My two teams (2612 Waterford Mott and 1213 Birmingham Groves) are faced with a tough decision. I want to see them both at the MI Champs, but both are strapped for cash. The main reason Groves came back to FIRST after taking ’08 off was because they were guaranteed a decent return on their investment, I.E. at least 24 matches for $5k.
If the MI Championship is structured like a regular regional, 40 of the 64 teams are looking at 7 or 8 matches for $4k, maybe they’ll play Saturday afternoon, maybe not.
Both teams feel that because of 2 districts for Groves and 3 districts for Mott, they are ready to play and don’t need a full practice day on Thursday. If FiM would start Quals after lunch on Thursday to repeat the pace of 12 matches that we’re all used to, then I think many teams on the same boat as we would be more willing to add one more week to our season.
How about it? Do the rest of you think you’d be ready to start Quals on Thursday?
I wondered the same thing - after 24 rounds in competition, do we really need a whole day of practice? But then I thought, in Atlanta they have practice rounds.
While it will probably not matter towards how this weekend is handled, this is a good thing to state your opinions on for next year in case the FiM model continues on. I too am in the camp that after 2 events do you really need a practice day? How about a warm-up round to make sure all of the bots are working and communicating with the field, then throw in some more matches.
If Value is a reason taht keeps you from going to the state Championship please state this. If value is what got your team back involved with FIRST please add this to your surveys too. I don’t think a single team should skip out filling out their surveys, and I hope that everyone finds something to say if there is an open comments section.
I know our team is looking forward to the full practice day and intend to use the whole time making improvements. Up to this point we’ve used every minute of our 8 hr windows to work on making things better. While we would be able to start matches shortly after bagging, we want the time to improve a couple things since we know the competition will be tough at States. If a schedule change were made in the future to allow for 12 matches then I think that would have to be compesated for by giving teams at least 4hrs that they could access their robot before coming to the competition.
I know I’m a little late to decide if you are going or not (I hope you do though), but I personally enjoy the practice day on thursday. Being the Head Scouter for my team, it gives my scouters tons of time to get information on the team, and lets them watch a few matches. I will also get somewhat of a break because I do 90% of the strategizing for my team on that Friday, which meant at the previous two events I attended this year, I was not able to watch any elimination matches (expect for the 12 we played in).
Also it lets our drivers really get a good feel for what the playing surface is like. If your team was like us, which went from a week 1 event to a week 4 event, you would have noticed how much different the playing surface was.
And of course Thursday leaves tons of time to make modifications to your robot if needed.
We were in the elims with you at TC and against you at WSU.