I doubt there is any significance to this, but I wonder why the FIRST Championship is not listed on either the Georgia Dome OR GWCC calendars?
They signed a 3-year contract last year so I wouldn’t read too much into it.
That was my understanding, which is why I don’t believe the omission is significant. I just think we deserve a spot on the published calendar 
I agree!
I seem to recall not seeing the Championship on either calendar last year either… I wonder why? 
get out your pitchforks and torches…we will get our spot on that calendar
There are a lot more calendars that official FIRST events are not listed on. Take, The Meadows website for the UTC New England Regional for instance, or… How about RIT’s site for the Finger Lakes Regional??
As savvy as the FIRST community is, in terms of computers, you would think that you would see these FIRST events listed more often on-line…
Relax Stu, you’ll have your place refing our field again! 
I agree that FIRST events warrant far more PR than they get. When will we get as much airtime/webtime as high school athletics? Seems to me every state in the country broadcasts the division football championships. Why not us??!!
Sean
I’m all for giving the regionals more press.
At one point, I semi-jokingly pondered the possibility of broadcasting the Palmetto finals on WUSC (provided I got approval from about four different people to do so). Then I realized that listeners would have no idea what’s going on, unless the 2005 field is really simple. And I’m not sure how I could do it without going live-to-tape.
Perhaps we should start calling up local media outlets and ask about coverage?
(But I do have to give props to News 19 in Columbia last year. Things were crazy-go-nuts on Friday morning. Especially with 1398 in the building. You remember if you were there.)
I have a strong feeling that its going to be almost exactly like last year. Which is good because it was a lot better ran and a better venue than Houston.
I just hope the pit to arena access for spectators is fixed because it was ridiculous last year.
edit: Sorry for the language. To more civily put what I meant: I thought it was poor planning to have no direct access to the arena for the students who were working in the pits to actually watch the competition. At a minimum the screens should be organized so all teams in a division can view their divisions matches from their pit.
Though I wasn’t fond of the distance between pits and arena, that is just one aspect of a fabulous venue. I thought Atlanta worked out very well in many aspects. The closeness of large hotels to the Dome was hugely convenient, as was a very very good transport system. Even if this aspect of competition isn’t fixed, I’m sure something will work out.
The Naval Academy has had the competition listed on its calandar of events for months now.
Wetzel
'Cause they love us! =)
Well, maybe the Dome doesn’t really have time to update their events calendar. Does it say when the last time was that they updated it?
Nope it doesnt, but it does say that the events listed on the calendar are from December 20, 2004 to December 20, 2005.
FIRST is now on the Georgia Dome and the GWCC’s calendars for this year and next year!
http://www.gwcc.com/calendar/dome.html
Thing is, it says it’s not open to the public. That’s minor though.
I find it interesting that in 2005 FIRST has the Dome booked for 4 days, while in 2006 they have it booked for 6 days. Are they going to try and expand nationals :ahh:. Cause that would be pretty awesome.
I noticed the same. For those who haven’t check it, the 2006 event is 4/24/06 thru 4/29/06. This is a Monday thru Saturday. It’s possible that FIRST is considering having the FIRST conference thing they did at Nats this year at Nats again in '06, which would explain having more time. Also, since we’re having more teams and more locations in each year, it’s possible they need that extra time to add a day to competition, or even just to set everything up. I think having it be a weeklong event would provide a lot of difficulty to schools with picky school corporations. I know not all of my teachers support kids leaving for a few days to frolic at a robotics competition. Thoughts anyone?
I wouldn’t read anything into the number of days scheduled (I suspect it is a simple error), but I DO think the mistake regarding the “open to the public” status is BIG.
Hopefully this thread had something to do with getting us listed, but C’mon … Who maintains this calendar anyway ?? I would be embarrassed!!
The event should be listed as “FIRST Robotics Competition Championship” or something similar, WITH a link to the FIRST website, just like most of the other events listed. Anyone looking at the current listing won’t have any idea what FIRST is, would be incorrectly informed that the event is NOT open to the public, and would have no way to find additional information.
The dates listed are the typical dates needed to get ready for competition. I suspect that the contract dates and info were inserted into the calendar. Setup takes several days and is not open to the public.