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

[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!