Peoples Feelings on Atlanta's Nationals(like as many people to respond as possible)

[Rich Kressly]

I agree with Al on all of his points with special emphsis on the pit walk and food situations. I think the 2004 Championship was much better than the 2003 Championship and I know the "issues" that still exist can be solved or improved upon.

That being said, I'd still love to see FIRST and Disney come to an agreement in the long run. Nowhere else can 20,000 people have fun of all different kinds and still be safe and in the "same place". The only part about Disney that wasn't as good was the lack of an actual stadium.

[Wayne C.]

Here are some good and bad impressions-

good- diversity of foods were available at the stadium
bad- the price still was pretty poor- $8 got you a soda and fries....
solution- instead of FIRST requiring the purchase of meal ticket plans where the tix were essentially worh a buck why not just publicize the prices at the venue and let people pay cash? It was especially cheap for the vendors to refuse to give change for the vouchers, thus jacking up their prices even more

good- the view of the fields and such from the stands at the stadium
bad- the poor handling of the open ceremonies and parade from the view of the fields on the opposite side of the stadium
solution- make sure that the events on the main stage are aired on the big screen for all the fields. Why this wasn't done is beyond me but it was surreal to hear a big commotion and see crowds of little kids in the distance marching towards some horizon. Kind of made the Newton field seem unimportant....

good- the Omni hotel- the place was beautiful and rooms were nice
bad- why do the hotels at all these FIRST events insist on breaking up teams to rooms all over the building?
solution- since the hotel gives THS blocks of rooms they should give clusters of rooms to the teams. Unless they prefer to have teens all over their building unsupervised?


good- the closing party. The hypnotist was great and the fireworks were a real spectacle amongst the big buildings and reflective surfaces. The BBQ was also pretty good and the food service was well planned
bad- I think the moon walk mardi gras was probably better suited to younger kids and it didn't seem like many kids were using them
solution- How about a name act like Blue Man Group for next year?


good- the Georgia Dome Complex- it was huge and big enough to bring 600 teams to the nationals.... hint hint
bad- signage and locations of things- while working in the info booth it seemed that the same questions were being asked over and over and this was simply because no coherent signage was visible.


good- MARTA- I was shocked to realize that my entire team got to the venue and back without a hitch
bad- the venue crowd control- when 5000 people are trying to exit and there are only three turnstyle doors you open the ten other doors right next to them so people can get out. Some folks need a bit more common sense...

Overall my team found the event the best Nationals since Disney.We had a great time and the team really grew from the experience. Of course we still want to go back to Epcot but Atlanta was the next best thing.

WC

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

bad- why do the hotels at all these FIRST events insist on breaking up teams to rooms all over the building?
solution- since the hotel gives THS blocks of rooms they should give clusters of rooms to the teams. Unless they prefer to have teens all over their building unsupervised?

I heard a rumor it's so there wouldn't be a team having a big block party - splitting the team solves the problem.

I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with that idea, until you put it, "all over their building unsupervised".

I requested all our rooms be together. I requested the girls' room be next to ours. Neither happened, until after we got there we were able to move the girls next to our room. 1/2 our team was even in a different tower.

[Matt]

Since this was my first trip I would say it was good. I have a problem with the walk from the pits to the stands and the cost of parking was insane for a day. We stayed near the airport because the cost of the hotels near the event was insane for our small team. I believe that the cost was to high for the teams.

[Kit Gerhart]

What I say here is based on my experience with Atlanta compared to the rest of my nine years of attending FIRST championships.

1) Overall, I like Epcot. The atmosphere is fantastic. The food is decent. If your team stays on-property, you are probably the best place in the world for turning 15,000 teenagers free to have fun without getting into trouble. It is not that great for watching matches on the "big stage," but otherwise, from the competition standpoint, it is pretty good.

2) Atlanta, overall, is much better than Houston. There were hotels close to the competition site. The food was somewhat better. It was much easier for the drive teams to get from the pits to the playing fields. It was a little better for the spectators to get from the pits to the playing fields, and the "wrap" party was very good. The party was, to me, better than the ones at Epcot.

If I had my choice, we'd still be at Epcot, but overall, this years championship was a very good event, and with lessons learned, should be even better next year.

[Sean Schuff]

I have to agree with Kit about Epcot being better than either Houston or Atlanta.

Houston was a bad choice but you don't really know that until you've tried it. The venue was difficult to navigate and the neighborhood surrounding Reliant Stadium made me feel like I was in a demilitarized zone. Not much to do with 40 students/mentors/parents that was within walking distance. Oh well, lesson learned.

