Bad News for teams on Waiting List

[GaryVoshol]

//snipped//

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Yes, FIRST with >4,000 teams (a number WAY less than Dean's goal ) will be a very different animal.

The number of regional events will grow, team waiting lists for popular regionals will grow, the qualification criteria for going the Championships will get tougher

Maybe FIRST will create Divisions or Classes

Perhaps "Super Regional Tournaments" (North, South, East, West?) will be held on the road to a Final Championship. That can add another two weeks or so to the competition season.

FIRST already has a model for that - FLL. It's different, because there are no alliances on the field. But a parallel structure could be created.

In Michigan this year there were about 400 FLL teams. They competed in 14 regionals. 1/4 of the teams at each regional advanced to the State Tournamants (we had 2 this year; in effect Michigan is now 2 FLL states, SE Mich and N&W Mich.) One Champion winner was selected at both State Tournaments - the rough equivalent of Chairmans, but it involves game play, technical awards, research and community outreach. These Champions, plus those from other states and countries, were invited to the World Festival in Atlanta.

That model will probably have to be translated to FVC in a year or two.

Once the number of FRC regional winners exceeds the number of spaces available for the Championship, FRC will have to come up with a multi-tiered qualification scheme. Maybe 4 weeks of qualifying regionals, winners (more than just 6, criteria TBD) would advance to 2 weeks of super-regionals. Winners from those super-regionals would advance to the Championships. It would extend the competition season from the current 7-8 weeks to 10 or 11 weeks. It could create more travel costs.

The first step might be to limit teams to entering only one regional.

Yes, an expanded FIRST will look far different than it does today.

[efoote868]

Indy is making a bid for the super bowl (where the standards are extremely high), so there will probably be more than adequate hotel and accommodations.

Also, it will be connected with the convention center (i think underground tunnel, but i'm not sure exactly), so if that is used for pits, it would make a pretty sweet setup. I guess the only thing that bums me out is that if not next year, then i'll have graduated.

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by efoote868

I guess the only thing that bums me out is that if not next year, then i'll have graduated.

Sorry to bum you out, but the 2008 event is already on the Ga Dome calendar.

I live in Atlanta, and it's nice having it here, but I'd be happy to see it go to Indy after the contract is up here. Indy is a nice place, and it's time to move the event around again.

As others have noted, the limiting factor at any venue is field space. There is only so much room on a football field. As far as pit space goes, FIRST only uses one hall of the four available at the GWCC. The only way to get more field space is to move the fields out of a football stadium and into the convention center halls with the pits. This would allow more fields (and therefore more teams), but would take away the excitement of being in the big stadium. This would also open up the options to a lot more cities, as it would no longer be necessary to have a convention center adjacent to a stadium.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Before we all hop on board this Indy bandwagon, lets check the weather forecast for Indy during championships.


(2 weeks later): Probably not a good idea to go to Indy after all, if were all talking about how unusually cold it is at the social on Saturday night

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

Before we all hop on board this Indy bandwagon, lets check the weather forecast for Indy during championships.


(2 weeks later): Probably not a good idea to go to Indy after all, if were all talking about how unusually cold it is at the social on Saturday night

Are you kidding me? The weather in Indy during April is usually beautiful, not too warm and not too cold. Assuming it doesn't change ten times within the week that is.

[EricRobodox]

Well, considering i live in Los Angeles, why not Los Angeles. What would be awesome is Staple Center as the pits, which would be insanely awesome to be on the same floor that the Lakers play on (im a huge LA sports fan) for the pits, which is big enough, let alone a lot of rooms to house separately FVC and FLL if need be, but i doubt it, its pretty big. Then the Convention Center next door has 2700000sqft!!!!! Well, some sites say more and some say less, but definetely more space than Georgia Dome and Indianapolis. Its all inside, and the weather is great. Plus, with the new Downtown Center being built right next door, there will be plenty of things to do in walking distance. By the way, Convention Center and Staple Center are technically the same building, they are connected. A shorter walking distance from the pits to the fields.

