What percentage of FRC teams should attend championships?

[Caleb Sykes]

In the years 2017+, it will be much easier for FIRST to select the size of championships because the district model will be much more widespread. Assuming another level of competition is not added, what percentage of FRC teams do you believe should qualify for championships in the years 2017-2020?

I posed this question in this (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136721) thread, but liked it so much I thought I should make a poll for it.

[Lil' Lavery]

Define "attend"

Why should there be a target percentage in the first place?

[Richard Wallace]

68/346

(and the prequalified teams)

-----

edit: the poll results are already moving toward a bimodal distribution, with just two dozen responses

Glad to see I was wrong about that. A consensus may develop yet.

[Cory]

Define "attend"

Why should there be a target percentage in the first place?

Good question. You should pose that question to Frank at the town hall, since FIRST has openly stated they think 25% of FRC teams should make it to champs every year.

[MrJohnston]

I just got a survey in my email from Frank on the subject.... I haven't opened it, but it sounds like he is looking to get real feedback from the entire FRC community - not just those of us on Delphi or who might attend a Town Hall meeting.

Good move, Frank!

[Caleb Sykes]

Define "attend"

Why should there be a target percentage in the first place?

In answer to your first question, "attend" should be roughly equivalent to "qualify for." My complete question is the first paragraph in my first post. The character restrictions in the poll would not allow this large of a question, so I simplified it in the question box.

In answer to your second question, Cory nailed it. FIRST apparently wants a target percentage of 25%, I personally think that is far too high, and I am curious to know what everyone else thinks.

Before last week, I was under the impression that champs would always be at a single venue, so the venue size would dictate the percentage of teams qualifying. That appears to no longer be the case.

[themccannman]

Good question. You should pose that question to Frank at the town hall, since FIRST has openly stated they think 25% of FRC teams should make it to champs every year.

I guarantee everyone already knows what the answer is. FIRST wants every student to have the chance to attend CMP over a 4 year period. I don't necessarily agree with this reasoning, but that's what the answer will be.

[pntbll1313]

FIRST wants every student to have the chance to attend CMP over a 4 year period. I don't necessarily agree with this reasoning, but that's what the answer will be.

The flaw in their logic is that if you qualify via merit you're going to need to allow a heck of a lot more than 25% to attend. (the top 15% are likely the same teams that consistantly qualify). That leaves the other 85% of teams trying to get in on that 10% of wait listers...

[Jared Russell]

400 / X * 100 %

That's the percentage of FRC teams that I think should compete at Championships.

[Sunshine]

I have no problem with 25% of teams attending BUTNthet don't all have to bring a robot to compete. If the experience outside of the game field is so enriching (and I believe it is) some groups could come for other things than the competition of their bot. Just another idea.

[Rachel Lim]

My first thought:
Whatever percentage of teams do well enough to deserve a spot at champs.

Since that's impossible to define:
Whatever percentage of teams are in the top 400 (or the number of teams at a single champs).

But that's not what first wants:
Whatever percentage of teams that allows every team to attend champs at least once every four years. 25% if no teams qualify every year, but significantly higher since they do.

What I'm hoping this will eventually become:
Whatever percentage of teams are in the top 400 (or the number of teams at a single champs) qualify for champs, and whatever percentage of teams that allows every team to attend super-DCMPs / super regionals at least once every four years qualify for that.

There is one winning alliance no matter what the size of the event is (besides divisions). Why doesn't FIRST pick the top percentage of teams and say they're winners? Because it stops being a competition--and a sport--if they do that. Setting a hard percentage of teams that deserve to win, or be at champs, or do anything else is dangerous not only because that number will change very often, but also because it doesn't mean much. Setting a hard number isn't ideal either, but it's by far the best of all objective values. And it pushes teams to be in the top XXX teams in their area (for districts) or in the winning alliance (for regionals), rather than saying being "good enough" to get into the 75th percentile deserves a spot at champs. And it allows for a single champs, so if you get in, you'll have earned a place to compete among the best in the world.

[AlexanderTheOK]

My team hasn't been to champs the entire four years I have been on it. That being said. I would be just a tad disappointed if I went to champs without being deserving of it.

I honestly think that the 25% mark is way too high. This is the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS after all. This is where the best of the best compete in a much higher scoring matches that make for much greater excitement.

The point being, not every team can be "the best of the best" once every four years. That is, after all, kind of the point of being in that fairly exclusive group of teams that regularly perform at a higher level and regularly win.

Of course, FIRST has it's own view of what champs NEEDS to be, and it may just be be the best course of action. Maybe it WOULD be a good idea to reserve our absolute best of the best competition to IRI. It's all about what you think champs is meant to be.

I PERSONALLY think that championship competitors need to be capped at the 600 level that we have now, and as the program grows it should simply be harder to get in and a more valuable experience. Whatever percentage that is, that would be the percentage.

[Sperkowsky]

I have no problem with 25% of teams attending BUTNthet don't all have to bring a robot to compete. If the experience outside of the game field is so enriching (and I believe it is) some groups could come for other things than the competition of their bot. Just another idea.
Why would a team spend 20k to watch

[GeeTwo]

Why would a team spend 20k to watch

Already answered:

If the experience outside of the game field is so enriching (and I believe it is) some groups could come for other things than the competition of their bot.

These enrichments include the exposure to the top teams, with opportunity to "pick their brains" as to how to improve both our team and the students' individual engineering capabilities. And oh, yeah, there's that inspiration thing that Dean and Woodie go on about ;->.

That said, attending a championship without having pay the entry fee to compete is a significant savings for those in the conterminous US (33% in our case, paying for 25 students and about eight coaches/mentors to take a bus from Southeast Louisiana). Getting the school and school board to approve that much field trip time to "attend" would be a far greater challenge than raising the money. If we were "attending", we would probably try to send about a dozen students and three mentors, and bus-pool with three other teams.

