Reasons CMP needs more capacity than 400.
Also: CMP only having 8 matches per team was a big point of contention in 2013.
There’s really only a few ways to get more capacity AND more matches/team.
Make the event longer. This is a bad idea for lots of reasons, mostly cost and burnout related.
Make the matches shorter. Again, a bad idea. The matches are short enough as it is.
Reduce field reset time. Not sure how much room for improvement there truly is here. Even with 2013’s huge numbers of game pieces, field reset crews were pretty efficient.
Those three are the only way to achieve more matches/team and more teams, without adding more fields. The truth is, there is no option to achieve this (especially at the rate FIRST is growing now) without adding more fields to CMP. There’s two options for how to do that.
Adding more divisions. Going to 6 or 8 divisions adds time to Einstein, which is already much longer than it should be. BUT, doing this might make Einstein feel less tedious. The downside is that you need 50-100% MORE volunteers than CMP already needs. Additionally, the space required for the fields to run 8 separate divisions starts to get really hard to find, and noise pollution from adjacent fields could be a problem as well.
Making the divisions run two fields, a la 2004/2006 Greater Toronto Regionals. Same number of fields as 8 divisions, but needs far fewer volunteers, especially if its done smart. Also, solves the noise pollution and space problems. The two fields can be placed much closer together than if they were separate divisions. With the new 2015 control system coming down the pipe, it would be comparatively easy for FIRST to set up the scorpion boxes to talk to two sets of field hardware as a single division. Achieves nearly double the match throughput of a single field.
I had calculated it out not long ago, IIRC, doublefield divisions would allow 140 teams per division to have 12 matches without increasing the length of CMP at all.
On another note:
I’m rather concerned about Ontario’s capacity, especially in the Toronto area. Of the 73 2013 veteran teams, the relocated and downsized GTRWest is geographically the closest event to 40 of them. It only has a 30 team capacity. This completely ignoring the 20 or so 2012 veterans lost to teacher action in 2013 who will be returning (many of them from the Toronto area), and whatever new rookies come for 2014.
My prediction is that Ontario is approximately a whole 30-40 team event (ideally located in Mississauga, ironically) short on capacity.
