A New Thought...

[Nate Smith]

A while back, I remember a discussion(perhaps on here, perhaps elsewhere) where it was said that one of the goals of FIRST, within the schools, was to get the same level of recognition for these "academic athletes" that the sports teams recieved. While some people may not agree with how FIRST did the qualification for nationals, I feel that it will help toward that goal of "sports-level" recognition. The fact that some teams will not know until the last minute if they are attending nationals is very similar to sports teams qualifying at the last minute for regionals or nationals, and having the school and the community rally behind them to raise the funds necessary for them to compete. Hopefully, with FIRST moving to this format of a national competition, the same thing will happen for FIRST teams.

From a more personal standpoint, one of the hardest things that people have a concept grasping when I talk to them about the competition is that there is an event we call the "national championships," but that you don't have to qualify to go to it...

[Carolyn Duncan]

The difference between what FIRST does and what school sposored sports do is simple. In the school sponsored sports you have disticts, regionals, states, then nationals. Well, by skipping something like states you make the cuts for nationals even larger and more devastating. I realize that districs is not feesable, but state quals. are. Ok, I hope that makes sense to someone other than this tired fool.

[Wayne C.]

Nate is right that FIRST should treat the qualification for the Nationals like a sports event. If the team is successful at the regionals it should have a berth for the Nationals.

[Wayne C.]

(sorry- I hit TAB to skip a space and sent my message too soon)

What FIRST unfortunately has that no sports event has is a large "invitational" section which doesn't have to do a thing this year to be awarded a place at the FINALS.

If this is a COMPETITION then it should be competitive for everyone and all should start out fresh each season earning their way to the finals. If it is an INVITATIONAL it should be called as such. That way those teams not in favor can make the decision to go elsewhere.

All should be able to play in Fla.

With all of the brainpower out there at FIRST's disposal there has to be a better solution than this.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Wayne C.
What FIRST unfortunately has that no sports event has is a large "invitational" section which doesn't have to do a thing this year to be awarded a place at the FINALS.

If this is a COMPETITION then it should be competitive for everyone and all should start out fresh each season earning their way to the finals. If it is an INVITATIONAL it should be called as such. That way those teams not in favor can make the decision to go elsewhere.

All should be able to play in Fla.

With all of the brainpower out there at FIRST's disposal there has to be a better solution than this.

Too tru. Most Cross Country teams, at least in va, had invitaionals but all had an equal chance of going to states and nationals. This is not equal so the playing field is not level. (I try not to use the word fair to describe things because life's not fair). Anyway, that's what I think, like that matters.

[Jay Lundy]

The FIRST Robotics Competition is fairly different than sporting events in that it cannot be called an invitational or a competition, it is both. It couldn't be strictly an invitational for the obvious reasons of size restraints, and it can't be strictly a competition because everyone knows that would generate many more negative comments than the way it is now (rookies would be extremely disadvantaged).

As for the reference to Cross Country, the robotics regionals ARE the invitationals. Everyone seems to be forgetting about these, even thought the number of regionals is now at 17, a 30% increase over last year. Also, correct me if I'm wrong (I've never done x-country before), but if one team has 100 runners, and another team has 10, then the team with 100 will most likely send more runners to the state and nationals than the team with 10. This is assuming that runners advance individually and the ranking is not based on the team average (I could be completely wrong on this).

And no, the new qualification rules are not fair to everyone, but they are the MOST fair. Examine the alternatives before judging the decision.