Championship's Atlanta 2006 - The Positive

[ahirsch2589]

omg i love atlanta! im from florida, and i have lived there all my life. its just so nice to walk down the street without seeing palm trees!

[Allison K]

FIRST probably had little to do with this, but I was impressed with the efficiency at the atlanta airport on Sunday morning.

I haven't been to the championships since 2003, but the food has definitely improved since then.

The walk from the pits to the stands wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.

In general most things seemed to operate smoothly.

[Alan Anderson]

They found a place last year for the pits that worked well, and they kept it. The route from the pits to the dome isn't bad at all. I consistently made the walk between the Galileo stands and pit area in less than five minutes.

[Madison]

I think Atlanta is a far better venue than Houston for this event, but still does not measure up to what Disney was able to provide.

• The outdoor common area were well located and large.
• Accessibility to food outside the venue was convenient and offered variety.
• Even at the Hilton, which seemed to be one of the hotels furthest from the event, the walk back and forth was short.
• The presence of FIRST banners and signs outside the event site was a nice gesture by the city to welcome us.
• The practice fields were convenient and very helpful.

[JaneYoung]

This adventure set the tone for the rest of the Championship for me - I'd rather the team tell the story but I'll share a little.

We found out about Gasper, the beluga whale, at the Aquarium right before the trip from Austin. Some of the team made a big get whale card for Gasper. Gasper is a beluga that has been sick for a little while and they have him in his own tank recovering. He loves children and he stays near the glass blowing bubbles. How they knew he was getting sick was that he stopped blowing bubbles at the children. When we arrived Wednesday, the team took the card with them to the aquarium and gave it to the trainers for Gasper. This was a 6 foot card in the shape of a beluga. The trainers liked the card and spent some time talking to the team. It was neat. For me that is how the rest of the Championship went. I met neat people, had no trouble, found the venues to be easily accessible and help was always available.There is always room for improvement but it was a good experience.

[qhsscience]

Our team "grew up" on Nationals at Disney, and the last time we went to the championships was Houston...until this year. I will readily admit that as mentors, we were skeptical about the venue and event location, and had grown accustomed to smaller regional experiences. With those prefaces:

(1) The close proximity of hotels to the venue and the walk that funneled all the teams into the Georgia Dome was as nice as everyone on CD said it was. I had a great time just walking back and forth to the venue and seeing all the color and different teams.
(2) There was enough to do that was readily accessible to us through walking and the MARTA (unlike Houston). We took the MARTA from the airport to the hotel, walked to the Aquarium from our hotel, and took the MARTA to the Braves game on Friday night. The students were also able to go to the Underground on the way to the airport on Sunday to do some shopping. So generally speaking, the venue provided some good outside options to provide an experience for the team without needing to rent vehicles.
(3) There seemed to be a good FIRST effort on providing quality extras besides the competition and the pits...i.e. the scholarship/college section, the hall of fame team section, the vendor support row to walk past, and the FIRST store. While we could all probably "complain" about ways to make all of them better, the fact that they were there at all and accessible was a positive!
(4) Having the FVC and the FLL competitions there was nice as well. Having been away from the championships since Houston, it was important for our team to see how FIRST has continued to grow. I enjoyed hanging out in the FLL section and just watching the young kids work with their robots on the practice fields. I should admit I am easily inspired, but being able to see the Lego and VEX in action was nice.

There were other positives, but these are the ones that I can remember easily.

[LPaton716]

The pits were well organized with lots of space in the aisles. They were also easy to find. And the suppliers showcase area was excellent. I liked that the Autodesk area was easy to find but I don't think people who were in the stands got much of a chance to see it. Could they show animations between matches?

Also, the team media passes were an excellent idea. It allowed students who otherwise would have never gotten down on the floor a chance to view the competition up close and see the event inside out. (By that I mean looking back at all the teams cheering.)

One of my favorite parts of the competition is listening to the speakers. I think there could be more (maybe during lunch). The workshops were also very informative and fun. One improvement I could see is a place for mascots, in Atlanta and at regionals.

[GaryVoshol]

Gee, how come the negatives page is so much longer?

There's lots of positives. #1 is just Being There. It's a total experience.

Working as a judge in FLL was great. A lot of work - I really didn't need 1/2 inch of papers to read on Wed night But well worth it - it's so much fun to work with the kids. My assignment was teamwork, and there was a hands-on exercise. The most amazing thing was the foreign teams - I didn't need to know a word of Spanish, Danish or Portuguese to figure out the interactions on the Mexican, Danish and Brazilian teams.