For the record, I'm not voting. I'd love to take the team every year. I'd also love to see some "superregionals" each of which send about a dozen teams to the "real" championships, and have 25-50% of the teams get to a super. One big problem with this model is that the championship gets smaller. The really big thing about the super that bothers me is teams (many from outside North America, but quite a few within) that qualify for championships but can't afford the travel. Supers would make this situation even worse.

The bottom line is that I'm thrilled to be going this year, and taking two of my three children (even though the other one founded the team), and about two dozen other teens that I've come to know as extended family. We've roughly doubled our budget, and have raised nearly as much money in the past four weeks as we did in the previous eleven months to make this work. I'd be thrilled to do this every year. I also understand that getting about 4000 FRC teams in one place jus' ain't happ'nin'.

[grstex]

For a sense of scale:

18.2% of Division I teams compete in March Madness
33.3% of MLB teams make the playoffs
37.5% of NFL teams make the playoffs
26.7% of NBA teams make the playoffs

[asid61]

30% of higher; allow the regional winners (plus wildcards and hall of fame, etc.) to attend, and give priority on the waitlist to teams that have not gone in the greatest number of years. I believe having everybody go once every four years would be good.
Attending championships without competing would be a bitter fruit to swallow for me at least, especially given that I would have to miss one or two days of school.

[EricLeifermann]

For a sense of scale:

18.2% of Division I teams compete in March Madness
33.3% of MLB teams make the playoffs
37.5% of NFL teams make the playoffs
26.7% of NBA teams make the playoffs

And the percentage of those teams in those leagues that make the championship? FAR FAR less than that....

[cgmv123]

26.7% of NBA teams make the playoffs

53.3333% (16/30) of NBA (and NHL) teams make the playoffs.

[themccannman]

For a sense of scale:

18.2% of Division I teams compete in March Madness
33.3% of MLB teams make the playoffs
37.5% of NFL teams make the playoffs
26.7% of NBA teams make the playoffs

I don't think playoffs are even close to equivalent to a "championship" event. Playoffs are like district champs. I can see 30% of teams in a district going to DCMP.

[grstex]

And the percentage of those teams in those leagues that make the championship? FAR FAR less than that....
Making the playoffs qualifies you to compete to become the single champion of your sports league.
Qualifying for Championships enters you into a competition to be part of a single champion alliance.
I don't feel it's a false equivalence. If making the playoffs is no big deal, ask a Mets fan.

If the World Series is the equivalent the Qualifying for championships, then that's 6%, or around 200 FIRST teams. Cut the size of Championships to 1/3. That's about the size of champs when I was a student. In 2001, 14 years ago.

[grstex]

53.3333% (16/30) of NBA (and NHL) teams make the playoffs.
Darn! You got me!

[Sunshine]

Why would a team spend 20k to watch

Who says it would have to cost $20k? Ridiculous comment.

[nuclearnerd]

Who says it would have to cost $20k? Ridiculous comment.

20k is a low ball number. It costs:
5k$ for entry
6k$ for a coach bus for 4 days (flights cost the same for smaller / further teams)
5 k$ for ten hotel rooms
2k$ for 8 meals per person for 20 people

And I'm not including, lost wages / supply teacher coverage.

[Wayne TenBrink]

I PERSONALLY think that championship competitors need to be capped at the 600 level that we have now, and as the program grows it should simply be harder to get in and a more valuable experience. Whatever percentage that is, that would be the percentage.

My sentiments exactly. This is much easier to implement if everybody is in districts. If a district wants to let every team go to the District Championship every 4 years, then let them do that. Let each district send the number of teams representative of their percentage of the total number of teams, etc.

Keep one championship. Cap the number of teams. Let the percentage take care of itself.

[DaRealSlimShady]

Who says it would have to cost $20k? Ridiculous comment.

So I assume that you want FIRST to pay for teams' travel and hotel costs? In addition to the multitude of other expenses involved other than registration.

Because when your feet actually touch the ground again 20 thousand dollars isn't that much for a large group of people to attend championships, and I cringe at the amount much larger teams have to pay to make the same trip.

Regardless. I think the issue of money speaks for itself. Why worry about the amount of students exposed to championship when there are already many teams who have a hard time affording it even when they qualify now? If I were on a team that qualified this year and our budget was already wiped out from the first 6 weeks of competition I would be hard pressed to go to st Louis unless our robot was top notch. Now we're talking about adding even more teams that haven't earned a spot and got in on a waitlist. It's unthinkable.

I'm not trying to come off as a jerk, but somewhere down the line, we're going to have to face the facts, and start living in the real world. If your team has plenty of money to waste on a trip (yeah in one respect I mean waste) then go for it. Championships IS about inspiration after all not those silly robots.

[EricH]

20k is a low ball number. It costs:
5k$ for entry
6k$ for a coach bus for 4 days (flights cost the same for smaller / further teams)
5 k$ for ten hotel rooms
2k$ for 8 meals per person for 20 people

And I'm not including, lost wages / supply teacher coverage.

Watching (NOT COMPETING) is free registration. The original comment was specifically stating watching. Knocks off $5K.

Also, 10 hotel rooms? For 20 people? I'd think that 6-7 would be more likely (unless the district had some really nasty rules about students/room, or there was some other oddball case involved)--usually you'd get about 4 students/room, but add in a couple of rooms for mentors (typically 1-2/room). Knocks off about another $1K.