Atlanta was light years better than Houston. Good proximity of hotels to eating establishments (one of my favorite past times), MARTA, the Dome and GWCC, and other after-hours points of interest. The walk to the field from the pits was great for the field teams but rough for the spectators. Dean could make a killing selling Segways at an event like this! The venue itself was clean, neat and well organized. Event staff were realtively friendly although I agree that they were a bit tight on allowing food purchased on site to be taken between the dome and GWCC. On more than one occasion I saw serious "discussions" relating to this. All in all, Atlanta was a good site.

That being said, Epcot still rules! The event site is set up for the needs of FIRST and the competition rather than FIRST adapting to what they are provided. Close quick walks for everybody from the pits to the fields to the food. Disney puts on one heck of a show! And I don't have to worry about my students after hours. They all have someplace to go and something to do and it's all "G" rated! Being on Disney property is like being in a different world and there are no worries when you're there.

My vote is still for Epcot but Atlanta was a reasonably close second place.

Sean

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by Sean Schuff

That being said, Epcot still rules! The event site is set up for the needs of FIRST and the competition rather than FIRST adapting to what they are provided. Close quick walks for everybody from the pits to the fields to the food. Disney puts on one heck of a show! And I don't have to worry about my students after hours. They all have someplace to go and something to do and it's all "G" rated! Being on Disney property is like being in a different world and there are no worries when you're there.

My vote is still for Epcot but Atlanta was a reasonably close second place.

Sean

One thing I loved about Houston and Atlanta was the fields! Each field had proper seating for everybody. If anybody remembers two years ago (or more) all fields except for Einstein were cramped, and unless you team was competing, you could only really have 1 or 2 people watching matches. Though the Stadiums might seem a bit big even for a program like FIRST, it makes me think that in 5 or 10 years, maybe the entire lower section will be filled, and in 10-20 years, maybe the whole stadium (imagine how many fields you would need).

I will agree though that because we were in a Disney World resort area, that I felt safer overall. I loved being able to walk to Marketplace as well!

[Joe Matt]

Well, everyone here knows my Houston vs. Disney opinions, so I'll just say that I'd too rather be at Disney, but Atlanta was a great substatue and did all it could. Anyway....

Food: Good choices, bad prices. Simple as that. I would keep the current system but remove the whole $2.50 thing and have the people refuse to give change thing. If you had a problem with the prices, you could go to the Omni, but that wasn't known to teams, and many found out from second hand comments of teams staying there.

Transportation: We walked, so from the Omni, it was great. Only saw two pannhandlers, but being from Cleveland and having to deal with lots more, I thought it was good.

Walk: Yes, the walk was horrible. Couldn't they just open it up so people could just walk from the first elevator out into the plaza where they had the GM exhibit, and then into the Dome? Or could they just go through where the bots did? Could be improved, but this place wasn't designed for what we inteded it's use to be, but isn't that what engineering is?

Competiton: Overall, great, but I did sense a bit of "Dean is talking to the media about you now. He'll talk to you latter" type thing. I remember back at Disney when he went in the pits to talk and even talked to kids around the competition. Man, I miss those days....

Party: Wayne said it best, get a big name that people that we like and know. No Mandy Moore, get Blue Man Group, or Evenessence. Hyptnotist was great, but mabey if they had him as a warm-up act.

Overall, I liked it better than Houston, but it's still no Epcot. Disney's business was to entertain and handle people, Houston didn't have much experence in that, and Atlanta only did it 8 years ago, it's not like you have to re-invent the wheel every year.

[soccerstar16]

over all i thought everything went pretty smoothly. people that had to scout definetly got a work out walking back and forth between the field and pits. everything was clean and well organized for the most part. i know im not the only one thinking this, but we definetly had a nice area to hack it up or play frisibee. there was plenty of room to do both. we had people playin frisibee while there was a 17 person hack circle goin on. we all had a really great time. hope next year is better if thats possible. for this bein my first year with delphi E.L.I.T.E and it was incredible. i met so many new people. alot of people from 1126 sparx and just people from all around like michigan. and students that were in college. i cant wait til next year.

[Natchez]

Ahhhhh, I see defending Houston will be a 24-hour-a-day job

Originally Posted by JosephM

Overall, I liked it better than Houston

Joseph, that goes without saying after this quote last year.

Originally Posted by JosephM

I'm never going to believe a press release scenario until I see it with my eyes. I personal don't' like Houston and would rather go anywhere else. That's my opinion.