Special thanks to whoever turned in our misplaced bag on Sat am - the one that contained our shipper and wristbands for the finale party, among other things. We had some concerns Friday night, to say the least.

And for Team 1188 particularly, the opportunity to finally meet and work with our South African teammembers cannot be beat. They should be getting home in a few hours, after travelling almost continuously since Sunday evening. (Bus from Atlanta to Royal Oak overnight, a few hours at host homes cleaning up and packing, trip to the airport for early check-in, flight to London, 12 hours layover, flight to Johannesburg.) Makes me exhausted just to think about it!

[Kims Robot]

I was very happy that all of thursday and friday seemed to run on time. Saturday of course dragged out, but at least the other days were improvements!

The food selection in the area just outside the pits was great. Smoothies, pizza, wraps, etc... Plus the world of food just upstairs had some really great choices and seemed to move people through lines quickly. And you have to love all the starbucks & ice cream vendors!! mmm!

The fireworks at the wrap party were awesome!! I havent seen a display that good in a long time!

The weather was great, though Im not sure how much FIRST can control that! lol.

The speaker speeches were definitely shorter, which kept people more awake and attentive. The google guy was even funny!

The courses that were offered were very good for the most part. We had members of our team at nearly every one of them, and most people came back with some really great ideas!

Overall our team had a great time.... and hats off to FIRST for successfully running a very hectic event!

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

Gee, how come the negatives page is so much longer?

People like complaining even though they don't know how good they really got it.

I found alot to be happy with in Atlanta:

-Our hotel was very nice and classy. Hats off to the Omni.
-I was very pleased that Atlanta took the time to notice the competition was at the city (most of the time FIRST is basically ignored)
- The food was a good variety and very tasty.
- The displays were impressive. I loved that Lego train set. It was really cool.
- The matches ran pretty smoothly. Didn't see as many field breakdowns as I did during the season.
- The championship event at Atlanta is the best venue I have seen in my five years of FIRST. Good job Atlanta!

[dlavery]

- The folks at FIRST realized that the WFA award presentation did not come off with quite the level of dignity and honor originally intended, and quickly reacted by adding in an extra opportunity on Friday morning to honor Rob Mainieri during the opening ceremonies. Well done.
- The vast majority of the speakers during the various opening/awards ceremonies were direct, brief and to-the-point.
- I got to dance with Kyle Hughes and Amanda Morrison. OK, they danced and I shuffled, but it was still fun.
- Everyone seemed to be very well behaved, and acting in the proper spirit of the competition. As Woodie says, there are a lot of proud grandmothers out there - thank you!
- The layout in the pits was great - lots of open space and room to get around. I particularly like the fact that the FRC, VEX and FLL pits were all together, and saw a LOT of young kids getting inspired by watching "the big leagues" working on their robots.
- I got to borrow Tony's Segway for the weekend again to tool around - it was lots of fun!
- As always, meeting lots of new teams was a blast and I learned even more about the real impact that FIRST is having.
- Dean Simmons and The Kamen Brothers are even more scary than I remember from IRI.
- An absolutely awesome team walked away with The Chairman's Award. Well done Wildstang!
- I got to meet Koko Ed at 4:00 in the morning in the lobby of the Omni!

-dave

[Not2B]

The ATL - what's not to like?

- The venue was very nice
- All the people first buttons from the airport to the hotel and everywhere inbetween
- The pits were very nice compaired to 2004 (distance and overall).
- The VEX and Lego pits were great to have in the same area. In fact, that really added to the total robot feeling. The fact that the middle school students could come over and look at the "big bots" was excellent.
- The scholarship and supplier row was a nice touch.
- The FIRST store gets better every year.
- The fountains were on this year (not so much in 2004)
- The hotels were very well selected for ease of access, as always
- Rotating anouncers was a great touch. Maybe do a we bit more of that. (I was one of the people that went nuts when Sir Charles came to visit)
- In fact - all the MCs and play-by-play people I heard were good. (Too bad the Thunderchickens were playing, Paul C. did a nice job in Wisconson.)

AND....

Awards mixed with finals - did we do that in 2004? THAT, my friends, was excellent.

It just went very smoothly. Big thumbs up for FIRST.