FIRST in Michigan

Today, FIRST made the announcement regarding the new structure of FIRST events in Michigan for the 2009 season. In this press release FIRST details how Michigan teams will compete in FIRST Robotics Competition in 2009.

In an effort to reduce costs and increase competitions, FIRST has broken up the state into 16 districts. Teams will then be able to compete in any number of the 7 different district events (I assume this is like a smaller regional). This should give teams the opportunity to compete in 2 district events whereas they may only have been able to compete in 1 regional event last year. The new structure also allows Michigan teams to ship robots between district events at a reduced rate. The teams that do well in district events will then compete in the state championship event and then can qualify for the world championship in Atlanta. 18 teams will be selected from the Michigan State Championship to go to Atlanta (equaling the number of teams sent from the 3 regionals in 2008).

The good -

It should be a lot more reasonable to compete in FIRST for Michigan teams. The district events will be closer to home and should reduce travel and shipping costs. Since Michigan is surrounded by water, it can make getting to an event a little more difficult (and expensive).

Since there will be more events in Michigan, it may make it possible for more administrators and government officials to attend, thus possibly encouraging more teams to get started.

The bad -

The regionals in Michigan (as we once knew them) may no longer be the pinnacle of regional events. All three regionals used to be the toughest in the world, and now that is being diced up and turned into smaller events that may or may not compare to a Michigan Regional.

The ugly -

Someone needs to find 4 more places in Michigan to hold district events. This may mean holding these events in a schools gyms. It may get tricky to find schools willing to turn their campuses into event venues during the dead of winter, and typically during exams and basketball season.


Whatever happens, it sure will be interesting. In these tough economic times, at least FIRST is trying to help out.