Making heads or tails of the new announcement...

[Bill Gold]

First of all, I totally agree with Andy B. We should stop saying how disapointed we are with FIRST's decision with regard to Nationals.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise to any of us, especially those who attended a team forum Aug 1st. They started this process last year when they capped Nationals at 330 or so teams. Ever since then there have been rumors going around that the maximum number of teams that FIRST could possibly let attend next year's Nationals would be 250~280.

So instead of voicing our disaproval and trying to convince FIRST to change its mind... let's try to work with what we've got...

I'm looking at this in two different ways:
1. Our team gives it our usual best effort. We would attend 2 Regionals, and hopefully win a Technical award or possilby even win a Regional, although we have only won one during the past 5 years. IF this happens, then we could be taking another team's "spot" that they could've won by winning the Technical Award or winning the Regional. Realistically, there could be some teams who would feel animosity towards us and our kids. Knowing how the students on team 45 are, they would not feel good about winning an award that could've been another team's ticket to Nationals. This is not fair to our students. They deserve to be proud of any award or accomplishment our team gets.

2. We could try not to get any awards... while this would initially give the appearance of being good sports, this could turn in to appearing arrogant. We try hard for multiple reasons, and one of them is to win. Competition is healthy, and going into a Regional trying not to win would be a difficult pill to swallow.

Andy B.

I really hadn't given much thought to the auto-birth for teams who have been around since 1992. Mainly because my team isn't one of them, but I agree with Andy's analysis of this new rule. It does seem like a team with the talent of the TechnoKats (among others) might be seen as stealing some other team's ticket to Nationals. I've got a huge problem with this... I think it's completely unfair to the TechnoKats that they should be in a position where they have to decide between the two previously stated choices (selling their robot and students short, or being possibly hated by a team that had their Nationals birth taken from them).

3. Teams may qualify through performance during the prior year (2001) based a point system. Five (5) points are required...
a. Regional or National Devisional winner - 3 points
b. Regional or National Divisional finalist - 2 points
c. Judged Award winner at Regional or National Event - 2 points
d. Top Seed at Regional or National Event - 1 point
e. Top Rookie Seed at Regional or National Event - 1 point

-FIRST

Now that I think a little harder about this set of new rules I'm starting to have a few issues with these...

Ex 1: team 71. They won Nationals and at least one Regional last year. So they're qualified to register for Nationals this year, but if they win a Regional and a few awards this year they could possibly be taking a ticket to Nationals away from some other team. Now some people may argue that they're just preserving their spot for the next year's Nationals (if FIRST keeps these rules), but they're also an odd team. So they'd be able to register for Nationals in 2003 anyway...

Ex 2: team 258 (my team). We're an even team so we can register for Nats... although we've never won anything yet, let's assume that we win a Regional and are a finalist in another Regional. We could be taking someone's ticket to Nationals by finishing so well in our Regionals, but we'd also be fighting to register for the 2003 Nationals...

Well.... I'm rambling now... So I'll cut this short...

-Bill