Question of the Week!!! (7/11/04)

[Andy Grady]

Hi all,

Sorry for the wicked delay in Questions, but I have been seriously lacking internet since I moved to NH. So...lets get it on!


Question of the Week (7/11/04):

Do you think that FIRST will ever outgrow its ability to hold a National Championship. If so, what do you feel would be a good alternative to replacing it?


As always, you can make suggestions for Questions by PM, E-mail (skrach42@aol.com), or IM (whenever the heck I get my internet back; QuietRiverRage1)

Have fun!
-Andy Grady

[Corey Balint]

I kind of doubt that could happen. I think they would just make it harder to qualify for a national competition. For example, they could make regionals into sectional competitions and then whoever wins the sectional competitions or more then that go to a regional event, lets say Northeast MidAtl SouEast Midwest RockyMtn SouWest NorthWest. Then a certain amount of teams from each regional, depending on how they preform, go on to nationals.
And if you can have nationals for HS football or baseball or whatever sport, which almost every school has and there are a ton of HS', im sure you could work out a way to get about a quarter of the nations HS' in somehow.

[Billfred]

I don't think the Championship will ever be outgrown.

It will, however, become harder to get into it.

I see in the not-too-far-off future a point where you're going to have to perform to get to Nationals. I remember an idea that teams could defer a championship invite for a year for logistics. Suppose that was changed <example> so that your acts in 2004 wouldn't get you into the 2004 Championship. Once all of the 2k4 regionals are over, FIRST somehow picks the best 300ish teams (and the last national champions and the chairman's folks and so on) and gives them invites for 2005. 2005's game would then qualify you for 2006.

Just a guess.

[Dorienne]

Question of the Week (7/11/04):

Do you think that FIRST will ever outgrow its ability to hold a National Championship. If so, what do you feel would be a good alternative to replacing it?

I don't think so...as long as FIRST keeps the requirements they have, and if they outgrow the requirements, keep coming up with more, they'll be okay. I don't really think we should concentrate on the future with the Championship, but on the here and now. And as far as I know, we're set for the Championship. Many teams go, more than I could have imagined in my life, and money doesn't seem like a problem..though it always is But anyways I think we're okay for the here and now...we'll worry about the future when we get to it
--d0ri

[miketwalker]

I strongly believe the Championship will soon become a thing of the past. The reason being is that in the past the backbone of FIRST was that EVERYBODY could go to the Championship. Most people haven't been around to remember when they preached that (including myself) but it was the heart of FIRST. To tell a team they can't go because of these new requirements has pushed teams to quit doing FIRST for a few years just so they can work with this new tier system and come back and eventually get to go to the Championship. Many teams don't want to just compete at regionals and therefore won't bother building a robot. I think this problem will only escalate as they make it harder to get into the Championship and stray further and further away from that heart of FIRST that everyone deserves to go... and I think we'll see many teams start to be offended by the rule changes until they have to find something else to do.

[FizMan]

We'll probably see more and more "Super Regionals" like at the Canadian Regional this year. I mean... on the other hand, if we could juggle... what? 74 teams at the CDN Regional this year with the two fields (and VERY successfully I might add), I don't see why they can't keep up the pace at the nationals.

[Lisa Rodriguez]

I think that the Championships will always be around, however, they willl become more and more difficult to get into. The possiblities of making more "super-regionals" is fantastic because it gives almost the same effect of nationals, 15,000 kids all in robotics screaming for each other. Its that huge overwhelming "this is awesome" feeling thing FIRST needs to keep as it grows. Its a lot harder to inspire teams that can't go to nationals, but say you have a "super regional" for maybe the 3 major time zones of the US, plenty of teams would love to do that, and it could still be a HUGE competition and then also have the championships. One way or another there are going to be more and more events every year because large numbers of teams are going to more competitions. Many teams are now going to 2 or 3 regionals, to better their chances of making it to nationals. Just giving more teams more opportunities to play the game would be great, and thats what i think FIRST will end up doing.

[Beth Sweet]

I don't know if the Championship event will be around for a while, but I do have an idea of how to keep it. I think that what FIRST needs to do is make multiple Championships. Maybe one for the West Coast Teams and one for the East Coast Teams. I think that the 2 biggest FIRST states (please excuse me if I'm wrong) are California and Michigan. By splitting the competitions this way, those 2 states would send their teams to 2 different Championships. I think that this way, the old "all teams go to Championahip event" goal could be achieved, while the whole thing wouldn't become completely out of control. Just my 2 cents

[Lil' Lavery]

They wont outgrow it, I guarantee that. First step, dont allow teams to buy into it, period. So the only way to earn a spot would be to have sucess at regionals or be in the Hall of Fame. After that, they would make you have to qualify for regionals(part of the reason my was at IRI was to see how an event that costs 1/10 the amount of a regional stacks up to a regional). We will just have to see what happens in the future.

[Elgin Clock]

I don't believe that we will ever outgrow a "Championship Event", but there should be a return of nationals. As of now, we have enough teams for a canadian nationals event and a USA nationals event.

