When do they announce the divisions for nationals?
But what i do know is that the will be 4 fields total this year including the einstein field. So i would expect 3 Divisions
On The FIRST Site they have the names of the Divisions listed already, so there will be 4. The names are here: Championship Event
There will only be three divisions this year.
One of 'em got the boot, but I’m not quite sure which it is. I have a feeling, though, and I’m not happy about it 
Where did this idea come from…that one got the boot?
Eistein was used last year…
*Originally posted by AdamT *
**Where did this idea come from…that one got the boot?Eistein was used last year… **
No, it’s not Einstein. . . I think it may be Galileo, but Christina and I pushed for Curie (not that it’ll make a difference). . .
So, it’ll probably be Archimedes, Curie, and Newton. . .or, so we were told.
You never know with these things. . .
i believe that there will still be 4 divisions, einstein which is not listed is kind of like a wildcard field outside in the stadium. Each team will have a couple opporitunities to play on Einstein. It’s where the championship matches will be played.
Right, I know these things…
But where did this whole idea come from? Have FIRST staffers mentioned this?
Maybe this should be in the rumor forum…
*Originally posted by AdamT *
**Right, I know these things…But where did this whole idea come from? Have FIRST staffers mentioned this?
Maybe this should be in the rumor forum… **
Oh, heh…should’ve mentioned that. Someone from FIRST told Christina and I that, but they weren’t entirely sure themselves. . .
So, take that to mean what you will 
THERE WILL BE ONLY 4 FIELDS first staff member told me
Right,
We know that, but apparently one of the DIVISIONS may be taken away, leaving just 3 divisions and four fields…
In the rules, picture T-2 (page A-3) there are four divisions. Why would FIRST want to change that? Wouldn’t it be complicated to play an elimination round between three alliances?
*Originally posted by Jan Olligs *
**In the rules, picture T-2 (page A-3) there are four divisions. Why would FIRST want to change that? Wouldn’t it be complicated to play an elimination round between three alliances? **
Exactly what I was thinking, It wouldn’t make sense to only have 3, because then how do you play for the Championship??
… Maybe we should just drop this. I’m thinking that, until they announce who is in what division, we’re not gonna know how many divisions there are until then. Right now it looks like everyone is just speculating! We’ll see, I guess 
- Katie
*Originally posted by Katie_93 *
**… Maybe we should just drop this. I’m thinking that, until they announce who is in what division, we’re not gonna know how many divisions there are until then. Right now it looks like everyone is just speculating! We’ll see, I guess
- Katie **
Or we could just argue and speculate endlessly until the divisions are annouced, giving us something to pass the time until then. 
*Originally posted by falco269 *
**Or we could just argue and speculate endlessly until the divisions are annouced, giving us something to pass the time until then.
Isn’t that what this board is for after the build season?
I’m just kidding…kinda
*Originally posted by Katie_93 *
**… Maybe we should just drop this. I’m thinking that, until they announce who is in what division, we’re not gonna know how many divisions there are until then. Right now it looks like everyone is just speculating! We’ll see, I guess
- Katie **
Let’s see… I think it goes something like…
“If it wasn’t for girls, guys would go around thinking they had no flaws…”
Bah… I say we keep debating!
I cannot see any way that FIRST could have only 3 divisions in FL.
I have heard that there will only be 4 fields at EPCOT not 5 as there was last year.
I am curious how they are planning on working the 4 divisions. Will each division have a fixed arena or will they rotate them at times?
At first you might think that FIRST would have them all fixed at a particular arena, but this is not quite as easy a you might think. One of the reasons for having Einstein be a floating field was that teams would not have to spend 3 days baking in the sun (which will likely be HOT in late April – I still shudder when I think back to the Finals of 1998. Brian Beatty & I were almost one drop of sweat away from heat stroke watching Teams #1 & #45 battling it out for king of the puck – it was HOT).
Beyond the heat factor, the outdoor stage is the high profile stage, so I suppose that FIRST will want to spread the wealth there as well.
I really wonder how they plan to work this out.
As long as I am speculating, I guess that they could just number the stages and give divisions time slots on the various fields (e.g. Friday 9-11 Archimedes on 1, Curie on 2, Newton on 3, Galileo on Einstien, etc.).
I hope they don’t go back to the bad old days and run us all over Walt’s half acre – scouting, staging, etc. would be a nightmare.
Joe J.
As the person writing the software, I can answer definitively there will be four (4) divisions. Don’t expect them to be named the same as the fields names, despite how it appears on the FIRST site. More information will be coming out soon…
BruceM
As the person who writes FIRST’s tourney software, would you please tell us how you randomize the seeding matches?
It seems to a lot of us that things don’t seem so random. We often follow the same team for match after match.
I think that it is may be possible to get a fair random set of matches by dividing teams up into random groups and then randomly shuffling the groups to get your pairings, but I am not quite convinced that is what you are doing or that that would provide a random set of pairings in all cases.
So… …would you mind sharing a bit of the though process you used to make up the matches.
Also, while I am asking, how many seeding rounds do you suppose each team will get?
Finally, how is FIRST going to split up the divisions? Is it going to be random or will they make sure that Kingman and Las Guerrillas are in different divisions (for example)?
Do tell…
Joe J.