So... 6K for the bus, 4K for the hotel, hard to argue the meals unless the people in question buy them themselves. So that's $10K-12K, not counting lost pay (which... I'm not entirely familiar with how that works for teachers, but don't teachers get vacation time, or is all of that in summer/breaks?).

[Lil' Lavery]

Why would a team spend 20k to watch
There's a lot more to do at Championship than "watch." For starters, they're always looking for volunteers. Beyond that, there's seminars to attend, teams to talk with, suppliers that are giving out information, scholarship row, and the FIRST finale. I attended without a team last year and had a great time and actually got to spend far more time talking with and learning from other teams than I would have if I had a robot to worry about. And, of course, simply watching the matches in person is incredible.

20k is a low ball number. It costs:
5k$ for entry
6k$ for a coach bus for 4 days (flights cost the same for smaller / further teams)
5 k$ for ten hotel rooms
2k$ for 8 meals per person for 20 people

And I'm not including, lost wages / supply teacher coverage.

Why would you need to pay a registration fee to attend the event if the team wasn't competing?
Why would you have to bring 20 people/your own coach bus/10 hotel rooms?

[Alex2614]

Watching (NOT COMPETING) is free registration. The original comment was specifically stating watching. Knocks off $5K.

Also, 10 hotel rooms? For 20 people? I'd think that 6-7 would be more likely (unless the district had some really nasty rules about students/room, or there was some other oddball case involved)--usually you'd get about 4 students/room, but add in a couple of rooms for mentors (typically 1-2/room). Knocks off about another $1K.

So... 6K for the bus, 4K for the hotel, hard to argue the meals unless the people in question buy them themselves. So that's $10K-12K, not counting lost pay (which... I'm not entirely familiar with how that works for teachers, but don't teachers get vacation time, or is all of that in summer/breaks?).

Okay, so who's going to pay 12k to go watch? Same argument. We have a hard time getting exempt absences when we are competing. Let alone just going to watch. They would never excuse our kids to go watch. Good luck getting many school boards to okay that. In Monongalia county, they just passed a policy limiting the number of days students can miss for a single activity. While we are not a school team (we are a community organization), we are sponsored by them and we are still governed by them somewhat loosely. We're going to have a hard time when we go into districts, let alone trying to get three days off of school to not even compete! That is 100% not going to happen.

[PayneTrain]

Okay, so who's going to pay 12k to go watch? Same argument. We have a hard time getting exempt absences when we are competing. Let alone just going to watch. They would never excuse our kids to go watch. Good luck getting many school boards to okay that.

I was going to bring that up. I don't think a lot of school districts are going to let kids cut school if they see no net benefit to them, unfortunately.


In Monongalia county, they just passed a policy limiting the number of days students can miss for a single activity. While we are not a school team (we are a community organization), we are sponsored by them and we are still governed by them somewhat loosely. We're going to have a hard time when we go into districts, let alone trying to get three days off of school to not even compete! That is 100% not going to happen.

Yeah, it's gotten to the point for the 2016 season we'll have to schedule whatever district events have S/S dates and take the good and the bad with region champs being over the high school's spring break if we want to go to another regional/district and champs if we qualify.

[Lil' Lavery]

Okay, so who's going to pay 12k to go watch? Same argument. We have a hard time getting exempt absences when we are competing. Let alone just going to watch. They would never excuse our kids to go watch. Good luck getting many school boards to okay that. In Monongalia county, they just passed a policy limiting the number of days students can miss for a single activity. While we are not a school team (we are a community organization), we are sponsored by them and we are still governed by them somewhat loosely. We're going to have a hard time when we go into districts, let alone trying to get three days off of school to not even compete! That is 100% not going to happen.

Does your school district allow students to attend student leadership conferences? Allow teachers to attend professional development conferences? Sell the conferences as those (or better yet, hopefully FIRST can gain some accreditation for their conferences).

Alternatively, volunteer. A school would look bad discouraging volunteerism.

[PayneTrain]

Oh I forgot about the topic at hand! I think keeping the World Championship roster to a range between 400-500 where we can get 10-15% of teams there. That gives you a range of 2667 to 5000 teams in the world under a single event. Getting another 10-15% of teams in the world to attend something like a 400-500 team Open Championship means that another 2667 to 5000 teams can attend FIRST Championship Events.

[Alex2614]

Does your school district allow students to attend student leadership conferences? Allow teachers to attend professional development conferences? Sell the conferences as those (or better yet, hopefully FIRST can gain some accreditation for their conferences).

Alternatively, volunteer. A school would look bad discouraging volunteerism.

You'd be surprised.

I'm not sure, again we're only loosely associated with the board of education. But I know they're pretty strict on the missing school for one organization rule. Doesn't matter if it is a conference or volunteering, it's still FIRST, and they've already missed several days (usually three for our "away" regional and two for a closer one) throughout the season. I'm talking about the school board that punished us in our rookie year for going to competitions (we asked for absence exemptions and were denied), and refuse to compensate teachers in the slightest for FLL and FTC coaching like they do for sports.

Our mentors are not teachers, so getting time off for the events is tricky too. It's not really up to the board of education if our mentors can get off of work. They all have to take vacation days.

[EricH]

Back to the original topic...

I don't know if there is, or should be, a percentage for competing at, or for attending without competing. Matter of fact, the sports percentages earlier are, at best, byproducts.

Instead, I would go this route: X teams (I'll let this year pan out before making a "final" call, but 400-600 sounds about right) can attend and compete, whatever percentage that is. (The sports model: This Y number of teams will make the postseason, and this is how they will make the postseason--usually something about being the best in whatever smaller segment of the league, plus a wild card or two.) Any team that can make it is welcome to attend the entire event (other than, of course, competing).

