FIRST All Stars!

[Andy Grady]

Though I do agree that Battlecry is probably one of the best offseasons of the year this year just from the team list alone, I do think it still has a little ways to go before I would really say that I'd rather win it than nationals. I have often recently thought of the idea of milling up support for an offseason competition that would simply pit the best of the best against each other. This would be a invite only competition where a commitee of people from various teams would choose who gets to compete. Bottom line is I would love to see something like we had the last year of Rumble...I think it'd be alot of fun.

Hi all,
After hearing that there was a little intrest in my idea of an invite only competition by committee, I decided to go a step further. Attatched to this post is pretty much my basic idea for something I call FIRST All Stars. If you are interested in this idea, let me know...maybe if we can generate enough intrest, it can become a reality. If you have any questions you can contact me at skrach42@aol.com, or Instant Message me at the same name.
Later,
Andy Grady

[Jeff Waegelin]

Sounds like a good idea. It could work, and I think it would be a lot of fun. I can't commit to it yet, but I would love to see it happen.

[geo]

I think you should post this in the general forum, so more people gonna read it. By the way FIRST all star is a great idea .

[Ashley Weed]

I think this would be an excellent idea. I would definately like to help in any way possible!

[Kyle Fenton]

Where are you going to host it?

There are many great teams all throughout the US. But most could only travel at car distances.

Unless you are teams like 190 or 271, you would only go to an off-season competition if you could drive to it. So if you hosted it like in the Midwest, you would only get Midwest teams, maybe a couple of eastern teams.

Plus, how are you going to limit the competition. There are a little less than 51 teams that won regionals. 17 won the Regional Chairman’s Award. And a bunch of other awards. People would feel really bad, if weren't qualified.

I am not saying its a bad idea, but I am saying that you have a few hurdles if you run a program like this.

Competitions like BattleCry and IRI are the major "regional like" competitions, with an all star robots list.

But, go ahead with it, see what happens.

[mtaman02]

I like the idea. And agree with a few other people. Location is important . Teams who qualify for this event might not want to travel halfway across the country. Here's a little idea. Hold it in "Florida" home of the FIRST Nationals. or Hold it at your school or nearby state. Florida sounds like a better idea. Since it is or will be a big name competition like the FIRST Nationals. I wish lots of success to this idea.

[Todd Derbyshire]

First off it would be teams that have a dominant performance in their robot only not chairman's award. And it would be teams that have shown their greatness throughout their existance so that would eliminate some people. All I know is that is what they went by at Rumble in the Rock and I think that is what should be done now. For location maybe we should keep it in Massachusetts like oh I don't know Bayside Expo or on a smaller scale maybe we can get a nearby college to give us their gym but the competition should be no less then 64 teams.

[Andy Grady]

Ok...basically I'm gonna attempt to describe a little bit better what I am envisioning...as well as some problems that may show and so forth...

First of all in response to travel problems...the last year of Rumble at the Rock, teams traveled from as far as california to be at. The idea is to hold the competition in late summer before school starts and give teams a good amount of notice and time to prepare. My goal would be to hand out invites to the selected teams at the national competition.

As for number of teams...at least for the first couple of years I would like to stick to a 32 team format. This is a little bit less costly and takes up less room...which is good for a competition which is trying to get its feet off the ground.

The selection process is probably the biggest issue of the whole thing...I would love to have a committee of about 12-15 people from across the country looking at robots and selecting the teams. A few problems arise from this, as if you have 15 people from 15 different teams selecting, those people are going to want their own teams in the competition, and there would be a possibility that it wouldn't happen, which wouldn't go over too well with a committee member who really wants his/her team to be there. One thing that I have thought of to maybe cut down on this problem is to accept FIRST Alums or people who go to competitions but don't really compete. It is also possible to take someone from a team that totally understands that his/her team may not get picked. There will be no favorites. Of course there will be alot of things that are in the criteria to get picked, but thats something that the committee and I will think of if/when we meet.

Of course one of the big problems with doing an invite only competition is the possibility of upsetting a team who really wants to be there and thinks they deserve it. And there will be many of them...but an invite to this competition is almost looked at like an award...something for teams to strive for every year. There will be grumbling...but its gonna happen reguardless. We just need to be professional about it and hope teams selected are too.

