FIRST Festival of Champions

[Ty Tremblay]

EXPANDING THE FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP EXPERIENCE EVEN FURTHER…

Two years ago we announced the expansion of FIRST Championship to two events – these plans were met with a lot of questions, concerns, and excitement. Much of the feedback we received was about how a decisive winner would be crowned – while FIRST is not about winning or losing, we promised to explore options for how the winning FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition Alliances from each Championship might meet and compete.

INTRODUCING THE FIRST FESTIVAL OF CHAMPIONS!
JULY 28-29, 2017 IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

As promised, we did explore options and we think we came up with a thrilling, meaningful, and ultimately unforgettable way to honor our world-class teams that rise to this level. The FIRST Festival of Champions will take place where it all began, in New Hampshire (where the inaugural FIRST competition was held over 25 years ago), and is designed to be an experiential reward that includes:

• Robots
• Education
• Camaraderie
• Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities such as VIP tours of FIRST Headquarters and Dean Kamen’s company DEKA Research and Development, as well as a celebratory dinner at Dean Kamen’s home in Bedford, N.H.

Recognizing outstanding competitors
The winning FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition Alliances from both Championship events will meet in competition on Saturday, July 29. Chairman’s and Inspire Award-winning teams from both Championships will not be competing with their robots, but they will have important roles and places of honor during the playoff event. Unlike other official FIRST events, there are no registration fees for those teams earning the opportunity to participate.

You’re invited! Like all FIRST events, the FIRST Festival of Champions is free and open to as many in-person spectators as we can safely accommodate.

Join the celebration and #makeitloud! We’ll be live streaming the event so our entire Community can be a part of the celebration. Be sure to stay connected with us and #makeitloud on social media!

Stay tuned!
We’re very excited to further expand the FIRST Championship experience and honor teams with the FIRST Festival of Champions in New Hampshire this summer! Please continue to check back here and stay connected with FIRST on social media for additional details about this special event.

https://www.firstchampionship.org/festival-of-champions

[JohnSchneider]

Still not the same given there's possibly new drive teams, and a team isn't coming off of a gauntlet of robot endurance. Feels more like an "All Star Game" than a Super Bowl. Step in the right direction though, and I'm glad they listened to criticism.

[Aur0r4]

MAKE CHAMPS GREAT AGAIN

[gafftron]

You can cook a lot of cheesecake in 3 months.

[EricLeifermann]

Who is actually going to send their teams to this should they win? There is no incentive to attend this by the winning teams. If FIRST wants this to be successful they need to pay for the teams to travel. This will not be a cheap trip.

[cgmv123]

Email from Don Bossi:

Dear FIRST® Community,

Since we announced the expansion of the FIRST® Championship to two events almost two years ago, we’ve heard a lot of questions, concerns, and excitement about our plans. While FIRST is not about winning or losing, we have heard a number of requests for the Winning Alliances from each Championship to meet and compete against each other, and we promised to explore options for that to occur.

Today, FIRST is excited to announce that on July 28 & 29, 2017, we will host the Festival of Champions near our home town of Manchester, New Hampshire – where the inaugural FIRST competition was held 25 years ago in 1992. This event, which will be live streamed to the FIRST community, is an opportunity for the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) and FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) Winning Alliances from the 2017 FIRST Championship Houston and FIRST Championship St. Louis to meet live and in person, along with the FRC Chairman’s Award and FTC Inspire Award winning teams from both Championship locations.

The Festival of Champions is designed to be an experiential reward for the world-class teams that rise to this level. It will include robots, education, camaraderie, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, such as behind-the-scenes tours of FIRST Headquarters and Dean Kamen’s company, DEKA Research & Development, as well as a celebratory dinner at Dean’s amazing home. For those that have never been, Dean’s home is an ‘experience’ all its own and is absolutely unforgettable.

The FRC and FTC Winning Alliances from both Championship events will meet in competition on Saturday, July 29. Chairman’s and Inspire winning teams from both Championships will not be competing with their robots, but they will have important roles and places of honor during the playoff event. As noted above, this event will be webcast to reach as much of the community as possible, and the competition will be free and open to as many in-person spectators as we can safely accommodate. We will work hard to make the webcast a robust and highly viewable event. Unlike other official FIRST events, however, there will be no registration fees for those teams earning the right to participate in person.

We’re very excited to host this 2017 concluding event in New Hampshire and to welcome the teams who earn the honor to attend our Festival of Champions. We’re sure you have questions about the details for this special event, including how exactly the competitions will be run. We’re still working out all those details, so stay tuned!

We look forward to the large-scale and exciting FIRST Championships in Houston and St. Louis this coming April, followed by a wonderful Festival of Champions in July.

Good luck to all, and Go Teams!

Bob Tuttle
Co-Chair FIRST Board of Directors

Kelly Ortberg
Co-Chair FIRST Board of Directors

Dean Kamen
Founder, FIRST

Don Bossi
President, FIRST

[James1902]

Isn't this around the same time IRI usually is? Not that that's a dealbreaker, just curious to see how teams will plan their summers.

Excited to see how it goes this year.

[indubitably]

I am very surprised they would hold it so late. I wonder if they are going to restrict teams to only using their withholding allowance over 3 months (no IRI for them) or if they are going to let the championship winning teams completely revamp their robots.

[Rosiebotboss]

Before everyone goes off talking about cheesecake and expense of traveling, and whatever else you can think of to complain about, remember, you, the FIRST community asked for it, you're getting it! And like they said in the email that just went out to teams, there are still more details to be worked out. Hang tight.

[GaryVoshol]

No joy for FLL








































Again.

[Harrison.Smith]

I wonder how this impacts teams that have drivers who are seniors or students who have summer jobs, if this event is to crown the "true" champion it seems potentially unfair if all teams don't have their champs winning drive team. Are all FRC/FTC students now going to have to tell their parents to hold off on vacations over this date? Are teams going to want to pay, travel and extend their season another 3 months?

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Who is actually going to send their teams to this should they win? There is no incentive to attend this by the winning teams. If FIRST wants this to be successful they need to pay for the teams to travel. This will not be a cheap trip.

Yeah going to be even harder if a team from outside of North America wins to get them to come to the states again. Is FIRST paying for this and if they are why would they spend thousands on this event.

Wait why won't we just have 1 championship again?

[Nuttyman54]

Kudos to FIRST. While the logistics may be complicated and there are many questions still to be answered, this is probably the best we could ask for given what many of us were expecting going into this season.

It's not a Championship, but it is a very cool way to cap off the season. I'm really OK with an All-Star game if that's what it is, it's more than we had and it's not a bad thing IMHO. Hopefully the new partnership with Twitch means there will be a great broadcast to go along with this, something along the lines of a League of Legends LCS finals.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Before everyone goes off talking about cheesecake and expense of traveling, and whatever else you can think of to complain about, remember, you, the FIRST community asked for it, you're getting it! And like they said in the email that just went out to teams, there are still more details to be worked out. Hang tight.

We actually asked them not to split the championship into two super regionals. This Festival of Champions adds absolutely nothing to the experience of FIRST as a whole.

[Andrew_L]

#3champs