And then there's the one other very important item:

What percentage of FRC teams should be inspired by Championships? I think it'd be fair to say 100% of the teams that are there by whatever means, but I also think that the teams watching at home should also pick up some inspiration. Personally, I'd go with a good solid 90% (because I'm being realistic--I know some teams won't want to watch).

[waialua359]

Okay, so who's going to pay 12k to go watch? Same argument. We have a hard time getting exempt absences when we are competing. Let alone just going to watch. They would never excuse our kids to go watch. Good luck getting many school boards to okay that. In Monongalia county, they just passed a policy limiting the number of days students can miss for a single activity. While we are not a school team (we are a community organization), we are sponsored by them and we are still governed by them somewhat loosely. We're going to have a hard time when we go into districts, let alone trying to get three days off of school to not even compete! That is 100% not going to happen.
I couldn't have said this any better.
As a team that travels a LOT missing school, our school/district/state would never approve traveling to a robotics competition if we were NOT competing, ever.

[asid61]

Back to the original topic...

I don't know if there is, or should be, a percentage for competing at, or for attending without competing. Matter of fact, the sports percentages earlier are, at best, byproducts.

Instead, I would go this route: X teams (I'll let this year pan out before making a "final" call, but 400-600 sounds about right) can attend and compete, whatever percentage that is. (The sports model: This Y number of teams will make the postseason, and this is how they will make the postseason--usually something about being the best in whatever smaller segment of the league, plus a wild card or two.) Any team that can make it is welcome to attend the entire event (other than, of course, competing).

And then there's the one other very important item:

What percentage of FRC teams should be inspired by Championships? I think it'd be fair to say 100% of the teams that are there by whatever means, but I also think that the teams watching at home should also pick up some inspiration. Personally, I'd go with a good solid 90% (because I'm being realistic--I know some teams won't want to watch).

Watching matches is one thing, but seeing robots in person, up close in the pits is another thing altogether in my experience. I can see good matches anytime by watching some district championships or regional eliminations rounds.

[PayneTrain]

I couldn't have said this any better.
As a team that travels a LOT missing school, our school/district/state would never approve traveling to a robotics competition if we were NOT competing, ever.

Yeah, people need to realize that if HoF teams and perennial RCA winners know they don't have that kind of leverage, Johnny 5xxx team doesn't have a prayer more often than not. I could go on about how ridiculous it is that schools wouldn't let students who want to go learn something leave school to go learn something, but support students cutting class in droves to go see regional finals in basketball. Not talking about that kind of culture change in this thread, though.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Making it to World's is taxing on any team - let alone a Rookie team that does not yet have the structure built in.

My team made it in 2013 (our Rookie Season) and our budget that year went from $15,000 to over $30,000. Getting a team of 24 (plus parents) to the event ran over $7000. Hotels were around the same. Granted, some of the parent's covered for their kids, but we included that in our accounting for the next time we qualify.

In 2013 we had 8 Sponsors - we are now at 20. However, we are now at 50 kids in our program, so the next time we make it we will be looking at a cost of $30,000.

I want my team to make it to Champs. However, our goal each year is to qualify for the MN State Tourney. This is a much better bargain for our dollar. What I think that FRC should have done is to help create state or 'regional championship' events that lessen the burden on each team.

What I am afraid of (for FRC) is that World's has become an albatross that is difficult to fund, difficult to find a proper arena and host city, and difficult to manage the overall logistics. By splitting into two, FRC has doubled down on this - without looking at the impact on teams such as mine. What happens in years after 2017 when teams qualify and then empty their coffers and then struggle in subsequent years to regain that money?

FRC is not without competitors - especially in the school curriculum style teams. VEX is the clear next successor, and BEST is a distant third. However, if the costs continue to escalate for FRC teams, they may turn to these other events. I am a bit disheartened by this decision by FIRST.

And this is the reason that I would like CMP to return to a much smaller scale and only the Region/District Champs, Chairman's & EI winners qualify outside of the HOF teams (I am not against a wait list - if your team has the funding, have at it). The other award winners and Wild Cards could get a instant pass to their respective State Tournament or 'Regional Championship'. I know that this is not ideal, but it would lessen the cost on the smaller programs.

[Ginger Power]

Making it to World's is taxing on any team - let alone a Rookie team that does not yet have the structure built in.

My team made it in 2013 (our Rookie Season) and our budget that year went from $15,000 to over $30,000. Getting a team of 24 (plus parents) to the event ran over $7000. Hotels were around the same. Granted, some of the parent's covered for their kids, but we included that in our accounting for the next time we qualify.

In 2013 we had 8 Sponsors - we are now at 20. However, we are now at 50 kids in our program, so the next time we make it we will be looking at a cost of $30,000.

I want my team to make it to Champs. However, our goal each year is to qualify for the MN State Tourney. This is a much better bargain for our dollar. What I think that FRC should have done is to help create state or 'regional championship' events that lessen the burden on each team.

What I am afraid of (for FRC) is that World's has become an albatross that is difficult to fund, difficult to find a proper arena and host city, and difficult to manage the overall logistics. By splitting into two, FRC has doubled down on this - without looking at the impact on teams such as mine. What happens in years after 2017 when teams qualify and then empty their coffers and then struggle in subsequent years to regain that money?

FRC is not without competitors - especially in the school curriculum style teams. VEX is the clear next successor, and BEST is a distant third. However, if the costs continue to escalate for FRC teams, they may turn to these other events. I am a bit disheartened by this decision by FIRST.

And this is the reason that I would like CMP to return to a much smaller scale and only the Region/District Champs, Chairman's & EI winners qualify outside of the HOF teams (I am not against a wait list - if your team has the funding, have at it). The other award winners and Wild Cards could get a instant pass to their respective State Tournament or 'Regional Championship'. I know that this is not ideal, but it would lessen the cost on the smaller programs.