Anyways, its just my 2cents, I would love to see Championships be moved to West Coast for a year or so, for traveling reasons and because i think people may enjoy it more from our awesome weather, cool places to go, and the Pacific Ocean. lol.

[dangerousdave]

Originally Posted by EricRobodox

What would be awesome is Staple Center as the pits, which would be insanely awesome to be on the same floor that the Lakers play on (im a huge LA sports fan) for the pits, which is big enough, let alone a lot of rooms to house separately FVC and FLL if need be, but i doubt it, its pretty big. Then the Convention Center next door has 2700000sqft!!!!! Well, some sites say more and some say less, but definetely more space than Georgia Dome and Indianapolis.
Anyways, its just my 2cents, I would love to see Championships be moved to West Coast for a year or so, for traveling reasons and because i think people may enjoy it more from our awesome weather, cool places to go, and the Pacific Ocean. lol.

I want to stay on topic here so here goes.
Please correct me if I am wrong but Staples Center floor is a basketball and hockey arena. How are you going to fit more than maybe one pit division of four on it? I know nothing about the new convention center but if it is typical, where are the sitting stands going to be for each division?
I don't think this setup you propose will allow more teams to attend. You may want to make your comments in the thread that Amy mentioned earlier. I am sure that most people including me would love to come to the west coast.
Dave

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by EricRobodox

Well, considering i live in Los Angeles, why not Los Angeles. What would be awesome is Staple Center as the pits, which would be insanely awesome to be on the same floor that the Lakers play on (im a huge LA sports fan) for the pits, which is big enough, let alone a lot of rooms to house separately FVC and FLL if need be, but i doubt it, its pretty big. Then the Convention Center next door has 2700000sqft!!!!! Well, some sites say more and some say less, but definetely more space than Georgia Dome and Indianapolis. Its all inside, and the weather is great. Plus, with the new Downtown Center being built right next door, there will be plenty of things to do in walking distance. By the way, Convention Center and Staple Center are technically the same building, they are connected. A shorter walking distance from the pits to the fields.

Anyways, its just my 2cents, I would love to see Championships be moved to West Coast for a year or so, for traveling reasons and because i think people may enjoy it more from our awesome weather, cool places to go, and the Pacific Ocean. lol.

If the LA Convention Center could be configured to have a four fields with each with stands to seat 5,000 and an Einstein field with stands to seat 20,000 then you might be able to do this. You probably could have the pits in the Convention Center as well (why use Staples for pits?). But the max ceiling height in the convention center is 40' - not high enough to put stands in with that sort of seating capacity.

The FIRST Championship event (in its present state) can ONLY be done at a venue like a domed football stadium (accommodates >5 fields and spectator seating) with an adjacent convention center for the pits. There are only a handful of these venues in the entire US: Georgia Dome, RCA Dome (or it's successor in Indy), Edwards Dome (St. Louis), Reliant Stadium (remember the hike from the Houston Astrodome to the fields?), and maybe a couple of others. Phoenix University stadium is possibly the only venue in the Western US that could accommodate the championship - and it's not clear that adequate pit space is available close enough to the floor of the stadium to make it a viable choice.

[Mike Schroeder]

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...nt.aspx?id=454

as per the FIRST website, as of 11/9/2006 you were able to register for any event including championships even if you attended last year until 12/1/2006 thats 3 weeks, and i know for a fact that on December 2nd there were still open spots for championships. so instead of complaining about FIRST cutting teams off, i say why didn't you register then, why wasn't a priority then.


To run off into a tangent, teams that wait based on their performance shouldn't be allowed to attend there are 307 teams currently registered for championships, and at most 8 teams make it to the finals. thats roughly 2% of the robots there, so you could compete at 5 regionals win at each event, and not even make it to eliminations, FIRST Championships event is not about winning, its about the experience, the atmosphere, the people and the sites, there are a lot of amazing things to see at The Championships.


I rarely voice my opinion about things that people do, and i love reading Dr. Joe's Prediction threads, but i really think many teams, more veterans than rookies are starting to worry a bit to much about winning, as cliche as it is we are all winners just for showing up


*steps off the CD Communal Soap Box*