Also,

Originally Posted by JosephM

Disney's business was to entertain and handle people, Houston didn't have much experence in that ...

*The world's largest rodeo where 1.9 million people attended this year and over $100 million went to scholarships, graduate assistantships, endowments and grants.
*The Superbowl
*NFL, NBA, & MLB teams
*Brand new METRO Rail with tens of thousands of hotel rooms within a block of the rail
*Shell Houston Open PGA Tournament with over $5.2 million in charitable donations which ranks 2nd on the PGA tour behind our friends hosting the Byron Nelson in Dallas
*4th largest city in America

Yes, Joseph, we have proven that we can handle and entertain people; and yes, FIRST does listen to all of your comments made on CD; and yes, your comments do have a reflection on your team.

Again, congratulations Atlanta for putting on a great Championship,
Lucien

[ngreen]

Natchez,

The truth is I loved Houston and would love to go back. People on this forum will always use past events to compare current events and in that manner Houston will always have a black marks of sorts.

You've got to look at what the places we have been built for. Disney is built to handle thousands of kids who are tourists. It has that safe feeling. Disney spoiled FIRST for several years. But I gets the impression that some people hold Epcot as a perfect unattainable goal. They compare everything with epcot and say everything else doesn't live up to it. I've only been involved for two years now so I can really say but I've got my impression that epcot had it's share of problems.

The second place is Atlanta. Everything was built specifically for the Olympics. So they built it so it would be really nice, lot a hotel rooms adn restaurants in a walking distance, and have a lot of space in the GWCC and Georgia Dome. Being downtown had a intimate feeling for FIRST.

Last you've got Houston. I love the facility. I loved the pit set-up in Houston a lot more. I even enjoyed running up and down those ramps (I thought it was exciting to be coming up when someone who had just won their match (or at least was spirited) was coming down. I loved six flags and Heeeyyy. People just never gave Houston a chance. I thought it was a blast................Okay I lost what I was trying to point out. I've just realized how much I really loved being in Houston. Sure their were slight issues but Atlanta had issues, epcot had issues.


Issues: I guess my biggest issue with Houston was having to eat at the golden corral multiple times because our team can't make decisions about what to eat so they go buffet. Ordering a buffet when your not very hungry isn't worth it. I have yet to go on a robotics trip where a have a warm pool when I get there. I guess it hasn't stopped me from going in. The no longer Radisson Astrodome and the Embassy Suite both had ice cold pools.

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Natchez

Ahhhhh, I see defending Houston will be a 24-hour-a-day job

Joseph, that goes without saying after this quote last year.

Also,

*The world's largest rodeo where 1.9 million people attended this year and over $100 million went to scholarships, graduate assistantships, endowments and grants.
*The Superbowl
*NFL, NBA, & MLB teams
*Brand new METRO Rail with tens of thousands of hotel rooms within a block of the rail
*Shell Houston Open PGA Tournament with over $5.2 million in charitable donations which ranks 2nd on the PGA tour behind our friends hosting the Byron Nelson in Dallas
*4th largest city in America

Yes, Joseph, we have proven that we can handle and entertain people; and yes, FIRST does listen to all of your comments made on CD; and yes, your comments do have a reflection on your team.

Again, congratulations Atlanta for putting on a great Championship,
Lucien

I understand your defending your city. I'll even defend my original home town of Kokomo, Indiana, but the fact remains that the Houston event had many more "issues" than Atlanta or Epcot. The one thing that we can all appreciate is that things were put together quickly enough that we were able to have a championship in 2003. Even having the event was probably in question for a while.

One thing that kind of bothered me is that the historic Astrodome was conspicuously ill-maintained and appeared to be waiting to be demolished. I consider it historic because, to my knowledge, it was the first indoor stadium of its type built for playing football. Having been to Europe several times, I've seen a lot of the "preserve and restore" mentality of, say, Italy and I like it in contrast to the "throw it all away" mentality of America. I guess that is off-topic, and to my knowledge, the Astrodome is still there. It just looked like it might not be for long.

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Natchez

Ahhhhh, I see defending Houston will be a 24-hour-a-day job

Joseph, that goes without saying after this quote last year.

Also,

*The world's largest rodeo where 1.9 million people attended this year and over $100 million went to scholarships, graduate assistantships, endowments and grants.
*The Superbowl
*NFL, NBA, & MLB teams
*Brand new METRO Rail with tens of thousands of hotel rooms within a block of the rail
*Shell Houston Open PGA Tournament with over $5.2 million in charitable donations which ranks 2nd on the PGA tour behind our friends hosting the Byron Nelson in Dallas
*4th largest city in America

Yes, Joseph, we have proven that we can handle and entertain people; and yes, FIRST does listen to all of your comments made on CD; and yes, your comments do have a reflection on your team.

