5817

Just saying FIRST will never implement this is not contributing to the thread. The whole point of this thread was to bring up discussion on the pros and cons of the idea. FIRST not ever doing it is not a pro or a con of AN IDEA as much as it is a result of the pros and cons. Just because a team will never implement a ball drive in competition season doesn't mean that we can't talk about it, guys.

There's a small bit of difference between a cool concept or mechanism that isn't practical and an idea that will never be tried.

The mechanism has some inherent value in the process - design, manufacture, evaluate, iterate.

An idea that is a nonstarter (such as FIRST should crowd source the game design this year), while it may spark some interesting discussion, has significantly less value as an educational tool because there's no feedback loop to see if the discussion is correct. And if it's something that is already proven there's no real point in discussing it.

Which category does this discussion fall into? As worded - the former. As Cory stated, FIRST is not going to move the World Exhibition Events past the end date of school years. The Pros and Cons are largely irrelevant for that discussion.

However, of value may be a discussion of the impact off season events have on teams. It's effectively the same question (can we move the competition season to include some of the summer vacation?) but it is practical, applicable, and can actually be evaluated.

Also - schools don't all end at the same time across the globe, perhaps that would be another avenue of discussion. - Does the current World Exhibition Event fall within your school year? What impact does it have on your attendance?

[Sperkowsky]

For all those saying it will never happen.

Who ever thought first would make 2 Champs?

Bottom line is you never know.

And too all those that are saying by having this outside of the school year it will hurt attendance it's worth mentioning that this system allows much more time for teams to fundraise. Think of all the district qualifiers, wait list qualifiers, or late regional qualifiers that have scrambled to get funds and come up short.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

For all those saying it will never happen.

Who ever thought first would make 2 Champs?

Bottom line is you never know.

At least this idea is somewhat good...

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

You seem to be forgetting about the upcoming water game where this idea would make total sense. Teams will definitely need extra time to modify their robot before champs because of the extra time to make everything water proof. Plus if you push Champs back after memorial day teams can use their local outdoor pools to have drive practice.

Shoot, you're right! This now makes total sense! We must implement this now to make sure the water game works perfectly!

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Poseidon5817

Just because a team will never implement a ball drive in competition season...

..

[wesbass23]

Originally Posted by Cory

Not even worth discussing.

If only things not worth discussing weren't discussed on CD...

[Poseidon5817]

Originally Posted by bkahl

..

will

My point is guys, that there is no reason to be rude and condescending to someone on here for an idea. I wasn't spamming, I wasn't flaming anyone, just posting an idea wanting to hear the community's opinion.

[EricH]

I'm... neutral on the idea.

You don't have to dodge AP testing, which is a good thing... except that you lose any ability for the students who are doing AP tests to do robot work for a couple weeks. (I'd bank on that being the case, with testing being so important to academics these days. Shame that education isn't as important to academics. Whether it's the school or the parents clamping down, you'll lose those students.)

On the other hand, for anybody who's not doing AP (and is doing CMP), you add another several weeks to an already long season. 14 weeks from Kickoff to the Week 7 events isn't exactly short! There's ways to mitigate that, admittedly, but that's still something to factor in.

I can see the pro of having more time to plan travel; that's always a plus. (And you can do fundraising at that time, too, even better.)

But then you get to the whole "end of school year" if you run it too late. Now, out here, school year ends in the early June timeframe, give or take a couple weeks (depending on start date); if you snuck CMP in early in May you've got a shot but anything later is going to be trouble. For the college mentors, they might be getting out earlier still, so that introduces some interesting complications.


Could it be done? Sure. Not for another 5 years, though. Venue contracts are signed, don't want to undo that. Is it a good idea? Eh, maybe they'll come up with something totally different by then, like having Kickoff in December.

[Seth Mallory]

What many people forget is if you feel a topic is not worth your time or impossible you do not have to respond. Not responding is better then being rude. A few years ago at kickoff we had a presentation about how NASA was designing a 7 ton mars exploration lander. An intern whose ideas were beneath them showed a concept that led to the Mars rover. People learn from other's ideas. Now that I have that off my chest. I feel that all the serous ideas that are con are correct except that FIRST would never do it. If FIRST thought that they could land a few big sponsors then I feel it could happen.

[troy_dietz]

Originally Posted by EricH

...maybe they'll come up with something totally different by then, like having Kickoff in December.

There goes my Christmas break...
Who needs presents? We have Kickoff!

If only I had family in New Hampshire...

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by 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.

A later end to the season is not such a crazy idea--can we say "spring sports?" Almost every high school in the US has state championship events i late May and early June. (I think Texas may be an exception with mid-May championships, but Texas can just decide to secede if this is a problem ;^)). All of those athletes are studying for final exams (and the distance runners and swimmers have GPAs that are just as good).

As for FRC state champs, don't you think that they'd just swap the dates to early May or late April instead to fill the void?

As for post-school championships, there are many national sports championships held in June and July. But there may be a problem with schools covering team expenses. On the other hand, how many FRC programs are formally embedded into schools the same way that sports teams are? In my experience, they run like clubs, and many musical and performing arts clubs have summer tours.

[GeeTwo]

High school graduation in St. Tammany schools in 2017 is May 3 through May 9th. The seinior's last day is somewhat before that. If CMP were moved back even one more week from St. Louis, we would probably lose all our seniors.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

High school graduation in St. Tammany schools in 2017 is May 3 through May 9th. The seinior's last day is somewhat before that. If CMP were moved back even one more week from St. Louis, we would probably lose all our seniors.

Your seniors leave just because they graduate? You might want to fix that. After spending 6 weeks building, and another 8 weeks competing and iterating why would you not go to world's just because you graduated?

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Your seniors leave just because they graduate? You might want to fix that. After spending 6 weeks building, and another 8 weeks competing and iterating why would you not go to world's just because you graduated?

As stated above, many school districts would prohibit graduated seniors from traveling on school sponsored trips. In that case, the seniors would not choose to leave, but would not be allowed to travel to worlds.