[FRC Blog] Two Championship Survey Results and Path Forward [Archive]

Siri

15-05-2015, 11:50

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog-two-championship-survey-results-and-path-forward

As many of you know, after we announced that FIRST would be moving to having two Championships starting in 2017, we released a survey to FIRST Robotics Competition teams on this change.

7,355 individuals responded. This represents about 10% or so of the total number of mentors and students we have in FRC. About 75% of the 7,355 provided a team number, and those respondents were from 1,501 teams, about 52% of the total number of FRC teams we had in 2015.

One question we asked was just a simple ‘How do you feel about having two FIRST Championships starting in 2017?’ with an answer of 1 representing ‘Strongly Oppose’, an answer of 5 identified as “Neither Oppose nor Favor” and an answer of 10 identified as “Strongly Favor”. The average answer to this questions among all respondents was 4.45, somewhat below the 5 "Neither Oppose nor Favor" rating. Here is a graph of the full results:

http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/cmpfeedback.png

We conducted additional analysis to better understand the rating score. FRC Teams that had never attended Championship had an average rating on this question of 5.85, while teams that had attended Championship had an average rating of 4.05. Mentors and Students had ratings relatively close to each other, at 4.54 and 4.30, respectively. When we determined average ratings from individual teams, then averaged those ratings (essentially giving every team one ‘vote’, and assuming the average rating of all team respondents was the one ‘vote’ for the team), the average rating was 5.2.*

We also asked teams what elements of the ‘Championship Experience’ were most important to them. There were 22 elements to choose from. Teams identified these as their top 10, in order from most to least important:

Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
The experience of attending a major, multi-day event with my team.
Participating in a competition that identifies the best teams playing the game
Seeing teams you have built relationships/partnerships with over the years
Keeping attendance costs reasonable
Participating in a very large scale event with tens of thousands of others
Seeing and meeting international teams
Participating in a competition that identifies the teams most deserving of awards, such as the Chairman's award
Seeing and meeting top teams, like prior Chairman's Award winners (Hall of Fame teams)
Having your matches in an impressive, large scale space

Taken as a whole, I think there is nothing within these survey results that is surprising. They do reinforce the idea that some within our community are strongly opposed to the two Championships concept, and that we should be using the elements identified by teams as most important to them as a guide to refining the concept to help ensure the best experience for all teams as we work through this significant change.

Our intent is to form committees, including representatives from the community outside FIRST HQ, to make recommendations to FIRST leadership in addressing the two key challenges listed below.

Identifying what geographic regions will be assigned to which FIRST Championship as their ‘home’ Championship, including the way in which teams outside the United States would be handled
Identifying a potential way in which teams may volunteer and be selected to attend their non-home Championship
You will hear more about these committees over the next few months. As we noted in the Championship informational session, the facts that there will be two Championships starting in 2017, and that all FIRST programs will be represented at each Championship, will not be changing, and so won’t be part of the discussions undertaken by these groups.

Additionally, FIRST HQ will be exploring the possibility of some culminating event to take place after the two Championships, at which we would bring together the top teams from each Championship in some final competition of the season. This idea is still in the early exploratory phase, and we will share additional details, including potential areas for community input, as appropriate.

Frank

*The analysis of average ratings from individual teams was completed by our Director of Research and Evaluation. She was the only one to see individual average team ratings, and after completing the analysis, deleted the team numbers from the data set.

Steven Donow

15-05-2015, 11:57

That's actually a surprisingly large amount of people filling out the survey (I've always wondered how many people fill out the surveys; I generally fill out most of the offseason ones and occasionally two or three of the weekly ones).

But srsly FIRST has made it clear since the town hall meeting that they have absolutely zero interest in listening to the community and doing anything other than two geographically split championship events, as opposed to two championship events divided in some other way*

*as much as I love these proposals, I just have so much hesitance over them because of teams possibly having to 'shuffle' between championships (ie. finalist at a week 1 event, then winning a week 6)

Madison

15-05-2015, 12:04

What is the perceived value in the idea of one team, one vote?

