Hey FIRST - We're going to need a lot more regionals!

[dlavery]

You guys have it all backward.

Mega-regionals are NOT the wave of the future. As it is, the existing regional competitions are:
- very expensive for corporations to sponsor,
- very expensive for the teams to attend,
- very difficult for the FIRST staff to organize,
- very difficult to find appropriate venues,
- almost impossible to staff with judges,
- almost impossible to staff with volunteers,
- require a major (and not yet sufficient) effort to get everyone trained,
- generate big headaches when arranging the production and top-level quality of the event, and
- require significant increases in the distributed FIRST staff of Regional Coordinators to manage.

Why in the world would anyone support something that takes each of these traits, and exacerbates them? Mega-regionals are not the way to go, and should not happen. Things need to move the other direction - toward "Mini-regionals" (aka "district competitions")!

Mini-Regionals are:
- limited to no more than 20 teams
- cost-capped at a maximum of $500 per team to attend
- designed to physically fit in a high-school gym/basketball court (including play field, pits, and audience)
- organized and produced entirely by a local committee
- require no participation by FIRST Manchester staff
- have a limited award structure, so no more than five (5) judges are needed
- audio-only (i.e. require only audio amplification),
- do not have large-screen projection video systems,
- without a formal "team social" event, unless one is organized by the teams
- designed to be set up in one day or less, and
- distributed all around the country - not just in a few locations that require expensive travel arrangements.

In other words, these are relatively small, simple, low-cost events that are easier and cheaper to produce and attend. Think of them as similar to many of the off-season competitions staged by teams, but incorporated as part of the formal competition structure supported by FIRST. Accordingly, many more of them can be conducted during a competition season. On any given weekend, there could be one or two DOZEN Mini-Regionals going on, instead of just two or three regional competitions.

If done in sufficient numbers, there could be a Mini-Regional competition within one or two hours drive for every team in the country. The competition schedule would be arranged so that a team must attend a Mini-Regional before attending a Regional competition. Almost every team could have the option of attending multiple Mini-Regionals at a total cost that is only a fraction of the cost to register for a single Regional Competition. The Mini-Regionals might not have the flash and polish of the Regional Competitions, but that it compensated for by the fact that teams can afford to do multiple Mini-Regionals. The competition, and the competitiveness, are the same. And I might dare say that the ambiance of these smaller, more intimate events could bring us back to the infectious spirit of cooperative competitiveness that perfused the early days of FIRST (and which many feel is somewhat diminished in many of the current events).

This whole thread started with an incorrect assumption about the need to win at a regional to get to the Championships, and a derived need for more events to allow more "winners." While the logic is wrong, the conclusion - there should be more competition events - is correct. But this must be combined with the oft-heard refrain from the teams and sponsors that "the competitions are too expensive!" Put these two together, and you end up with just one result. We have to make more INEXPENSIVE events available. Mini-Regionals are the way to go; Mega-Regionals are monolithic money-pits that we and FIRST cannot afford.

-dave