Hey FIRST Folks

[Ken Loyd]

Would someone at FIRST please make a decision on the Championship dates. Airfares are dirt cheap right now. Airfare always determines how many team members get to travel. It is a long walk from Arizona to Florida!

Ken Loyd

[mtaman02]

it takes time to plan something like the Nationals. Time and Money and everything must be done right the first time around. Give the people @ FIRST a chance to schedule and assign locations to the 3 regionals that still have outstanding dates and locations. the nationals is not going anywhere and i understand fare is cheap. u will not gain anything by being the first on to an airplane with no destination.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally posted by Ken Loyd
Would someone at FIRST please make a decision on the Championship dates. Airfares are dirt cheap right now. Airfare always determines how many team members get to travel. It is a long walk from Arizona to Florida!

Ken Loyd

On top of that, looks like your an even numbered team, so unless you are already qualified don't worry yet! That's if the qualification process stays from last year! Everything changes!

[Kristina]

hopefully if they set a date and you buys your tickets early and cheap they don't change the date. we were about to buy 11 unrefundable tickets to seattle cuz the FIRST email that said that the date had changed got lost somewhere. good thing I doubled checked on the website, geez...what would my team do without me?!

[Jnadke]

Originally posted by Ken Loyd
Would someone at FIRST please make a decision on the Championship dates. Airfares are dirt cheap right now. Airfare always determines how many team members get to travel. It is a long walk from Arizona to Florida!

Ken Loyd

Who says that airline will still be in business by the time the championship event rolls around?

You know, you might want to try e-mailing FIRST. You know they have plenty of e-mail adresses where you can contact them. For instance, you could try this one, or perhaps this one would be better. You could even try this one. Heck, you could even go to FIRST and tell them if you got bored.

[Ken Loyd]

We were very, very lucky last year. Our team earned:

Seattle--the Leadership in Control Award

Los Angeles--Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award, the #1 Seed Award, and with the help of teams 60 and 330, we were the Regional winners.

Orlando--We were selected by team 144 and along with team 60, we were the Curie Division winners. We also earned an Honorable Mention for our Animation. Sonny Thaper won the Most Helpful Animator Award from Chief Delphi.

As I said, we were very, very lucky last year.

KL

[Don Knight]

"Would someone at FIRST please make a decision on the Championship dates. Airfares are dirt cheap right now. Airfare always determines how many team members get to travel."

I agree, travel is the largest part of our budget, any chance to reduce the cost of participating and getting more students involved in FIRST is important.

If FIRST plans to meet its own deadline we should know shortly, registration for the 1st regional and the Nationals open Oct. 1st.

No matter what weekend FIRST picks some teams will have conflicts, so picking a date sooner rather then later is better because it will give the teams more time to resolve those conflicts.

"It takes time to plan something like the Nationals."

Lets see Nationals were held in March, Its now September - 6 months to pick a date doesn't seem an unreasonable request.

"Give the people @ FIRST a chance to schedule and assign locations to the 3 regionals that still have outstanding dates and locations.

Wouldn't that be the tail wagging the dog? Anyway the regionals need to be held prior the the Nationals.

"On top of that, looks like your an even numbered team, so unless you are already qualified don't worry yet!

Knowing your competition is an important part of doing well in the FIRST competition.

"Who says that airline will still be in business by the time the championship event rolls around?"

So is a positive attitude....

[Mike Rush]

Lucky?

[Eric Bareiss]

Yeah it didn't have anything to do with luck. Its all about the skills.

[Ken Loyd]

Okay!!! So much for my attempt at humility. I am most proud of our #1 seed at LA. We played one of the best Regionals of 02 there. We even managed to make a few friends.

I hope we are always located next to or near the outstanding folks from Kingman. They are a class act.

The Beachbots can play in our sandbox anytime they want.

Team 988 from Las Vegas "You can do it!"

KL