FIRST Festival of Champions

[Andrew_L]

#3champs

[James1902]

Originally Posted by Andrew_L

#3champs

#OneChampstoRuleThemAll

[Boe]

Originally Posted by James1902

#OneChampstoRuleThemAll

One champs to rule them all, one champs to find them, One champs to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

[niklas674]

My concern is how teams are going to get there. Will first pay for the 8 teams as well as the chairmans teams to go to this event?

[Pauline Tasci]

I'm quite happy FIRST listened to a lot of the criticism. And I do think it will be cool to have 8 of the top teams all in one place to compete.

While I'm not a fan of 2 champs, I'm glad they tried to come up with a solution that we all asked for.

With that, questions that immediately came to mind (that I hope FIRST is working on):

1. Will FIRST pay for shipping, team flights, and/or board? Or any of the 3? If so, how many members of each team? This adds a lot of cost to teams that did well and have not calculated this in their budget for the 2017 season

2. Will teams have to keep their robot bagged for another 3 months? This will eliminate a lot of off-seasons that come in between Champs and the Festival, including IRI
This will also extend the season another 3 months, teams who choose to continue work into the summer will prove victorious.

3. This is in the summer (I understand, since students and mentors need to catch up on school + work), how will this work with students vacations and mentors having to take more time off work?


Overall,
I am happy that FIRST listened to criticism and are trying to accommodate our requests. If 3476 wins Houston champs, I will be very excited to head over to NH!
Hopefully some of the other questions on the thread and these and answered as the season goes on.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Also my guess for venue is the Verizon Wireless Arena (old home of GSR).

And to just keep people from being afraid, yes the snow is gone by July up here.

[KathieK]

I hope the "Education” opportunity includes a FIRST Conference like at Championships!

[Jared Russell]

Indianapolis (either immediately before or after IRI) would have been the ideal time and place for this event. It would add value to the trip (presumably the half-champs winners would get IRI invitations as well), would have supplied dozens of other teams worth of spectators, and would be closer to a central location (which, as we all know, is a top priority!).

That said, this is better than nothing and leaves open the door to media coverage with a higher level of polish than any prior FIRST competition has ever had. I'm sure all of the teams who qualify will be pumped to be involved.

[jman4747]

I hope cheesecake is allowed, encouraged, and maybe paid for. Git rid of the BOM cost limits too! I want to see stupid good robots out there with over the top performance and obscene top scores because why not!? Great announcement FIRST.

[Bryce Clegg]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

And to just keep people from being afraid, yes the snow is gone by July up here.

Thank you for this information. Here in North Carolina, we delay, if not cancel school at the possibility of ice.

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Also my guess for venue is the Verizon Wireless Arena (old home of GSR).

And to just keep people from being afraid, yes the snow is gone by July up here.

I could point to three possible venues.

1.) SNHU Arena, downtown Manchester (I thought it was still called the Verizon Wireless Arena too, thanks Google): for the reasons stated above. It's a solid hockey arena that could arguably hold the most visitors. Website doesn't have any events posted during that time, and it will be long past the arena's main summer use: graduations.

2.) SNHU Fieldhouse (Also known as the Kickoff Venue): Smaller, but has good flow between auxiliary gym and main gym. Could definitely handle the team count, arguably lacking on comfortable seating as it's mostly bleachers. Has a solid VIP space and parking. Could be already booked for sports and summer classes.

3.) Memorial High School: If you want to go #OGFRC, there's only one venue. Has basically the same pros and cons as the SNHU Fieldhouse, but it also lacking a solid VIP area and parking for the crowd size. But, RiverRage has run just fine there for many years.

My gut says SNHU arena, but my heart wants Memorial.

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

I could point to three possible venues.

1.) SNHU Arena, downtown Manchester (I thought it was still called the Verizon Wireless Arena too, thanks Google): for the reasons stated above. It's a solid hockey arena that could arguably hold the most visitors. Website doesn't have any events posted during that time, and it will be long past the arena's main summer use: graduations.

2.) SNHU Fieldhouse (Also known as the Kickoff Venue): Smaller, but has good flow between auxiliary gym and main gym. Could definitely handle the team count, arguably lacking on comfortable seating as it's mostly bleachers. Has a solid VIP space and parking. Could be already booked for sports and summer classes.

3.) Memorial High School: If you want to go #OGFRC, there's only one venue. Has basically the same pros and cons as the SNHU Fieldhouse, but it also lacking a solid VIP area and parking for the crowd size. But, RiverRage has run just fine there for many years.

My gut says SNHU arena, but my heart wants Memorial.

Nothing against Memorial, but I think after winning the Championship, teams would want a bit of a bigger stage to perform on with higher production value than a high school.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by EmileH

Nothing against Memorial, but I think after winning the Championship, teams would want a bit of a bigger stage to perform on with higher production value than a high school.

It's not like you're going to get a full arena for some-amount of 8 teams and whoever from the local area decides to come spectate.

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by BigJ

It's not like you're going to get a full arena for some-amount of 8 teams and whoever from the local area decides to come spectate.

Yeah, that's true, but again after beating out 396 other teams plus the 3000+ in the competition, you'd want a step UP in production and venue value, not down.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by EmileH

Nothing against Memorial, but I think after winning the Championship, teams would want a bit of a bigger stage to perform on with higher production value than a high school.

Same. I can't imagine an event like this at memorial or the fieldhouse. It would feel like an offseason. SNHU arena is perfect and has great seating (and we all miss playing there).