Again, congratulations Atlanta for putting on a great Championship,
Lucien

Knew that was going to come up. But in order to be gracious and professional, maybe we should discuss this more in Emil and PM. Now, back to our regularly scheduled post...

The Superbowl, METRO, and the rodeo happened THIS year, not last. As someone who as grown up in a city, I can say that much can change over one year. I still stand by my stains that Houston has and is designed as a CITY, a place where people come to do work, eat lunch, and then go home, just like Atlanta. Disney moved people like crazy. Wanted to go back to the hotel to get something? There were busses and even more busses. At Houston, you had a small 3 hour window in the morning and evening to go back to the hotel. Not only to say that my comments were taken out of context, that I wanted to SEE Houston before I jump on the 'YAY! MY HOMETOWN IS HOSTING CHAMPS! IT WILL BE GREAT" bandwagon. Notice the date? Yeah, it was 4 months before Champs. I offered my opinions and you can take them or leave them.

I know my comments reflect my team, as do yours. I don't know why you have to 'defend' Houston, just as if Richmond held the Champs and it didn't do as well as the previous year that I would defend it. Separate hometown pride and FIRST. Sure, Disney wasn't the greatest, I'll be the first to say that, but for moving people and having them entertained, I'd take Disney over Houston or Atlanta, or even Richmond, ANY day due to the fact that it can handle and entertain people better and they don't have to reinvent the wheel every year.

PS, We have one person on our team from Houston, so we knew the in's and out's of the place.

If you want to continue this debate, send me a PM or Emil me at josephm1314@yahoo.com . I'd love to continue it, but I don't think that the people on CD want to continue to hear it.

Joe Matt

[Cory]

I liked Atlanta a lot. A lot of people are complaining about the homeless, but they really didnt bother me. Living near San Francisco my whole life, I'm used to much more aggressive homeless people doing a lot of drugs.

Our hotel was really great. Kudos to FIRST for getting deals with all these nice hotels, at good distances from the venue.

The venue was good. The setup of the venue wasnt the greatest. Pit aisles could stand to be widened a few feet. It was darn near impossible to get through some of them throughout the day. I thought pit size was pretty good, but maybe a tad smaller than the standard 10 feet.

The walk from the pits to the field with the robot was good. The security people there were a little overzealous in their quest to turn back people without badges, but you can't really blame them.

The walk from the pits to the dome was WAY too long. There has to be a more direct route. I know there were stairs, but the escalators delayed everything. you would have to leave the dome almost 30-40 minutes before your match started if you were a member of the drive team.

Food in the dome, while overpriced was not that bad. Had you gone to an Atlanta Falcons game, the food would have costed much more than what we paid. Quality of the food was not top notch, but at least there was a fair selection. I see all these people complaining about food prices, but then at the competition I saw all these people trying to get rid of their extra meal coupons on Saturday, so I'm not really sure where the complaint is.

Was I the only one that discovered "Food World" on the lower level of the GWCC? Good, cheap food

The Einstein sound system "leaked" into the Galileo and Curie fields during FLL. Not the end of the world, but a little annoying. Kind of unavoidable.

The upper decks above Einstein should have been opened during the finals. I know the second one was, but during the awards/finals, people were stretched all the way from Curie to Galileo.

The Team party was awesome. I didn't do any of the games and stuff, but it sure looked like there was a lot of cool stuff to do, and I had a bunch of fun.

Overall, not much to complain about beyond the walk from the pits to the stands. I will look forward to an even better competition next year

Cory

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Sean Schuff

That being said, Epcot still rules! The event site is set up for the needs of FIRST and the competition rather than FIRST adapting to what they are provided. Close quick walks for everybody from the pits to the fields to the food.

A couple of years ago, I happened to be driving through Orlando (on my way home from visiting relatives) when the FIRST Nationals were being held. I stopped by to watch a match or two of the finals. Unfortunately, my home town's TechnoKats were no longer in the running by the time I got there. I remember thinking three things about the location:

• It was outdoors and hot, with little or no shade for the stands.
• Even though it was not in an enclosed area, the music was uncomfortably loud.
• If it had been raining, it would have been very bad.

I think having a covered (and climate controlled) stadium is a much greater benefit than being in the middle of Disney World.