Next Year

[archiver]

Posted by P.J. Baker, Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.

Posted on 5/1/99 6:40 AM MST


In Reply to: Re: Next Year posted by Adam on 4/30/99 2:58 PM MST:



I seem to recall that most people voted not to eliminate teams at the regionals. I was among that crowd. Under the right conditions though, I would be in favor of it. Next year, there will be about 10 regionals (NASA is adding at least two more), so taking the top 10-20 from each regional would still lead to a decent size National tournament. The drawbacks in my mind are concerned with logistics and fairness. FIRST would have to ensure travel arrangements for the teams because the last qualifiers would only know a couple of weeks in advance that they could go to nationals. Probably this is only a small problem. I have a bigger concern about teams that can only afford one regional and then have trouble running well there. FIRST would have to make sure that teams had the opportunity to make sure that their 'bot was running before the regional, but I'm not sure how to do this. I'm sure that this topic has been beaten to death in the past, but these are just my initial thoughts.

Dean also mentioned the new, indoor stadium the Disney is building. It sounded like it would be in Orlando, but off of the Disney property. I think that this could be a great venue, as long as Disney World hotels were still hosting the event and there was plenty of transportation to and from the venue. I wasn't sure before I went, but I think that EPCOT is a big part of the magic of the competition. When FIRST is big enough, it may not be necessary, but right now I think it probably does a lot for recruiting both sponsors and team members.

Sorry this was so long.

Later,

P.J.