Finally, about the location of the competition...I am really thinking that its very possible that FIRST All Stars would change locations from year to year, starting probably in the northeast (as i have already had some good ideas of locations in Mass, i.e. Boston or Worcester, plus being the first year of the competition it would be easier for me to take care of many of the logistics closer to home as this thing gets off the ground) then moving to maybe the midwest, south, california, and possibly even canada at some point...of course right now im more interested in seeing if we can even get a first one of these competitions off the ground.

Basically this idea has the potential to be a very good event. However, there is alot of work to be done if this competition is even considered to be put in action. First and foremost I need support from you! Especially the people on these boards...let me know how you feel, if this should even be attempted, also if you have ideas I would love to hear them. And most importantly...sponsorship is key! A competition of this magnitude will not get off the ground without solid financial support. If anyone has any ideas on sponsors (especially in the Boston/Worcester Area of Mass to start) I would love to hear them.

Keep up with the feedback, questions, comments, and constructive criticism...the more I hear from you, the more of a chance this thing can get rollin.

Thank you,
Andy Grady

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally posted by Andy Grady

First of all in response to travel problems...the last year of Rumble at the Rock, teams traveled from as far as California to be at. The idea is to hold the competition in late summer before school starts and give teams a good amount of notice and time to prepare. My goal would be to hand out invites to the selected teams at the national competition.

Wow, I never knew that. Unfortunately Rumble at the Rock and Team 23's last year was the year before I joined FIRST. I just thought Rumble was just like any other off-season competition that was just of teams in the New England area.

A couple more things to consider, that I have notice:

1. Teams usually don't have the budget to travel far distances for off-seasons

2. Any time in late summer early September is just bad. That is the time when people are starting school and jobs are usually a problem. There was a whole discussion for IRI not to be at that particular date. I remember that my team went to River Rage on a skeleton (5 people) crew.

Anyways, I love the idea, and I hope it happens one day.

[Renzorocks]

who would be YOUR top 10 FIRST all stars??

[fast frank]

Originally posted by Kyle Fenton
Unless you are teams like 190 or 271, you would only go to an off-season competition if you could drive to it.

we did drive to both of the off season events we attended so far. we drove to new hampshire for ralley in the valley (300 miles there and 300 miles back) and we drove to massachusetts for mayhem on the merrimack (250 miles each way) we got long island cycle and marine to lend us a trailer, threw a robot or two in there along with some tools, and stuffed as many people as we could fit into a truck and left. we left just after midnight to get to ralley in the valley by 7 and left at about 3am to get to mayhem. we love the off-season, it's a time to test out new strategies and systems for the robot. we have made some structural changes to our robot after each off season compitition.

its a good idea and i would like to see it implimented

but the others are right, who gets chosen and travel expenses are still huge hurdles.... i doubt most teams could travel anywhere thats more than just a one day haul

and generally ive found that certain teams get more attention, even if another team performs better... it doesnt matter so much who does the chosing, just that they really know thier stuff.... and in order to make the choice you might want to talk to the individual teams, find out whats going on.... maybe they can explain something that looked like a mistake

good luck with everything, especially sponsorship

[Todd Derbyshire]

Remember also that Rumble in the Rock was really the NorthEast vs. the rest of the country. The teams that were not from the rest of the country were few and they were the veteran teams who have had deep friendships with teams from the Northeast. Now I'm not saying that this competition is a bad idea but I think maybe there should be qualifiers for it like WPI could be a qualifier and IRI could be a qualifier some small events that let you determine your destiny to compete because once its in the hands of a committee then personal opinions come in and it affects the nature of the competition. FIRST are you listening we want an ALL-Star competition we should mention this in the forum in August.

im thinking they should just make the championship the all star competition... there could be three levels of competitions... the regionals, and then 4 semi championships or something that you can only go to every other year unless you qualify and then an all star championship

[Mike Soukup]

Originally posted by SharkBite
im thinking they should just make the championship the all star competition... there could be three levels of competitions... the regionals, and then 4 semi championships or something that you can only go to every other year unless you qualify and then an all star championship

I had the same idea. A bunch of people are asking for an all star event, and I kept thinking that this is exactly what FIRST is trying to do with the Championships. True they may have missed the mark in the implementation, but that is their goal.

Mike