Thank you for the insight from outside of the US media. What we see is almost constant news coverage of how severe things are and how much of an emergency this is creating - # of deaths, # of cases, quarantining on ships and in cities, etc. Because of this, I’m wondering how many teams may change plans, regardless of what the real severity is. Its nice to hear from outside this usual channel what the situation is.
Be safe.
The thing to consider with simply passing earned spots onto next year’s event is that many teams will not be the same. While a minor concern, students will be very disappointed. (But decisions can’t be made based on people’s feelings, or else nothing would ever get done.)
If possible, Worlds should proceed as planned. But, that’s likely not possible.
Options don’t really include postponing Worlds for a couple of weeks if the virus looks to be lessened at that point. Rescheduling for the venue alone might not even be possible. So we likely can expect Worlds to proceed as planned, because I agree that cancelling Worlds isn’t going to happen.
I personally expect a lot of waitlist teams to be pulled to replace those that won’t be attending for whatever reasons, and for spots to be marginally lessened in some more densely packed regions next year to account for teams Vex may be presenting an invitation to for Worlds 2021.
I can’t imagine what the Chinese (and other affected countries) teams are going through with this. Firstly with the effect on their personal lives and secondly, for many of them, the chance that they will have to miss out on this event that they put so much hard work into qualifying for.
Hopefully the people at the top are talking about this and planning. Unfortunately the practical options aren’t fair and the fair options don’t seem practical.
Fair - Push worlds back into June hoping the virus clears up by then (maybe move it to Dallas at that point). BUT how many teams wouldn’t be able to go at that point because they have other plans. Also Many teams (especially the Chinese teams it seems) would want to well into their build for next year at that point.
Practical - Leave worlds at the current date and venue. I don’t know that VEX needs to ban Chinese teams, but even if they didn’t, it would be difficult for Chinese teams to get in the country unless the virus subsides substantially. Obviously that isn’t fair to those teams.
I doubt theres the ability to change the date. Conference facilities book years in advance. Most likely we wouldn’t be able to get another venue.
What if a team is comprised of 12th graders, and everyone there goes to college next year?
A little data is never a bad thing, and Johns Hopkins does not disappoint. Here’s a daily dashboard if you are interested in tracking the virus: ArcGIS Dashboards
Note: on Feb 13 the way in which cases are tracked was updated, so mild cases were added causing a blip in the data.
I agree that it would be great if VEX/RECF made an announcement regarding Worlds 2020, as so many of the teams from heavily impacted areas need 6+ weeks of preparations for travel to the US.
I don’t know. I assume they just miss out.
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the CREATE event page says no China teams will be allowed. I don’t know what that means about those qualifying spots though…
NOTICE: "Due to the potential safety risk of those traveling from China, and for the safety of all attending, the CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship scheduled from March 30th through April 4th, 2020, CREATE leadership, including the CREATE Board of Directors, have determined the best course of action is to restrict all Chinese teams from attending this year. This restriction includes mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
I’m, sorry to those teams who will not be able to make it this year. Perhaps someone can start organizing a signature event in China for later in the summer to replace this?
Looks like they caught the VRC US Open events up to the IQ US Open Events, now they all have the same messge.
Last week, the IQ Events had already stated that the Chinese teams were not going to be in attendance.
If REC does not allow the teams from China to come to Worlds, is there an expectation that additional invites will be sent based on the World Skills rankings to teams in other regions?
I’m not sure as of rn, but I would guess that more teams from the wait list would get spots. It’s really hard to tell until the RECF gives an official statement regarding this.
There’s the Mark Leon Invitational in mid to late July. It’s not in China but still in the Asia-Pacific region.
TSA has procedures in place for anyone entering from China
cali state championship events changed from finalist qualing to worlds to semi finalist qualing to worlds recently, not sure if this is the reason but it’s possible, idk when it got changed tho.
I really hope they pull from the world skills rankings before the waitlist.
So for IQ, does it make sense to waitlist your teams even before World Qualifying in case they use just waitlisted teams? Does it even make sense to do that in any way?
Whether or not your team is on the waitlist will have no impact on their eligibility to qualify. So no real reason not to get on the waitlist before your state/regional championship.
I’m an EP in CA- I promise that the Worlds spots we have now are the same as what was allocated at the beginning of the season. CA was given several more Worlds spots this year than last year because the number of registered teams increased. You will also notice that while semifinalists now qualify, some of the judged awards that got a spot last year (ie Amaze) no longer do. This is all totally unrelated to the China situation.
Maybe it is because they moved all teams to one division?
I’m not so sure, it’s just that I’ve heard the same thing happening in texas
I’m sure this has been asked a few times already but does anyone know when the REC will provide an official statement on whether or not teams from Asia will still be able to attend Worlds?
The lack of information is making my team very nervous because we are in Hong Kong where the situation seems to be better (both in terms of infected cases here and travel restrictions imposed on us by other countries). There are currently no US travel restrictions against places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, yet it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to book flights as airlines are cancelling them due to demand. Without information regarding whether Worlds will restrict attendance, we don’t know whether to rebook flights (which we need to do soon or it will become very expensive) or to cancel.