You two right now:
10 Likes
Note that for teams competing in a week 7 district championship, the FIRST Championship is now the very next week.
11 Likes
Excited to hear that one champs is back, although I am immensely worried that it is taking place in Texas. I hope that the flagship event for the org can implement the required common sense safety measures required to run a successful event that teams from across the country and world can feel comfortable and safe in attending.
65 Likes
Why else would they pick Texas over Michigan?
In all sincerity a couple of reasons (and that may have been one of them) facility wise GRRB I believe has a higher capacity for seating since the ceilings are much higher allowing for taller bleachers. Which opens up the possibility for a higher event capacity (not double but more) should conditions allow. I do wish they could find a way to have it moved back a week but I am sure that’s an avenue they already pursued as event logistics are crazy to handle.
One champs makes sense too. Champs costs FIRST tons of $. It’s no surprise to go down to one championship not knowing how many teams will be able to attend.
12 Likes
Press F to pay respects to the teams on the east coast with a week 7 district event who have to drive to Texas because there’s no way they can get their robot shipped in 2 business days with first-provided FedEx (especially with customs for Canadian teams)
timing sucks. Can’t wait to be forced to drive 26 hours if we want to go 
28 Likes
Guess I better cancel my vacation for the last week of April.
2 Likes
Where’s the picture of Andy Baker in a nun costume when you need it.
3 Likes
14 Likes
Congrats HQ. You just screwed over the entire NE district. DCMP and CMP back to back weeks??? This bites.
EDIT: might’ve been a bit harsh with my original statement above and I apologize to anyone who takes offense to this. I’m still not thrilled with the news. I didn’t know that NE was planning on hosting a townhall at the time of my original post. Hopefully something good can come out of this and help the teams affected by HQs decision.
14 Likes
Apparently FTC participation in FiM this year is down by ~60%, if that’s any indication.
(According to an FTA at the event I was at last weekend, FiM had ~600 FTC teams pre-pandemic, and only ~200 FTC teams this season. The event itself was also running only 20ish teams instead of the usual 40ish, and not due to any restrictions by FiM or the school).
1 Like
I’m worried about how this will disproportionately effect district teams to regional teams. I would expect wild-card qualification to go away for regional teams, but I struggle to see how they can take away any other regional qualifications (3 winning teams, rookie all star, chairmans, EI). So unless they somehow expect they can fit 800 FRC teams at the single venue, districts will be the place it is easier for them to cut qualification spots from, decreasing their share of representation relative to their actual share of total FRC teams.
17 Likes
I just realized: this is great news if you’re one of the 9 people who are really into trading FRC merch.
(I’m one of those 9.)
16 Likes
This is insane. Michigan teams (as other week 7 DCMP) are going to compete four days in a row at MSC and have to leave Sunday night/Monday morning to drive to Houston? Come on now.
20 Likes
Insert Bender meme here
2 Likes
How about those with a week 6 district, followed by the possibility of week 7 state champs and week 8 world champs? 
5 Likes
FiM already increased the DCMP capacity to 200 teams (as of 2020, but I’d probably expect this to be reduced although it’s all I have to go off of right now). This would mean a much smaller # of teams than usual would probably be eligible to advance by merit due to a reduced championship team capacity, and an even smaller # of teams would be able to afford to make the trip immediately after the championship ends. I still don’t completely understand not having this in Detroit instead
2 Likes
I’m very glad to see the return to a single Championship, but this line kind of concerns me:
Is there something else that’s going to be a factor in eligibility? Will there be some other thing that has to happen beyond what you typically do to qualify for a Championship and will it be something teams can control?
2 Likes
I read that to mean they’re not planning on going 50-50 on having Houston and Detroit home teams.
2 Likes