It's Championship, Not Nationals

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by robochick1319

I love the idea of a Worldwide Championship but when you are telling people in the community about your upcoming FRC event and you call it World Champs you are implying the MOST countries attend the event. When in fact for FRC there aren't more than 10 or 11 I believe. Out of nearly 200 or so countries that is hardly a world competition.

The FIRST Championship is more than just FRC. Hang around in the FIRST Lego League side of things for a while and you'll quickly recognize the international flavor of the event.

And furthermore, dude, does it really matter?

YES. It matters.

Informally, it doesn't really matter what we call it, but this forum is large enough and visible enough that I prefer to keep a certain formality in mind. We dilute the message unless we all use the same term for the same thing. We contribute to the imperfect understanding of FIRST by the general public when we keep using outdated names. We fail to present a coherent picture of what we are if we aren't vigilant about our self-image.

This year, and last year, the big gathering of FIRST folk in Atlanta was officially "The FIRST Championship". The word "National" hasn't been part of it since it was held in the Epcot parking lot in 2001, when all FRC teams were automatically able to attend and there were no qualification requirements.