2011 FRC and VRC Championships at the same time.

[Joe G.]

Although I don't know all the factors behind this decision, and it may have been inevitable, I have to say it strikes me as a very, very poor one.

Volunteers will be missed from both events.

Teams will be missed from both events.

Publicity will be less for both events (less spread-out, anyways)


When there's competition between teams, everyone is encouraged to do better. When there's competition between competitions, the same happens, but at what cost? FIRST and VRC are out to inspire students. They shouldn't put doing it better than anyone else as a higher priority.

I'm afraid that this will make both events somewhat disappointing next year. I'm hoping I'm wrong...

[Foster]

I'm not happy either. Our FRC team is making an effort to secure funding now so we can go to Championships in St. Louis. I was looking forward to going to that.

But my first love is the VEX robots and I was planning to go to Dallas.

The plan was to blow serious vacation time in April (maybe back to back weeks of Wed-Thur-Fri).

Maybe there is another large venue in St. Louis and they could hold the VEX event there? FRC from 8-4 and VEX 4-10?

But I'll chime in with the others, this is a hard volunteer issue, lots of people help out at both events.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by rocketperson44

Although I don't know all the factors behind this decision, and it may have been inevitable, I have to say it strikes me as a very, very poor one.
...
When there's competition between competitions, the same happens, but at what cost?
...

RP44,

Don't assume that either group knew anything about the other group's decisions in time to renegotiate with the host venues, or that these colliding schedules had anything to do with a sense of competition between the two programs.

I believe that it is far more likely that bad luck, and a lack of attempting to coordinate schedules is what happened; not any purposeful, competitive action.

Let's figure out how make the best of it (got any ideas?); and when asked for feedback, let everyone involved know that we wish things had worked out differently for 2010.

Blake

[Pat Fairbank]

I really enjoyed volunteering at the VEX Championship in 2009, but had to miss this year because of exams.

I was looking forward to volunteering again in 2011, but I guess it's not going to happen. I imagine those FRC mentors who work (or contract) for IFI must feel pretty bad about this conflict.