Posted by Janna.
Student on team #349, The RoBahamas, from International Academy and Ford Motor Company.
Posted on 10/8/2000 8:40 PM MST
Ok, I was thinking about this whole mess of regionals and who can go where, and I had an idea/suggestion…
I think it’s important to allow teams who have a ‘tradition’ of going to a regional to return to that regional, because it helps keep some of the stability and familiarity FIRST is going to keep losing as it grows.
However, I also think that for lower-funded teams, they need to be able to get to a nearby regional. So, here’s my suggestion:
Have staggered registration. A possible schedule could be something like:
Week 1: Regional open to teams that attended it in previous years (not necessarily the year before only…if a team for some reason couldn’t make it the year before but had been in it every other year, they should still be in this top priority class)
Week 2: Regional open to teams who live within x miles of it and have not yet registered for it
Week 3: Regionals open to everyone else
A few of the conditions for it would be that the regionals would have to keep growing in capacity or split off into separate regionals, or otherwise they’d just fill in Week 1 and never get any further. Also, something I wasn’t sure on was the amount of time between registration dates, so I just picked one week as an arbitrary number. Finally, rookie team status wasn’t figured in at all.
Comments/suggestions/criticisms?
~Janna
Co-Captain, Team 349