Championships for dummies

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Originally Posted by blue_crew

Is there any kind of sack lunch program available?
How and where do you eat your lunches?

The CNN Center is about a 5-10 min walk from the pits and has a mall-style food court. I found it to be the best option as far as lunch goes.

As far as scouting goes, make sure to sign up for a CD of all your divisions matches from SOAP. I believe they are going to have a pre-event sign up sometime soon.

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by MATT_kaplan108

The CNN Center is about a 5-10 min walk from the pits and has a mall-style food court. I found it to be the best option as far as lunch goes.

It's more than a mall-style food court. That food court is HUGE! Bigger than any mall's food court I've ever seen. It's enormous and it just goes UP! You go in there and look up, it sure is a sight to see.

The CNN center food court is a point of interest. It's like 5 minutes walk away from the arena, too. In fact there is a walkway from the food court to the arena.

[RoboMom]

BTW-NEMO is starting another white paper in the hints and tips series. "Preparing for the Championship" Thanks to KathieK for another great idea. The main focus is not stuff like scouting, but how to plan ahead for this, especially with funding. We will include any best practices from this thread.

[Carol]

Also check out MOEmentum, which gives weekly updates during the build season for rookie teams; it includes tips from mentors and students compiled throughout the years. The unit on the Championship hasn't been updated yet, but you can still access last years - "Championship Preparation - The Mother of All FIRST Events". It will be updated in a week or two


http://moe365.org/moementum.php

[KathieK]

Register to attend a conference workshop. Your peers are volunteering their time in Atlanta to present these great workshops and every team should take advantage of them. It's a good learning experience, and also another way to network with other teams you might never get to meet otherwise.

Visit the Chairmans' Award Winners Hall of Fame. Be inspired by the best in FIRST!

Visit the FIRST LEGO League World Festival (80 teams from 30 countries competing on Thursday, Friday and Sat morning) and the FIRST Vex Challenge Championship competition (50 teams from around the U.S. competing on Thursday and Friday).

Visit the many colleges and universities' booths and learn about their FIRST Scholarships. It's never too early (or too late) to start thinking about higher education options.

If you get some "down time" travel across the street to Centennial Olympic Park and play some frisbee or run through the water fountains (it's OK to be a kid at heart sometimes). Or better yet, time it so you can enter the fountain circles without getting wet and grab a picture when the fountains cycle back on!

[pyroslev]

Be prepared to walk if you are on the Drive Team or one of those people going on field. I didn't measure last year but I'm taking a pedometer with me this year just for that walk. Someone said half-mile round trip from Newton Pit to Newton Field. Not sure about that but wouldn't surprise me.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by KathieK

Visit the FIRST LEGO League World Festival (80 teams from 30 countries competing on Thursday, Friday and Sat morning)

Just to clarify, FLL has a practice and judging day on Thursday, competition on Friday, and awards ceremonies on Saturday. I've been asked to be a judge.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I'll echo what Genia said about scouting. To put it lightly - it's difficult. Double the teams from most regionals and increase your walking distance significantly and you'll have an idea of what Nationals is like. Last year, we tried to rotate people in and out of scouting but you need a lot of team members to do this.

I found that doing it by hand is easy and more practical. Make a spreadsheet on Excel and print them prior to competition, one for each team and a few extras just in case. Get a binder and put all the teams in order by number. Have one person before your team's match go back with the papers to the pits and strategize with the drivers. Simple and effective - no computer required. We even had people put their names down on the sheets to hold people accountable for their information.

[Elgin Clock]

Ok, here is some great info for first time people heading to Atlanta:

Just to give you an idea of the scale of THIS MAP, It took myself and 3-4 other people 10 minutes to walk from the outside doors of the Georgia Dome to the Front Door of the CNN Center/Foodcourt.

General info here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...69&postcount=8

Maps and more travel while in Atlanta info in the overall thread here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ht=atlanta+map

More of the above info repeated in another thread, but this time a map of restaurants as well:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...64&postcount=7

And then you have the official Tourist page for the 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition from the Atlanta Tourism Board where a lot of that above info came from:

http://first.atlanta.net/

[KathieK]

If you'll be using the public transportation system a lot (MARTA), consider purchasing the discounted pass: http://www.itsmarta.com/howto/specia...ails.asp?id=80

[themagic8ball]

I haven't read this whole thread but I'm interested in doing some partnership scouting in Atlanta. We (team 537) has an amazing system that we are willing to share and all we ask is for other teams to fill out some forms while they watch a match and we can share our scouting reports.

If you are interested email me. mweinand@wi.rr.com

Thanks!

-Mike

[Simon Strauss]

Originally Posted by themagic8ball

I haven't read this whole thread but I'm interested in doing some partnership scouting in Atlanta. We (team 537) has an amazing system that we are willing to share and all we ask is for other teams to fill out some forms while they watch a match and we can share our scouting reports.

If you are interested email me. mweinand@wi.rr.com

Thanks!

-Mike

If we happen to end up in the same division most definitely, and if not should either of our teams make it to the finals I'm willing to share whatever important information we have. Our team's scouts are somewhat unorganized but they are still very good and can tell you whatever you need to know about your opponents. we are going to be bringing around 8 scouts with us and Ill PM or e-mail you my contact info so that we can possibly collaborate should this idea pass with my team's scouts.

-Simon

[ScoutingNerd175]

If there are any smaller/newer teams who are having trouble scouting either because they don't have the man power or they don't know quite what to do, who would like to come to us for help or even work with us, we would be open to that. We sometimes also have a bit of a man power problem. Obviously we have a well established scouting system, but we are willing to help any one else along with that, and again possibly work with a team who needs help. PM me if you are interested in anything. And anyone who needs help can come see the people with the giant yellow smiles (Team 175) in the stands.

[KarenH]

I noticed today that FIRST has made a new addition to the Championship menu: now teams can preorder lunches!

Go to the bottom of this page.

[Mike Rozar]

Our team did not go to the championship last year. We are excited about the wednesday night uncrating. It would be nice to move in all our stuff then. Help out the Thursday morning jam.

Did they let anyone at least move their stuff into the pits?