This is something that I heard somewhere that I thought would be cool. Instead of one national event there would be two, they would more be an east and west coast one. You could have one at say Disneyworld and the other at Disneyland. Then either the winners of it all, or the winners of each division meet like in Houston to battle it out for the National title. This allows twice as many teams a shot at National Champions. It would take some working out, but I think it would be cool.
That would be interesting, but who would go to a competition that only 6 teams are involved in?
Maybe offset the to compititions by a week, and the winner of the first one would then travel to the second one, for that last match.
I like that idea alot. Off set them a week and then have the championship. That would make alot more teams happy because then twice any many teams could try at nationals.
*Originally posted by Kevin A *
**That would be interesting, but who would go to a competition that only 6 teams are involved in?Maybe offset the to compititions by a week, and the winner of the first one would then travel to the second one, for that last match. **
That unfortuantly may cause some finacial problems, i can tell you right now that my team after a trip to one nats, cannot afford a second trip to a different, possibly more expensive place, plus i will bring up the issue of travel time, presumably my team does well and qualifies for this second trip we would only have 1 week to prepare, that would be very expensive
. plus, sending all the teams that won at one nationals, to another makes one national, a little more prestigious than another, which would make teams want to go to that nationals instead of the other. What i Think you need to do, is just have a regional Champions ships, insead of being a National Champion, you are the Northeast Region Champions, this means you have a potentail to have the championships grow, not just have a centeralize location that will prove difficult for expansion. The only problem, is the chairmens award, but then again, you can have the Regional champs, and then the next year, you can name the national Chairmens award, this still gives you the honors that come to chairmens, plus another level of comeptition.
But then again this is for FIRST to decide, but i think that with FIRST exploding like it is, somthing needs to be done in the near future to accomidat e the increasing amount of teams
Have to play the Devil’s advocate here…
I agree itd allow twice as many teams to compete, but who wants to go to a nationals where you would either see all the west coast teams, or all the east coast teams? I personally want to go and see the teams and people I never see, meaning the east coast, rather than seeing the teams I see at every competition I go to on the west coast. Also, you get to play different robots then. I really dont think FIRST has the capability to hold two 300 team nationals, it just takes too many people, not to mention the cost of paying for two venues rather than one, which also means finding a suitable venue for whatever event isnt held at EPCOT/Reliant.
Cory
Seeing only a fraction of the teams is a price to pay for a such a large amount of teams.
As there becomes more teams there is no way to house such a large amount of them. Yes, it would be nice to see all of the teams at one nationals but it will soon become impossible.
I honestly don’t think that having the winners meet someplace the next week is a good idea, I think there should be an east coast champion and a west coast champion and we should leave it at that.
To eliminate teams only seeing teams from there own coast I think that it should be optional as to which coast you participate in. If you live in New York and you can want go to the west coast finals I think that’s fine. Go to your east coast regionals and west coast finals and you see all of the teams.
FIRST will soon realize that some boundaries need to be set. We can not keep growing like we do and stay as one organization.
i think that would make the championship not really a championship. you’d be able to win without even seeing half of the qualified teams compete, and then you’d only see teams near you. it would just end up being like 2 big regionals
It’d be like basketball, I think, where you have the west coast division and the east coast division, and then the finals, or something. I don’t know. I don’t follow basketball. Good idea in practice… though, the only way this would financially work is if FIRST itself arranged sponsors for the winning teams so the could go to the nationals championship.
how about one championship where u have to qualify to go…There would be no odd or even number system. It would be the best of the best. You would have to qualify that year to go to that years championship…that makes the most sense to me.
Assuming FIRST reaches it goal at some point of having a team in every High School, it may one day come down to only the winners of each State going to Nationals 
I’d say that it would be good, but just call it Nationals. No west or East thing. (Mabye “Woodie” and “Dean” for each National center) and let the teams register for what ever they want. So if you want to go to the west coast and you are on the east coast, you can, and vice-versa…
:edit:
I just thought of something. If they did use thoes names, imagine a kid saying “I just won the Woodie!” LOL!!
http://www.westerndriver.com/events/royal_city_01/index.10.jpg … errr
Personally, I feel 1 National Championship is the way to go. Big Mike’s idea of the “Region” Champions (Northeast, Midwest, etc) doesn’t really bode well for some teams. Just think if a New York team [810] were to win a Western Competition [SJ Regional] Would they be “West Coast Champions” or what about the non-US teams… would they be the UK Champions (I’m under the impression there was only 1 UK team this year)?
