Limiting teams to Nationals

[Mike Martus]

At the team forum in Michigan it was hinted that there needs to be a plan to limit teams at the nationals this year. We are maxed out at 320 teams. Disney will not support any more. There is no more space.

Many ideas were bounced around. Many felt that limits would hurt teams no matter how the selection was made.

Any other takes on this subject.

A true and realistic problem for sure.

How important is Disney?

[mike o'leary]

i went with the 'want a better solution then limits' option even thouhg i dont quite know what it means. i do know that im opposed to limiting nats in almost all circumstances, thouhg not all (i.e. first come first serve or something). and i dont know if im ready to dump disney...

[Joel J]

It would be a shame to leave disney simply because it can no longer expand to meet the ever increasing number of teams that attend the nationals: They provided the space for the FIRST event from day one and that has to count for something.

I do agree that something has to be done about the "maximum capacity" limit that has been encountered. One solution to this problem would be to span the national competition over two disney parking lots, rather than one (thank you DDR), rotating the location of the Einstein stage every other year (only one main stage, not two).

The solution above might not be the best one, but I am sure that there is something that can be done to solve this problem. Leaving disney for a larger venue should only be instituted as a last resort and limiting the number of teams should never be done at all.

[Carolyn Duncan]

This topic got much attention when the new forums came up. My personal oppinion is hold Disney to its word. Andy Baker's post reminded me that Disney had said they would build if we came. Well, we are and have been there. I am very opposed to limiting nats in most cases. It would be a shame to dump Disney after all that they've done for us but look what we've done for them. Every year we go, spend money there, some of our families go to watch, many teams buy multiday park hopper passes, we fill their hotels, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. All of this puts money into their pockets that might have goten there without us but not in so little time, leaving more time to put more money into their pockets. With all of the land that Disney owns, that is not developed yet, I'm sure ther is something they could do to build a place for us ALL to go. If not I think we should move on to a place that can accomodate us all. Who knows, with a regional in Canada we may be able to find something up north. My suggestion to Disney, take some undeveloped land, buils a place to hold nats that can be expanded and also build a "museum" of FIRST for Disney patrons to visit and learn. Maybe have interractive exhibits.It could bring even more business and help publicize FIRST and Disney as partners. This is my very humble opinion.

[ColleenShaver]

This was a hot topic at the NH Forum as well. I have to agree with what seemed to be the unanimous consensus of our group: you can't limit participation in Nationals.

At it's base perspective, it's not within the mission of FIRST to 'limit' any one from doing anything, but rather the complete opposite.

Plus, a major problem with making it eliminatory is for making reservations. If teams didn't know until March that they needed to make it to Nationals for April, costs of airfare alone would skyrocket.

Some answers were that Disney can expand- that parking lot is MUCH bigger than we use. It seemed that FIRST and Disney had come to terms with the fact that anymore than the 320ish would be too much. FIRST can't really staff any more fields and the cost of those fields is probably through the roof for Disney.

So like i said in the post on the GenForum: it was suggested that there be multiple 'nationals' or 'pre-nationals'... one for each coast. Then FIRST can pay (or yes, teams could pay) for the winners only to attend a 'final match' somewhere (Hey- maybe we should start going back to the White House with the winners.. they have a nice lawn to setup a field on ;-))

In any case- I think once regionals get expanded more and get to be the 'focus' of the competition, nationals can be eliminatory and downsized for Disney (back to the 70 or so teams and bring it back inside the parks... who remembers 1995-1996??).. thus reducing costs across the board. Then Nationals could prolly occur later in the year (june-ish?) when it's more convienent for Disney.

Just ideas... but I don't think limiting is ready to happen yet.

[Carolyn Duncan]

It seemed that FIRST and Disney had come to terms with the fact that anymore than the 320ish would be too much. FIRST can't really staff any more fields and the cost of those fields is probably through the roof for Disney.
So like i said in the post on the GenForum: it was suggested that there be multiple 'nationals' or 'pre-nationals'... one for each coast. Then FIRST can pay (or yes, teams could pay) for the winners only to attend a 'final match' somewhere (Hey- maybe we should start going back to the White House with the winners.. they have a nice lawn to setup a field on ;-))

It seems to me that this is a contradiction. If FIRST can't staff the fields and Disney can't afford to have all the feilds how would this work? In order for Woody and Dean to be at both finals they would have to either have to be on different weekends or at times with enough interval for travel. This travel would cost money, thus an increase to FIRST. Also, this would still cost Disney as the fields would be greater in number and still be on Disney property. As for staffing the fields, volunteers are great. Find a college in the area with a comunity service club or engineering students guild and approach them to volunteer. The White House idea isn't that great due to security and the size of the robots now. Things could really get out of hand. I don't mean to sound pessimistic so please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Jessica Boucher]

mid-June? thats in the middle of Peak Season for Disney. I dont know, but it would be cheaper to have it in off-peak times.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Jessica Boucher
mid-June? thats in the middle of Peak Season for Disney. I dont know, but it would be cheaper to have it in off-peak times.

Me thinks an idea has brewed! Kick off in November and Nationals in February/March? Might help with space, limits, and everything else. It's even a down time for airlines. hmmmm...

[David Kelly]

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan

Me thinks an idea has brewed! Kick off in November and Nationals in February/March? Might help with space, limits, and everything else. It's even a down time for airlines. hmmmm...

that would be awfuly hard for everbody to work during christmas. a lot of people have family stuff going on.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Set the schedule so that construction would be finished a week before Christmas. Then everyone would go on break, come back and get ready to compete. Then exams wouldn't get interrupted either.

[David Kelly]

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan
Set the schedule so that construction would be finished a week before Christmas. Then everyone would go on break, come back and get ready to compete. Then exams wouldn't get interrupted either.

our school just changed the school schedule so that we would finish finals before christmas. It will be a lot easier now to concentrate on finals and robotics cause they are separated. It doesn't really matter when the season is, there would be teams that would have finals that would get into the way.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Silence! Your not helping. Im' trying to do something good here and you keep ruining it.
*points to avatar and calls you the next victim*
I'm j/k it's good that you're thinking about it too.

[mike o'leary]

i like the white house idea...but somehow i doubt that would fly. adn somehow im sure that there would be a lot of stories for the dirty laundry thread coming out of it

[A. Leese]

Originally posted by Jessica Boucher
mid-June? thats in the middle of Peak Season for Disney. I dont know, but it would be cheaper to have it in off-peak times.

yea, Jessica's right about when Disney's peak time is..mid-June is when about half of the school groups that exist in Brazil invade central Florida (not to mention all of you northerners). it would be cheaper to have it in the off-peak times, yes..but the off-peak time is late October/early November..doesn't jive too well with most school calendars. April is the lower season, so it works slightly better than having it in the summer..just some info

About limiting nats..I think that it should be done for the sake of having way too many people there, but I think it would be too drastic of a change if it was done all at once..if that makes any sense..you would sort of have to phase in limited nats, not totally take away half of the people there or something..

~Angela who has only gone to Disney during the peak season once and has regretted it since

[Spooks180]

If Disney expands, wouldn't the costs inflate? In which you'd lose teams going anyway due to lack of funding and money that each team has. And then if it stays at Disney, and people do limit it, you're going to lose teams, as well. So anyway one goes, one might lose teams going to Nats. So they should pick what is the better choice. If they limit it for only a year, and get things settled and find a new place maybe, then the next year, it won't have be limited. I dunno... just thoughts....