Hey FIRST we need a bigger national!

[Raul]

Do we need a bigger regional? Its interesting how 166 teams pre-qualified for the Championship and only 94 have signed up. I wonder what happens if the tier 2 teams fill it up after Nov 5.? Do the pre-qualified teams who did not sign up in time have to win a regional to still get in?

Raul

[Pin Man]

No I'm pretty sure they are going to be able to go if they pre quallified... then again i could be wrong... What are the dates for when the tiers open up??? I know Tj doesn't have a shot getting in by the tier system since we are in tier 6...

[cbudrecki]

Originally posted by Jon Reese
we all know that soon when participation reaches into the 5000 range there will probably have a neater way of setting up nats....like maybe a semifinals nats....it would only allow winners from that to go to nats. then it would seriously be a championship!

I couldn't agree w/u more. I think we should have semi-champs, and only those winners and finalists could advance to Nats. I think it would be efective to split up the teams by region, each region having a 'Regional Championship' then the winners and finalists of these 'Regional Championships' would advance onto a 'National scratch that, WORLD Championship'(can't forget about our Brazilian and Canadian teams).



But still, it would be cool to have a 500 team Champ.

[Allison K]

Originally posted by Pin Man
No I'm pretty sure they are going to be able to go if they pre quallified... then again i could be wrong... What are the dates for when the tiers open up??? I know Tj doesn't have a shot getting in by the tier system since we are in tier 6...

The first group to qualify has had plenty of time to register should they wish to do so. So I think that if the tier 2 teams fill up the rest of the spots before teams from the first group get to reegister I think It's too late.

And tier six teams were in the first group to qualify, along with tiers 3-5, and prequalifying based on points and chairmans and stuff. 88 is in tier 1.



Allison

[Rich Wong]

Originally posted by M. Krass
Volunteers show up for three days to help run an event.

FIRST staff works for 11 months to plan that event. Planning includes managing the volunteers.

The problems aren't in finding enough people to volunteer at the time of the event, but in having the resources and manpower necessary to plan for a much larger event. Remember, unlike our robots, volunteers aren't autonomous -- they do need supervision. That supervision comes from the itty bitty, teeny weeny FIRST staff.

...and volunteers eat a lot too! think of the food bill for breakfast, lunch and dinner!


Unfortunately events do not scale linearly, the bigger it is, the more problems there are.

[Arefin Bari]

the way FIRST is spreading.... i think that we should have more than one nationals or something to solve the problem of not every single team being able to compete at nationals....

[Pin Man]

adding another nationals??? you mean regional... there should be only one nationals... they just need a way to get more help so they can get more teams in...

[Collin Fultz]

"The Championships". Are they truly a championship? Not really. There should be one way to qualify...plain and simple...win. Win Win Win Win Win. Win a regional, runner-up at regional, win chairman's or the engineering inspiration. Doing the math there are what 30 regionals? That X 6 (runner up and winners) gives 180 teams. (Assuming nobody wins two) Add in regional chairman's winners (30) and regional eng. insp. winners (30) (again assume no repeats) right now we're only at 240. Then there are what 15 teams from all the years? Plus 12 previous national chairman's winners. Grand total=267 teams. divide by 4 divisions=67 teams per division. Again...this assumes that no previous chairman's winners win a regional or anything else that would lead to a team double qualifying.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by collin234

The problem with this is that some sponsorship money does not come in until the first of the new year. It takes money to register...and if you ain't got it...you ain't got it, whether you're a first tier team or a sixth tier team.

No, it does not. Registration does not require payment up front. Payment for all events is due on the same deadline for all teams, regardless of when they registered.