Going to Worlds was a life changing event. It was a life changing event because we worked incredibly hard and our work payed off by winning Rookie All Star and the North Star Regional. I want every student in FRC to attend a life changing event. This life changing event does not need to be the World Championship. It takes away from the prestige and quality of the world championship if everybody makes it. Others have stated it and more will state it in future debates. With everybody going to districts (hopefully sooner than later) I don't see why the District Championship can't be that life changing event. Leave the Championship in its most competitive and inspirational form. Maybe if they do that they'll be able to get a TV deal and change the culture on a much broader scale.

[Sunshine]

I couldn't have said this any better.
As a team that travels a LOT missing school, our school/district/state would never approve traveling to a robotics competition if we were NOT competing, ever.

But they'll let you go if you are a wild card or get there from a wait list? Your board is a but different than ours then? We have to earn our right to get there by winning. And we have to prove it. Just getting a free pass doesn't cut the mustard.

[Alan Anderson]

Okay, so who's going to pay 12k to go watch? Same argument.

Same answer: there is SO MUCH MORE to do than just watch.

[Lil' Lavery]

I couldn't have said this any better.
As a team that travels a LOT missing school, our school/district/state would never approve traveling to a robotics competition if we were NOT competing, ever.

Most teams don't compete five+ times during a nine week span.

[IKE]

From experience with several years of districts, advancing between 50 and 25% feels about right. Passing more than 50% seems a bit weird. Under 25% feels cutthroat.

With a 3 tier system this gives base to top of 25% to 7%. Around 12-18% feels really nice.

[Citrus Dad]

Define "attend"

Why should there be a target percentage in the first place?

Because FIRST has to plan for facility size out for several years.

[Citrus Dad]

I have no problem with 25% of teams attending BUTNthet don't all have to bring a robot to compete. If the experience outside of the game field is so enriching (and I believe it is) some groups could come for other things than the competition of their bot. Just another idea.

Most school districts will not justify teams attending just to watch without competing. It's also difficult to justify fundraising from sponsors etc for the same reason. I know some teams attend every year whether they qualify or not, but that will always be the exception. It is highly unrealistic to expect teams to attend with competing. For anyone who suggests otherwise, that you first have a conversation with your school administration about this idea and THEN comment on this thread.

[Lil' Lavery]

Because FIRST has to plan for facility size out for several years.

My point was more regarding coupling capacity and team percentage. Others have addressed FIRST's stated reasoning (all students have a chance to attend in 4 year HS career).

[jnicho15]

My team hasn't been to champs the entire four years I have been on it. That being said. I would be just a tad disappointed if I went to champs without being deserving of it.

I honestly think that the 25% mark is way too high. This is the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS after all. This is where the best of the best compete in a much higher scoring matches that make for much greater excitement.

The point being, not every team can be "the best of the best" once every four years. That is, after all, kind of the point of being in that fairly exclusive group of teams that regularly perform at a higher level and regularly win.

I PERSONALLY think that championship competitors need to be capped at the 600 level that we have now, and as the program grows it should simply be harder to get in and a more valuable experience. Whatever percentage that is, that would be the percentage.

Yes! CHAMPIONSHIPS should be for the best of the best. I almost feel guilty when, like last year, our team got to the championship being around 30th in FiM. In other sports, only the winners would advance. In FIRST, it is easier to have more teams attend, so more teams should qualify, but not 800.

[gblake]

... what percentage of FRC teams do you believe should qualify for championships in the years 2017-2020? ...And again, someone seems to want to ignore oh-so-many of the wise words Dean, Woodie, Dave, and so many others have tried to get them to absorb.

You are worrying about the wrong thing if you (as your question strongly implies) think that FRC exists to put robots into matches, or exists to sift through the available robots and drive teams to find the "best" robots+drivers.

I'm pretty sure that a very good answer to the question is, "Just as many as can fit into the largest feasible venue(s)."

Blake

[grstex]

Yes! CHAMPIONSHIPS should be for the best of the best. I almost feel guilty when, like last year, our team got to the championship being around 30th in FiM. In other sports, only the winners would advance. In FIRST, it is easier to have more teams attend, so more teams should qualify, but not 800.
You feel guilty about being rewarded for placing in the top 10%?

[Citrus Dad]

Yes! CHAMPIONSHIPS should be for the best of the best. I almost feel guilty when, like last year, our team got to the championship being around 30th in FiM. In other sports, only the winners would advance. In FIRST, it is easier to have more teams attend, so more teams should qualify, but not 800.

Have you watched the NCAA men's basketball tournament. 68 teams out of 351 Division I schools qualify. That's just under 20%. Most of the "power" conferences have qualifying tournaments, but many other teams qualify. Here's the number from each conference in 2015. The Big 12 has 10 members so 70% qualified. The Big 10 has 14 now so 50% qualified.

Bids Conference Schools
7 Big 12 Iowa State, Baylor, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, West Virginia
7 Big Ten Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue
6 ACC Notre Dame, Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia
6 Big East Villanova, Butler, Georgetown, Providence, St. John's, Xavier
5 SEC Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss
4 Pac-12 Arizona, Oregon, UCLA, Utah
3 Atlantic 10 VCU, Davidson, Dayton
3 Mountain West Wyoming, Boise State, San Diego State
2 American SMU, Cincinnati
2 Missouri Valley Northern Iowa, Wichita State
2 WCC Gonzaga, BYU

[Citrus Dad]

My point was more regarding coupling capacity and team percentage. Others have addressed FIRST's stated reasoning (all students have a chance to attend in 4 year HS career).