Changing up the system already was rough once, why have it happen again. The transition of Orlando to Houston upset a lot of teams, why go through it again by adding more venues (higher costs) and down the line…
Adding another Nationals just seems to be more of a hassle than what it’s worth. Not going to Nationals won’t destroy a team or the moral of a member. I didn’t go last year (team was odd number) and almost didn’t get to go this year (team is even number). As long as the team can say “We are going to try and get to Nationals” they won’t fail even if they don’t make it.
*Originally posted by Gadget470 *
**Big Mike’s idea of the “Region” Champions (Northeast, Midwest, etc) doesn’t really bode well for some teams. Just think if a New York team [810] were to win a Western Competition [SJ Regional] Would they be “West Coast Champions” or what about the non-US teams… would they be the UK Champions (I’m under the impression there was only 1 UK team this year)?
**
I expect that it will be arranged much like the qualification for the Championship takes places now.
Certain specific performance goals at a regional will be worth points, with a given number of points being required to attend a “Region-wide” event. The event you attend should you qualify will be determined by your team’s home-base, not where it competes. So, by your example, 810 might earn points in San Jose, but they’d compete in a Northeastern Division.
Internation teams pose an interesting problem because there aren’t enough of them to warrant a division of their own. Never mind that grouping them all into an “International” division with, possibly, a traveling event, would require enormous funds for travel.
It seems that this process is also going to extend the length of our competition season by two or three weeks. There could be six ‘divisions’, assuming that the number of new regionals next year requires 6 per weekend in some cases. The divisional competitions would be held simultaneously around the world, and the people who qualify there go on to the Championship.
This isn’t a matter of if, but when. Adding levels of competition is the only way to manage the growth of FIRST with the limited resources and staff that they currently have. My fear, of course, is that such an expansion would place even more emphasis on competition and winning and, overall, hurt FIRST’s efforts at involving and inspiring students.
I like the idea of turning some regionals into superregionals, with two fields and 100-120 teams. Pick the venues that have the room for this (LA and Annapolis come to mind, and happen to be on opposite coasts) and fill that space. This will allow something closer to nationals, but on a smaller easier to manage scale.
Wetzel
There is no box.I was wandering off in english class today when I thought of the idea that have two championships on each coast, then the top eight alliances travel to the opposite coasts chamionship two weeks later (alternate the coast every year), and then compete against the other top eight alliances. You can have the top eight of each compete just like at at regional to reseed them. Then when the second coast cham. is completed the 1v8 of opposite coast and so on compete for the all out championship. For the teams from Canada, Brazil, and the UK can choose which coast championship they will go to. I not sure if this would work but it was better than reading julius caesar:)
IF they do this lots of MAJOR re-organization is needed so the new nats and two nats won’t run into testing, allow for booking, etc.
I am against the idea totally. We could barly afford one nats let alone two. This further makes FIRST more about the competition instead of the learning and the experence.
*Originally posted by sigmakid108 *
**I was wandering off in english class today when I thought of the idea that have two championships on each coast, then the top eight alliances travel to the opposite coasts chamionship two weeks later (alternate the coast every year), and then compete against the other top eight alliances. You can have the top eight of each compete just like at at regional to reseed them. Then when the second coast cham. is completed the 1v8 of opposite coast and so on compete for the all out championship. For the teams from Canada, Brazil, and the UK can choose which coast championship they will go to. I not sure if this would work but it was better than reading julius caesar:) **
Assuming it is like this past year, you would have:
(8 x 3) + (8 x 3) = 48 teams competing at the Championship event. It could work, but does FIRST want to spend so much money holding that event for only 48 teams?
I think the way they are doing it now will still work down the road. You have lots of regional competitions, and from those you can qualify for Nationals. You can even do it sort of like the NCAA, and rank teams based on their points. From that list, only the top 200 go to Nationals 
If they do a point based system however, they should only count your best regional. This makes it somewhat more fair for teams that can only afford to go to one regional :yikes:
i think they shoulda just let the rookie all-stars go
Ok I would just like to point out that the word Nationals means a competition that includes everyone in that nation, it actually should be called the internats but oh well. Anyways I dont think having 2 nats is the best way to go b/c one side will eventually become the one where all the hard comp goes and one will be the easy aka loser nats. I agree with others here it should be based on points.
Look at any sporting comp that has a Nats they r allowed to go by winning other comps or being last yrs winner. This is the best option, it allows Nats not to be compromised and allows the best robots to compete. Yes it leaves other teams behind but thats why FIRST came up w/ the odd and even years. Seriously havin 2 Nats and then a comin together one would be ridiculous, honestly who would pick Disneyland over Disneyworld.
I would rather just have one nationals… I think it would be horrible to have two Nationals… Just the thought of splitiing it up like that… If it Nationals then there should be only one not two…