As some people may have noticed, there is no local NH kickoff listed on FIRST’s event webpage for 2024, and New England teams received an email tonight letting us know that FIRST will no longer be hosting an in-person kickoff for a live audience. I am personally not a fan of this. This is coming from someone who attended the official kickoffs for 2014-2023, so I know this doesn’t apply for most people, but the main draw of attending a kickoff at all was being able to see and (formerly) interact with the field.
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I was wondering about this. Also, the email blast for our local area didn’t specify where to pick up the game totes.
Welcome to how it’s been for almost all of us for a long time, especially since they stopped having team versions or real versions of field components at kickoffs. Kickoff events for the rest of the field have been pretty pointless aside from picking up the kit.
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That’s too bad. I liked that teams near HQ had the opportunity to check out a real field, and I wonder what prompted FIRST to stop holding this event.
At least for the rest of us, it hopefully increases the chances of a pre-recorded Kickoff video instead of live speeches from Manchester.
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Pre-recorded speeches it is.
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Apple style
All of us complaining about the poorly constructed field for an extra 6 weeks is presumably part of it…
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My guess would be because it was creating something of an uneven playing field among teams who were Lucky enough to be close, or who could afford to send someone to see the field in person. It seems they’ve been trying to take a lot of steps to even the playing field among the teams lately, and I’m guessing this is another 
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The real bummer here was that apparently NEFIRST figured that out… this week. So we have no way of being “event ready” on the FIRST portal, as the nearest KOP pickup location is in Boston (1.5hr drive) and there’s no way we’re paying hundreds for shipping from 2 towns over.
So we can’t be “event ready” to submit event preference lists yet. The district has told us they are planning… something… but no word on what exactly that is yet.
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It’s just cost and logistics like most things are. Teams haven’t been able to interact with the real field for years.
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If they cut out the tapping on the table I’m for it
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Someone mentioned this reasoning to me earlier, and I just don’t see it as an advantage or “upper hand” to those teams. The years where teams could interact with the field for a bit, many people would be recording the entire time and posting their findings to places like Chief Delphi. As Ty mentioned above, I don’t believe teams have been able to interact with the field in a couple years now anyhow (possibly since pre-COVID).
FIRST has also stepped up big time in my opinion with the field tour videos. Those to me do a good job covering most of the initial questions teams may have on kickoff.
Like many things, I personally view this as a cost cutting measure, similar to the removal of the Highest Rookie Seed Award.
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Nail on the head. Some FiM kickoffs would have practice elements and it’s like “Okay, Ive seen it in person, gotten the measurements I can get from the CAD and PDF files if I wasn’t here, okay time to go get our kit and go home”
You can only do so much staring at it in person before you’ve even read the manual fully. The field tours where they explained it in detail were much better because they actually know what teams need to focus on. Hoping the people you send out for kit pickup are gonna figure out the important details on a wooden mockup is a fools errand. Most of our team stays at our lab and we send just a small group out to Kettering each year.
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Bummer yes, but big deal? Not likely, at least as seen from a lot of the community. Many of us have some solid drives to pick up KOPKit of Parts.
… and international teams can be a whole 'nother kettle of fish when it comes to KOPKit of Parts.
Edit, I have only picked up the KOPKit of Parts once (as “the mentor”, several other times as a student when there were the plywood field elements). I just punched in the locations to check, 1hr 37mins of summer driving time. I amAndyMark sure others have it worse.
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We generally drive 1.5 hrs each way just to pick up the KOP. we normaly dont watch the livestream there just get the kit and get back to our shop where we watch the livestream on our own/ with the company of local teams.
While eliminating live kickoff will be a cost saving, I don’t believe that it was the primary reason for the decision. Accessibility and equity probably factored into it.
And certainly eliminating HRS was not primarily for cost savings. As pointed out in that thread, it was becoming less and less relevant due to the low number of rookies per event.
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I fell that its not that theres less rookies out there, just more events for rookies to go to so less per event.
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Recipe for retiring kickoff entirely
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Distribute the kitbots out to local Kit Distribution Coordinators in late September each year.
- Helps teams nucleate around a common project while not revealing the nature of the FRC game.
- There could be optional pre-season at-home challenges based around the drivetrain, as well as classroom curriculum, to prime teams for the upcoming competition season.
- We could hold pre-inspection events where a qualified inspector could get a chance to inform a team that they’ve built a too-large frame perimeter, or misinterpreted the bumper rules, before the team designs a superstructure atop the chassis!
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Distribute the game-specific box out to local Kit Distribution Coordinators in late December each year.
- These folks should be to use any means at their disposal (volunteer relay drivers, courier services, ballistic launch…) to get game pieces into the hands of their local teams on Saturday afternoon / Sunday morning.
- This preserves the experience of the surprise reveal and lets teams get quickly to work designing their robots to play the game.
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Move everything that isn’t the kitbot or the game-specific box into FIRST Choice and into Product Donation Vouchers. Those two programs are awesomely fair, awesomely scalable tools for getting teams the stuff they want.
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If money was not the reason for eliminating the Highest Rookie Seed, then why get rid of it? If money wasn’t the issue, then who cares if half of events didn’t hand it out? It was inspiring for the teams/students who did receive it.
Also agree with @David_IsMe. It wasn’t explicitly that there is less rookies all around (not based on the info provided in the blog post).
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This January, I hopped an airplane to Boston, rented a car, and got to go to live kickoff with some friends. It was a really cool experience, and I’m glad I did it.
I didn’t realize at the time it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing; I was Looking Forward to sending other mentors from our team in future years so they could experience it as well.
Since there were velvet ropes surrounding the field, we couldn’t get specific measurements, feel how the charging stations worked, etc. Any perceived unfair benefit I got from being there live was countered by missing the kickoff with my team.
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