I wasn't making a point about a particular percentage. You asked "why pick a percentage target?" and I answered that question from a practical standpoint. Of course the alternative is to pick a hard number, e.g., 600 which they've done, but that will represent a decreasing % of all of the teams.

All other sports that have faced a growing league size have expanded their playoffs. Think of baseball which use to just have the AL and NL pennant winners play. That's clearly no longer the case. The question now is how should the Champs be structured.

If someone is thinking that FIRST is going to drop its contracts with Detroit and Houston, that is a very long shot if FIRST wants to continue to be taken seriously in future negotiations with other cities. If you are thinking of a counter proposal I strongly urge you to either come up with a fully developed playoff system that includes more teams (e.g. Districts everywhere) or that uses the two-city model in some format that brings 400 teams to each city. There's no going back to the way it was.

[mrnoble]

We were on the wait list this year and turned it down, even though we captained the #3 alliance in Denver. I got my butt handed to me by administrators, testing staff (our kids missed mandatory testing while we were in Utah), concerned parents, other teachers, and stressed out kids. And we are a well supported program at our school; the team gets tons of respect. There was no way we would have been given a pass to go to CMP unless we had won the state. I don't at all get what people are talking about when they say that kids would do well to go and not compete.

[waialua359]

Most teams don't compete five+ times during a nine week span.

If it was 1 week or 5 weeks, if we weren't competing, it would never be approved.
We compete at 0% direct cost to the school (I don't need a sub), as we raise all of our own funding.

[aditya29]

All other sports that have faced a growing league size have expanded their playoffs. Think of baseball which use to just have the AL and NL pennant winners play. That's clearly no longer the case. The question now is how should the Champs be structured.

Comparing to professional sports in this context isn't a good idea because expanded playoffs are almost entirely due to the league wanting extra revenue. In pretty much all pro sports, all playoff games are sold out, meaning that any other playoff games that are added will almost certainly be sold out as well.

Now an aside:

In general one thing I personally would love (not that this would ever happen), is that we get rid of the elimination tournament at regionals. I would prefer an EPL style ranking system, where the champion is determined at the end of the season by whoever is on top in the standings. Teams play every other team twice during the EPL season, so obviously that level of interplay is unlikely to be achieved during a regional, but if we continued playing 'quals' during the standard elims time, we'd get quite a few more matches in. As it is, FRC rankings within a regional generally turn out all right (I admit that strength of schedule is definitely a factor that helps/hurts some teams at every event), but I'd be interested to see just how many more matches are necessary at an event to make the rankings as true as possible.

The reason I would prefer this kind of system is because I think it could lead to increased competitiveness at champs. Too often it happens that the 3rd-5th best robots at a regional do not advance to STL because of the current playoffs structure. (I will also admit that such a proposal is inherently unfair to those teams who dedicate their game strategy to one specific game phase - this year those would be dedicated canburglars; teams who focused only on building the fastest burglar likely wouldn't seed high even if they were given 16 qual matches).

Of course as long as there are several automatic champs bids for non-matchplay purposes, the impact of this kind of plan is very watered down... But my ultimate hope is that if we figure out a system that qualifies a higher percentage of "competitive" teams, then we will have fewer arguments about how many robots to quality. The issue is that even if you increase champs capacity to 600-800 teams, you're still going to have deserving robots miss out due to the way we qualify teams from regionals. If we can draw a brightline in the regional/district rankings structure, then it becomes easier to stomach if a team misses out on champs - you can point to the table and objectively show that their robot wasn't quite as competitive as the top X# of teams.

As we've seen Frank talk about, he wants every high schooler to have the opportunity to attend Champs in their high school career, primarily from an inspiration standpoint. My viewpoint is that if a student has persevered and stuck with their team for all four years, then they have already been inspired. If we're talking about a student who would be willing to travel to champs with their team, then it's pretty safe to assume that this student is willing to make meaningful contributions to the team (whether it's mech, software, grant writing, etc), and they truly do understand the ideals of FIRST. Speaking personally, my team was lucky enough to qualify for champs my senior year, and I did attend, but I was already inspired by the program long before. The inspiration came from getting eliminated by 254 year after year at the regional level. And of course beyond 254, SVR always has plenty of powerhouses, but my point is that Frank's argument for giving students the opportunity to attend champs at least once implies that these are the type of students who understand the gravity of FIRST already, and they can feel the same type of inspiration at the regional level. And even if a student never attends a competition at all, but they stick with their team for four years, I'm positive that they will feel the positive impact of the program by investing so many hours into building the robot and supporting their team in whatever way they are capable.

[Caleb Sykes]

And again, someone seems to want to ignore oh-so-many of the wise words Dean, Woodie, Dave, and so many others have tried to get them to absorb.


There is no need to attack me personally. I posed a question because I wished to gain a better understanding of others' viewpoints on this topic. Dean, Woodie, and Dave would be among the first to say that being inquisitive should be lauded. I am very happy with the results of this poll and thread, it has already helped me to gain insight on this subject.


You are worrying about the wrong thing if you (as your question strongly implies) think that FRC exists to put robots into matches, or exists to sift through the available robots and drive teams to find the "best" robots+drivers.

You got me spot on for this one. I do believe that "FRC the organization," that small handful of people working in Manchester, exists primarily to provide affiliated teams with a robotics competition. However, I believe that "FRC the community of teams," exists to inspire society to recognize science and technology. I don't believe that "FRC the organization" can inspire anyone. I do believe that they can provide opportunities for teams to generate their own inspiration.

If FRC develops a poor competition structure, which I believe they just did. They diminish teams' opportunities to inspire, which I also believe they just did.


I'm pretty sure that a very good answer to the question is, "Just as many as can fit into the largest feasible venue(s)."