As more teams come to be, and more countries get involved I believe that we need to hold nationals events in those countries.

I'm not talking in the next year or two, but somewhere down the line we are going to probably have about a hundred teams from each of the contries of Brazil, or the UK, or wherever.

I think it is just fair for FIRST to implement to them a Nationals event in their homeland. (Travel expenses is the biggest concern of mine for them)

FIRST is all about inspiring kids, but as a secondary result FIRST is growing every year.

As Mike Walker said, "... in the past the backbone of FIRST was that EVERYBODY could go to the Championship." While we have strayed from the biggest difference between FIRST and sports in that aspect, why not adopt a format that works for sports events.
As Dean once said (and I'm not going to quote this cause I don't know the exact words) FIRST is all the good things of sports events, without all the bad.

When something works in sports, then why not adopt it to work in FIRST's world.

Nationals for Canada, Nationals for USA, eventualy Nationals for UK, Brazil, etc... when the time is right, and then a final "Championship event" wherever.
Maybe the Championship event could switch countries.
(After thinking about switching countries, I realize that that could be a big logistics problem as far as venue, weather, or teams' individual logistics.)

I think in the end, holding the Championship Event in the USA is best for now, but we should somehow incorporate 3 nationals events soon.

One in Canada, One in the USA, and a last one in possibly NYC for the teams from Brazil and the UK and some US teams too..
I'm not sure about the NYC one.
We shall soon see...

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this subject. Feel free to pick them apart and give myself and the CD community feedback.

[JoeXIII'007]

The FIRST championship is the equivalent of the Superbowl, and shall NEVER be outgrown. However, I see tournament structure changes within the next few years. Here's what the change could look like:

You would have your regionals like you do now. Then, winners of those regionals would compete in an even bigger event like a state championship or geographical region championship. (midwest [I know, we already have a midwest regiona], northeast, southeast, west, etc.) Finally, the winners of those would compete in the Nationals. It'd be a 3-level tournament structure like that.

[Lil' Lavery]

Individual nationals are pretty far off as I see it. I think additional regionals will be added in canada first, like having a west canada regional, and an east canada regional first. Then, a brazilian regional, a european regional(once we get more teams there), and(in a few years) a second isreali regional(there are 12 rookie teams and a regional that are getting founded over there). I dont think we will need "nationals" for a long while, especially if we implement a divisional(or a lower than regional) step for competitions.

[Joshua May]

Like everyone who has posted before, I don't think FIRST will outgrow the Championships, it will simply get harder to qualify.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Individual nationals are pretty far off as I see it. I think additional regionals will be added in canada first, like having a west canada regional, and an east canada regional first. Then, a brazilian regional, a european regional(once we get more teams there), and(in a few years) a second isreali regional(there are 12 rookie teams and a regional that are getting founded over there). I dont think we will need "nationals" for a long while, especially if we implement a divisional(or a lower than regional) step for competitions.

Will that Israeli regional be up for next year, I haven't heard of that yet!

[EddieMcD]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Question of the Week (7/11/04):

Do you think that FIRST will ever outgrow its ability to hold a National Championship. If so, what do you feel would be a good alternative to replacing it?

FIRST outgrew its ability to hold a true National Competition back in 2002 when it came up with the even/odd system. A true National competition would have everyone allowed. Of course, that was impossible. That's why they came up with that system in the first place. Now, I realize the question specifically uses the term "Championship". That being said, FIRST probably will never outgrow its ability to hold a championship. Even if it has to take the top finishers from super regionals to hold a 100-team nationals wherever they may hold them, there will always be a FIRST championship. I'm going to get a little opinionated here, but IMO, unfortunately this will cause the "win at all cost" attitude. Yes, I'm well aware that currently (disregarding the tier system) there are other ways to get in, but even those involve trying to be the best at something, which (again IMO) kinda defeats the goal of FIRST.

Okay, I'm going on too much of a tangent. My point is this: FIRST will never outgrow the ability to hold a National Championship, but that may not be a good thing. If all people are doing is vying for those spots in the championship (which proportionally will decrease), then you loose FIRST's basis: Gracious Professionalism. Newer teams may never even learn what GP is if what matters is who wins those decreasing number of spots. I do hope for the day we go back to having a National Competition where everyone is allowed (and it will someday happen if and when they can find a place to house it all). Until then, I hope the competition stays as open as possible, even if it has to treat us all as on the same level. I'm not a big fan of the tier system, but it works.

[jpsaul7usa]

Does anyone have any numbers on how many teams/people have participated in nats for each year of FIRST? I think it would be interesting to see how fast FIRST is growing in that regard.

Also, I think that if having one Championship Event isn't enough, then have more. East Champs and West Champs. FIRST should pay for the winners (or at least subsidize) of those to meet for bragging rights and televise (real TV, not webcast) it so those want to know who's the best in the world. I would love to see a close competition amoung the best 24 or so teams in the biz.