"Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article

[Hallry]

This article was posted here yesterday (9/6/13):

Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis

Louisville has put in a bid on a high school robotics championship that could generate an economic impact of more than $16 million and draw more than 30,000 people to the city.

In the FIRST Robotics Competition, teams of high school students from around the world vie against each other to built a 120-pound robot capable of completing a specified task.

The competition is sponsored by a Manchester, N.H.-based nonprofit called For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology, according to its website.

Louisville has submitted a bid to host the competition in 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to Jim Wood, president and CEO of the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The city is competing against Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis, where the event currently is held.

A decision is expected by the end of September, Wood said.

“We’ve done everything we can,” he said. “Now, we’re sitting back and waiting for them to sort through all the information.”

He called the competition “a very big deal” and “a media darling.”

Students in the past have been required to build robots capable of shooting basketballs, throwing frisbees and performing other assignments.

Did anyone know that Louisville (or Detroit for that matter) was bidding?

[Cory]

Not sure what they're playing at. No connected dome. Their biggest room can only seat 5,000 when set up for arena style seating. Seems completely unsuitable.

The Detroit Convention Center is absolutely massive, but they still wouldn't be able to seat enough people for Einstein. The arena the Red Wings play in is attached, but a hockey arena is too small for anything except just Einstein.

Seems pretty clear to me it's going to be Atlanta or St Louis. I hope Atlanta. It's so much easier to get to via air travel, it has nicer hotels, better restaurants, the park for students, etc. The only real knock I see is that once you're out of the midwest it's not driving distance for a lot of teams.

[JB987]

I agree with Cory...but I must say that it is hard for us from the west to feel sorry for other teams being out of easy driving distance should the event return to Atlanta.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Cory

Seems pretty clear to me it's going to be Atlanta or St Louis.

I wouldn't count Indianapolis out just yet. After building up the infrastructure to host a Super Bowl that was considered an overwhelming success, and having seen the proposal being put forth during IRI this year, I think they have a shot.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by Cory

The arena the Red Wings play in is attached, but a hockey arena is too small for anything except just Einstein.

The Red Wings are getting a new arena, so they could take the hockey part out of Joe Louis, and keep the seats.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by 3175student17

The Red Wings are getting a new arena, so they could take the hockey part out of Joe Louis, and keep the seats.

It's still too small for more than just Einstein.

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

I wouldn't count Indianapolis out just yet. After building up the infrastructure to host a Super Bowl that was considered an overwhelming success, and having seen the proposal being put forth during IRI this year, I think they have a shot.

I heard that there was no good way to get from the convention center to Lucas Oil Stadium and that the "meeting space" in LOS wasn't nearly big enough for all the pits. Do you know what the plan is there?

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Cory

I heard that there was no good way to get from the convention center to Lucas Oil Stadium and that the "meeting space" in LOS wasn't nearly big enough for all the pits. Do you know what the plan is there?

I'm drawing a blank on their first layout option at moment, but I remember one of the proposals was to actually house all of the FRC pits and fields within the convention center and run fields similar to what was done in 2011 because of the concert. The convention center is massive, I think there was enough room to actually house 6 divisions of FRC teams if the Championship ever needed to grow to that size, or possibly reduce the number of teams per division and just increase the number of divisions. Einstein, FLL fields & pits, & FTC fields & pits would be housed in Lucas Oil Stadium in this setup.

As far as the outdoor area for teams to hang out, there was talk of turning Georgia street into a FIRST village like they did for the Super Bowl Village. In addition to the existing restaurants they could easily bring in tons of food trucks for quick food options.

[BrendanB]

While potentially going back to 2011 setup doesn't sound that appealing, having Einstein in its own arena would be a neat!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

While potentially going back to 2011 setup doesn't sound that appealing, having Einstein in its own arena would be a neat!

Oh, you mean like we were going back to 2002? (Minus the outdoor parking lot aspect, of course!)

[DonRotolo]

I agree with Ryan, we have been only using a small* part of the convention center, there is a LOT more floor space there.

ATL has the huge advantage of a really large airport, and driving distance** to a lot of teams.

*OK, maybe about 1/4 not including the dome
** within 20 hours, YMMV

[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

While potentially going back to 2011 setup doesn't sound that appealing, having Einstein in its own arena would be a neat!

While there is something to be said for having the competition take place in the dome, I actually loved the pit fields in 2011. As a member of my team's drive team that year and someone who always spends a significant amount of time in the pits, I really enjoyed the opportunity to watch matches throughout the weekend rather than feeling restricted by the unavoidable distance between pits and stands.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by KrazyCarl92

While there is something to be said for having the competition take place in the dome, I actually loved the pit fields in 2011. As a member of my team's drive team that year and someone who always spends a significant amount of time in the pits, I really enjoyed the opportunity to watch matches throughout the weekend rather than feeling restricted by the unavoidable distance between pits and stands.

As a non-drive team member of a team who had to play in the pits, I appreciated being able to walk 100 ft from our pit to watch the matches, but I did not appreciate the severe lack of seating which made watching the matches near impossible unless you staked out a seat for the whole day. Unlike the dome where there's enough seating but not all may be "good" seats, there were not enough seats available for eliminations in the pit fields. I certainly am not a fan of the long, circuitous trek from our pits to the seats in the dome, but I at least have a seat when I arrive.

TL;DR - Pit seats are great, if there are enough.

[Racer26]

As a Canadian? Bring CMP to Indianapolis. Or Toronto (I can dream...).

Toronto DOES actually have the Convention Space + Domed Stadium Combo going on, but I really can't see FIRST taking it out of the USA. Too many logistics issues for getting teams there.

Indy though, is only about 10 hours drive, give or take, and sounds like the only real viable candidate other than St Louis, Atlanta, or Orlando (which isn't even being considered AFAIK). Obviously, I'd prefer Detroit on distance, but I don't think they have an appropriate venue to do the event justice.

Remember folks, the 2015 Championship Event could be a VERY different event from Championship as we know it.

We're going to be sporting a new control system, which carries with it a strong likelihood of a revamped field management system. FIRST is looking for new host cities, a large portion of FIRST will have made the transition to a district system, complete with inter-district play, and HQ is trying to figure out how to get more teams to CMP, with more matches, without changing how long the event is.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that one of the best options is for FIRST to transition the divisions to having 2 fields each, which will allow more teams, with more matches, and not significantly changing the length of the event or its volunteer needs.

That type of a change could have a significant impact on the floorplan needs, and so moving away from cities with a Domed Stadium/Convention Center combo might be more viable than meets the eye.

[bardd]

I think the whole Louisville bidding thing is more of a self-promoting attempt by that Jim Wood, or whomever else is in charge of the bidding, than an actual attempt to bring CMP there (or just a simple PR trick).

[Nemo]

Having the competitions in separate buildings across the street from each other would be fine with me. If that's a way to expand the list of possible cities beyond Atlanta + St. Louis, great.

Having pits close to the fields is more important than having FRC close to FLL and FTC.