That is an insufficient response. You will at least need to specify the number of venues for this sentence to mean anything.

[Sunshine]

I posed a question because I wished to gain a better understanding of others' viewpoints on this topic. Dean, Woodie, and Dave would be among the first to say that being inquisitive should be lauded. I am very happy with the results of this poll and thread, it has already helped me to gain insight on this subject.



You got me spot on for this one. I do believe that "FRC the organization," that small handful of people working in Manchester, exists primarily to provide affiliated teams with a robotics competition. However, I believe that "FRC the community of teams," exists to inspire society to recognize science and technology. I don't believe that "FRC the organization" can inspire anyone. I do believe that they can provide opportunities for teams to generate their own inspiration.

If FRC develops a poor competition structure, which I believe they just did. They diminish teams' opportunities to inspire, which I also believe they just did.

I also come here to gain insight from my peers. It can and usually is an insightful conversation as long as we all act as adults without finger pointing from either side of the table.

Dean, Woodie and Dave are not "all knowing". Way too much hero worship going on by both by students and mentors.

So, the mindset is that all teams should attend a championship at least once in their high school career. This has been said because it inspires kids. What is it about the venue of championship that is supposed to inspire kids? Appears that is the underlying question. And it appears that there are different camps with different view points on what inspires their kids. Some like the lure of competition on the field. Others want the knowledge and comradery gained.

Several have expressed that it is foolish to expect a team to attend and pay the high costs just to watch. Yet it appears that those same people think it's ok to attend from a lottery with an inferior robot (I truly do not understand this concept).

I've attempted to suggest that there are valid competitions going on both on and off the field. Many attend for those reasons. But people are often stating that winning or gaining the recognition of those awards will have less meaning without one true world winner. And some chastise this reasoning as blasphemy.

So, what does it all mean? I guess the "inspirational aspect" of attending means many things to many people. What does being inspired by attending mean to your students? Ask them! Don't quote what you think Dean or Woodie think. Your students are the customer. We all agree we do this all for them. How do we continue to inspire them?

As a side note. My kids always seem to see the value of the process of designing and building a robot. They like comparing their solutions with others around the world. Some of their most rewarding years occurred in the lean years when they received no recognition from the outside. Their Midwest values seem to come through and they always work harder and are hungrier after a loosing season on the field. They actually get inspired by their failures (believe it or not). They tell me they only want to go to championships when they are really deserving. I will continue to listen to them and try to give them the support and guidance they need.

Again, what is inspiring for your kids?

[Citrus Dad]

Comparing to professional sports in this context isn't a good idea because expanded playoffs are almost entirely due to the league wanting extra revenue. In pretty much all pro sports, all playoff games are sold out, meaning that any other playoff games that are added will almost certainly be sold out as well.

Now an aside:

In general one thing I personally would love (not that this would ever happen), is that we get rid of the elimination tournament at regionals. I would prefer an EPL style ranking system, where the champion is determined at the end of the season by whoever is on top in the standings.

1) Playoffs have been expanding at the college and high school levels as well. The NCAA basketball tourney (non-pro) is but one example. Look at the state basketball and football playoffs. When I was in HS my state didn't even have football playoffs. Yes, much of this might be revenue driven, but it also is intended to satisfy a desire by participants and those around them to have a more complete end of season competitive experience.

2) I'm not sure that an EPL-style system can work in this situation, but it makes me think of a different approach - English League soccer. Teams move up and down divisions based on their previous season. Perhaps the Champs can be divided into First and Second Divisions based on Regional and District placings. Maybe Regional Champs to First Division and Finalists to Second Division.

[MrForbes]

Have you watched the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

No.

[Sunshine]

Have you watched the NCAA men's basketball tournament?
No.

ROTFLMAO

[Sunshine]

Have you watched the NCAA men's basketball tournament. 68 teams out of 351 Division I schools qualify. That's just under 20%. Most of the "power" conferences have qualifying tournaments, but many other teams qualify.

..and the NCAA has no wait list
....and the NCAA has no wild card
......and the NCAA has teams get there on merit
.........and the NCAA has one champion

Hey, I like you idea.

[aditya29]

2) I'm not sure that an EPL-style system can work in this situation, but it makes me think of a different approach - English League soccer. Teams move up and down divisions based on their previous season. Perhaps the Champs can be divided into First and Second Divisions based on Regional and District placings. Maybe Regional Champs to First Division and Finalists to Second Division.

Yeah it's a pretty crazy proposal and I know it wouldn't work for multiple reasons. That was definitely one of the things I thought of, especially after that other thread where someone compared the 2-champs system to the NCAA tourney and the NIT. Much of the current angst comes from top performing robots being left out of champs, and I think a change in the ranking/qualification system can alleviate some of these problems without having to invite hundreds of more teams.

I was so happy when my college bball team made the CIT last year (4th playoff tourney after NCAA, NIT, and CBI). Obviously not considered too prestigious, but it is a postseason tournament and it was the first time my school had made any tournament in 40+ years. Sometimes being invited to play on *a* big stage is an incredible feeling, even if it isn't *the* big stage. For that reason I wouldn't be opposed to having slightly different qualification structures for a 2-champs system.

[gblake]

There is no need to attack me personally. I posed a question because I wished to gain a better understanding of others' viewpoints on this topic. Dean, Woodie, and Dave would be among the first to say that being inquisitive should be lauded. I am very happy with the results of this poll and thread, it has already helped me to gain insight on this subject.No need to think I was attacking you personally.

I took the time to strip your user ID out of the quotation, and I bemoaned that once again someone in the large group that believes they know better than FIRST's founder(s), what FIRST is supposed to do and be, was contradicting what those founders have said.

