[BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

IE: smaller practice field, no practice field, no sponsor banners, less extra lighting/A/V equipment?

Sounds interesting though.

I can't speak for the other regionals, but I bet the WPI Regional is probably going to be just as good, if not better, in production quality than not only some of the "cheaper" Regionals, but also some of the "traditional" Regionals, yet for a fraction of the expense. They've already been doing it for years, with BattleCry@WPI.





WPI has a lot of resources internally on our campus, like Lights and Lens or two fully stocked machine shops with 2 manual mills, 2 manual lathes, and 12 CNC machines within 500 yards of the competition venue or our own campus police, etc.

Actually, the more I think about it, the idea behind to moving a large number of Regionals from convention centers and sports arenas to college sports arenas makes a ton of sense.

Convention centers and sports stadiums don't really have anything to gain from having lots of motivated high school students in attendance, other than the earning money from the rent part. But colleges have a lot to gain from having lots of motivated high school college students on their campus. Colleges would most likely be a lot more motivated to get the expenses down while getting more fun and excitement out of the event, as this excitement would likely correlate well with the student's perception of the school.

Nearly everyone in FRC needs to go to college before they'll become an engineer, scientist, or entrepreneur aspiring to change the world. Lots of colleges offer existing FIRST scholarships, but a large number remain unclaimed. By hosting a regional, this gives students a chance to really get to know a college, and I'd surmise would make them more motivated to apply for potential scholarships offered by the school hosting the regional.

Win for students, win for colleges, win for FIRST.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Did you guys not see the great happy paragraph in there? 10 qualification matches!

This isn't really anything new. FIRST has been marketing it as something new and great and exciting, but the reality is that smaller events with 30-40 teams in attendance have been offering 10-13 qualification matches for many years now. I distinctly remember the 2005 UTC New England regional having about 35 teams, with each team competing in 12 qualification matches.

The number of matches is (and always has been) inversely related to the number of teams in attendance.

Shrink the number of teams, increase number of matches.