Sparky is not dead. They have several headwinds, but are trying to us FTC to create a robotics culture in their school. I expect them to be back in the near future.
The fact that MDSEV and MDOWI have 36 teams each is insane. Both of those events were originally capped at 32, but they continued letting waitlisted teams in, which now brings us to a point where neither VABLA nor VAPOR can run. CHS needs to take accountability for this and bring both MDSEV and MDOWI back down to 32 teams, maybe bump VAFAL down to 32 again as well.
The idea is to balance the number of away events teams from different areas have. MD/NOVA teams can at least get 1 local event, but teams from the Blacksburg area would have to have both district events + dcmp as away events.
Since there are 25 teams that are currently doubling up MDSEV/MDOWI, if just a few of those that are able to choose to switch to an away event, or if teams travelling to more populated events change their travel destination to VABLA/VAPOR instead, we can have more equitable event accessibility across the district.
Is this 28 team minimum new? I thought there were contingencies for running smaller events after a PNW event had to run with around 25 teams last year.
CHS had sent out an email indicating that FIRST mandates a minimum of 28 teams per event. While the manual has provisions for smaller events (allowing 8 alliances with min 25 teams), it’s likely the 28 is meant to provide some margin for no-shows, cancellations, etc.
