4388 at Houston Championships. What is it like?

4388 is attending the Championship for the first time in our history. Since we have never gone we are wondering what it is like.

We have questions like; How much time do we have in our pit? Between matches do we have time to go back to our pit? When are divisions determined? etc.

If someone could give us the run down of what the Championship is like that would be awesome, thanks!

There’s definitely time in the pits - think of it like any other event. Sometimes there are shorten turnaround times than others. You may need to queue farther in advance however keep in mind that there are more teams in a division that at most if not all regional events.

You should sign up for the division notifier and get a text when the teams get assigned.

To get a better feel for the event, check out the agendas and maps at firstchampionship.org.

This championship will be very different from others in the past years besides the obvious inclusion of teams from the North for the most part.
The event will be held exclusively in a convention center instead of a stadium much like the championships in 2011 did for half the event due to the Black Eyed Peas concert that took up a third of the stadium.
What’s also different is Einstein will be held in Minute Maid Park. Which is a separate facility from the event.
We will even have a different stage managing company than the ones who work the regionals and the St. Louis championships.
If nothing else, it’ll be an interesting experience.

Plan for it to take 10-15 minutes just to walk to queue.

This is a big step and leap by FIRST to do at a championship level. I hope everything goes as well as expected. Show Ready Events has been absolutely amazing when it comes to production quality.

+1. I’m excited to see (or hopefully be on, with a lot of luck) Einstein at Minute Maid. I think the whole event will be a lot of fun. Just wish we could have had one 800 team CMP instead of two 400 team ones.

At Houston it shouldn’t be that long. Depending on what halls they use at the grb center it should be closer.

Einstein field is gonna be a walk though because minute maid is only connected to the grb center by underground tunnels.

Minute maid Park actually has air conditioning so that’ll be nice at least

To people who don’t volunteer they probably have no idea who these people are and how invaluable they are to the event experience. These are the people who make the event look so polished and keep everything on track. We are going with some new people in Houston and to be honest, I’m kinda nervous about it.

Idk, it’s 2017 and they couldn’t even get microphones to work at SVR this year.

Similarly to the regular competitions, you get time in your pit and have time to go back to it. However, unlike a usual competition, you only get one practice match and there are two days of qualifications. Divisions are usually released about a week before the actual championship, and are determined at random.

Good luck to you guys! It was a blast to see you all in Denver.

There will be 6 divisions of ~67 teams each. It will be like 6 very large regional events at one location. Versus last year we had divisions of 100 teams each which was more like a double size regional.

In 2015 and 2016, divisions were around 74-77 teams.

I think you are thinking of 2014 where divisions were 100 teams.

Either way, 67 teams is still huge, especially to district teams where events don’t extend past 40, except at some of those big DCMPS.

The Lone Star Regional had 55 teams in 2014, 56 teams in 2015 and 66 teams in 2016. The pits and competition field were next to each other and fit into one of the sections on the 3rd floor. There are other sections like that on the 3rd floor and on other floors so my guess is that they would have six fields with pit areas next to each. I doubt that they could fit 6 fields with spectator seating all on one floor. If they manage to do it, the pits are likely to have to be on a different floor. There are only a few elevators between the floors and a bunch of escalators. It is likely that spectators will have to do a lot of walking if they want to visit the different fields. It now makes sense why the Einstein field is in a different facility.

The non FRC events I have attended there (big trade shows) tend to be located all on one level though sometimes they used the seminar rooms (school classroom sized) on the 3rd floor.

It appears that FIRST will be exceeding your expectations, as I believe all of FRC is on Level 1. This will make for short walks between pits and fields, I just hope there will be enough seating.

The FIRST Championship app has more detailed facility maps than the website. I was able to put together a low resolution image of the FRC layout here.
All pits are in the middle, with 3 division fields to either side.

Oh man, that map is awesome. That’s a ton of space for each field and seating for each. Assuming 6 sq ft per person that’s about 1000 seats per side, 2000 per field, and 30 per team.

Also, even the longest walk to a queue is probably going to be less than 5 minutes.

The airwalls should be up to separate the fields from the pits, so not much worry about too much noise bleeding over into the pits.

I think my only real worry is what their plan is for transporting the division champs from the GRB to Minute Maid for Einstein. I’m hoping it’s something sensible like rolling everything into a moving truck on the dock, and then driving the 4 blocks to Minute Maid.

More like having them push all their stuff through the underground tunnels that connect the Minute Maid park and the convention center

There are no tunnels connecting the GRB to Minute Maid. And, neither facility is connected to the downtown tunnel system. My best guess is that they’ll have teams load robots/equipment on trucks. If memory serves, the loading docks for Minute Maid are on the North side; GRB is south of the ballpark, so it’s a bit far to ask teams to roll things on foot.

Houston is pretty warm in late April, but we typically don’t pass 90 degrees until mid-late May. Dress accordingly. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the spontaneous thunderstorms.

That you know of. You just don’t have pull with the secret Downtown Gnomes. I’m sure they can [loud crash as chair drops into sinkhole.]

Or the spontaneous 100-year floods, apparently. I’m glad it’s looking mostly dry the next two weeks. The tax day floods last year were partly thanks to the ground and reservoirs being saturated by preceding weeks of rain.

It’s more like the sewer lol

I’m glad that big storm over the weekend seemed to totally miss us

It’ll be great to see you guys there. Let’s make sure that our teams hook up.

I agree with others that, as far as practical stuff like being able to work in the pits, it is a lot like a regional. Maybe a little more relaxed, actually, but a similar schedule. The big difference is in the size and scope of the pit area.