I didn't write that you should be singled out as a special member of that group. I instead intended to write about the entire group.

I did not intend to attack you or anyone personally; but I did and do intend to reject the notion that FRC exists to put robots into matches, or to select "champion" robots-plus-drivers (and pit crews and scouts and ....). Putting robots into matches is something FRC does; but it simply is not why it exists.

I don't know how FIRST, it's founder, or it's "elders" (is there a better term?) could possibly be more clear about this than they already have been. The matches exist to put on a good show and get some adrenaline flowing. The matches exist to show cultures that the result of investing in STEM is something worth celebrating. But... FRC doesn't exist to put on competition matches.

Blake

[George Nishimura]

I think it's more important that the top robots are at a Championship rather than that the top robots are the only robots at a Championship. At a 400 team Championship, only 25-30% need to be the "best" robots.

I am however struggling to come up with a solution that evenly distributes Chairman's and HOF award winners, which would be the ideal scenario of a split.

[gblake]

I'm pretty sure that a very good answer to the question is, "Just as many as can fit into the largest feasible venue(s)."
That is an insufficient response. You will at least need to specify the number of venues for this sentence to mean anything.
Nope

It is a perfectly fine response. What it means is that the question, in the sense/context it was posed, is nearly irrelevant.

It means that instead of thinking of the Championship(s) as an event that filters out unworthy teams; one should instead think of a Championship(s) as an event that brings in as many teams as is possible.

How many teams attend the FIRST Championship(s) should depend on how many teams can be accommodated by the venue, the number of conference speakers, etc; and not some arbitrarily chosen threshold of match-worthiness.

FRC includes competition matches, but FRC's purpose is not competition matches.

YMMV

Blake

[Ginger Power]

Nope

It is a perfectly fine response. What it means is that the question, in the sense/context it was posed, is nearly irrelevant.

It means that instead of thinking of the Championship(s) as an event that filters out unworthy teams; one should instead think of a Championship(s) as an event that brings in as many teams as is possible.

How many teams attend the FIRST Championship(s) should depend on how many teams can be accommodated by the venue, the number of conference speakers, etc; and not some arbitrarily chosen threshold of match-worthiness.

FRC includes competition matches, but FRC's purpose is not competition matches.

YMMV

Blake

I think what Caleb is saying is that not every regional can be called a championship. You have to distinguish the number of "championships" it takes before you no longer consider the event a championship. Most people draw the line at one event. In other words, having more than 1 world championship takes away the meaning of "world championship". Others are much more lenient when it comes to drawing that line, and are therefore ok with having multiple, or even many, world championships.

FRC is a competiton. It's purpose is to serve as an outlet for inspiration for FRC teams. It's means of doing that is by providing a competiton. There would be no inspiration without this competiton.

[Alan Anderson]

I don't at all get what people are talking about when they say that kids would do well to go and not compete.

It looks like AngelBotics has never been to the FIRST Championship. Have you ever been there yourself? It's hard to imagine someone helping to run a team in FRC who wouldn't understand how just being there can be extremely inspiring after having experienced it.

[mrnoble]

It looks like AngelBotics has never been to the FIRST Championship. Have you ever been there yourself? It's hard to imagine someone helping to run a team in FRC who wouldn't understand how just being there can be extremely inspiring after having experienced it.

Fair enough. No, I've never been. We qualified once, in 2008 I think, but didn't go, and like I said, we turned down our wait list position this year. I have talked to mentors and students who have been plenty of times, and to be honest, I haven't heard stories of the experience that convince me that taking a team to CMP is life changing. Am I missing something? We love the FRC experience (I've been coaching the team since we started in 2004, why would I stick around this long otherwise?), but two regionals is exhausting and both a financial and academic drain. We have been more competitive since 2013, and this year reached our goals, which included captaining an alliance. Next year our goal is to win a regional. Who knows? If we win, we will go to CMP. Otherwise, we will take our mandatory tests and get our grades up.

[Taylor]

Question to those who are more knowledgeable than I:
In order to gain the Championship Experience, must a team/member be there for the entire Wednesday-Saturday time?

I've never personally attended CMP as a competitor, but this week will be my fourth as a spectator. Last year I was there Thursday-Saturday (my school administrators let me go early because I was in the running for WFA*); we've also been there Friday-Saturday, and this year we'll be there Saturday only.
Our out-of-pocket costs will be well under $1k. Will we get the full experience? No. Will we see #friendswithrobots and be inspired, moreso than watching on thebluealliance? Yes.

As with others, I firmly believe that students - at least once in their time on the team - should experience a high-level competition as a competitor. Right now, that high-level competition is The World Championship. In the future, it will be One Of The World Championships. Possibly further down the line, it will be A SuperRegional or SuperDistrict Championship. For my team this year, it was INCMP.

*a laughable premise but I'll take what I can get

[Sunshine]

Well, I may not be more knowledgable but I'll take a stab at it. It's an affirmative "it depends". The World Championship is a combination of many things IMHO. It's part Super Bowl, convention, show case, family gathering, inservice and annual reconfirmation. It's one or all of the above.

For me, just knowing that thousands of educators, students and FIRSTers are all gathered for one common goal is exciting. I always learn a great deal. Whether it's from competing, rubbing elbows, attending workshops, talking with HOF folks or just watching the best bots in the world in awe.

As a team, we explain to students that there are jobs to do. They are our ambassadors, drivers, scouts and pit crew. But they are also expected to take in the great opportunities offered. Students always get empowered by more knowledge and inspiration.

We have been fortunate to attend 5 times in our 9 year history. (As far as our district is concerned we need to "qualify" to attend). The list of "take aways" is endless and well worth the expense and time away from the classroom.