BrendanB

15-05-2015, 12:08

What is the perceived value in the idea of one team, one vote?

Because it makes their case look better.

PayneTrain

15-05-2015, 12:08

What is the perceived value in the idea of one team, one vote?

The survey providers' need for validation.

Taylor

15-05-2015, 12:10

Engineers love data.
What is the perceived value in the idea of one team, one vote?

Because it makes their case look better.

The survey providers' need for validation.
Raar. Too much data. By being exploratory, they're manipulating it!

[/s]

Gregor

15-05-2015, 12:11

The survey results were very surprisingly close to neutral, with the average response just under 5.

I was expecting a stronger bias.

KeeganP

15-05-2015, 12:14

What is the perceived value in the idea of one team, one vote?

Team A1 has 60 members, and all of them voted for option 1 (strongly opposed).
Teams A2-61 then each have 10 or so members, but only 1 from each team votes. All 60 of those votes would have to be for option 10 (strongly support) in order to balance the overall score.

My assumption is that they are comparing the overall responses to the 1 vote-per-team responses just like we (in the US) have the House of Representatives (reps proportional to the state's (team's) population) and the Senate (2 reps per state (team)). I see a potential value in the separating it out, but not much.

Holtzman

15-05-2015, 12:20

The survey results were very surprisingly close to neutral, with the average response just under 5.

I was expecting a stronger bias.

What is a little misleading about the results is the survey scale. On a scale from 1-10 with 5 being neutral, we have 4 options that are negative, one that's neutral, and 5 options that are positive. This skews the data on the positive side. The average answer of 4.45 is misleading since the left and right sides of the data set have different weights.

Another way of looking at these results is that 55% oppose two championships, 12% are neutral, and only 33% favor two championships. To me, that’s is a much more powerful statement about how the community really feels.

marshall

15-05-2015, 12:20

wilsonmw04

15-05-2015, 12:23

The survey results were very surprisingly close to neutral, with the average response just under 5.

I was expecting a stronger bias.

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

Madison

15-05-2015, 12:24

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

You cannot possibly come to this conclusion without knowing who the respondents were.

jaustinpage

15-05-2015, 12:41

It is interesting that a lot of the analysis is team analysis; which is based off of an optional (identifying) field, e.g. team number. People in extreme camps are less likely to provide identifying information. This is likely going to skew all analysis done on data that excludes responses without the identifying information towards the perceived less dissenting answer, whatever that might be.

EricH

15-05-2015, 12:43

You cannot possibly come to this conclusion without knowing who the respondents were.

No, I think he can, if you look at that statement in context. Gregor commented that he was expecting more bias (towards negative, I'm assuming). Wilson then concluded that there was a vocal minority.

I think that's reasonable: The vocal minority outweighs the silent majority in a lot of matters. This time, though, it's not exactly a minority--but it's close. I'd be thinking really carefully about my PR strategy if I was HQ--a good PR strategy can take a moderate opposition and take it to moderate advocacy given time, but a bad PR strategy can go the other way in a big hurry.

I think my spin detector went off, too, at one point. What I take away from this is: 1, this is going forwards regardless of community feeling, and 2, the overall community isn't exactly happy, but isn't actively opposed.

Y'all saw those committees, right? Boy do I pity those groups--I've got a feeling that more than anybody else (sorry, Frank and HQ), they're going to be the determiner of whether or not that survey result changes more towards strong approval.

jman4747

15-05-2015, 12:53

"Keeping attendance costs reasonable" being only 4th (Edit: sorry 5th)...

I think a lot of really good teams are likely larger than average and if more of them do oppose than I can see more people from each bothering to respond to voice a negative opinion rather than somewhat positive or neutral.
People tend to talk about things when they are very good or bad rather than in the middle. I you notice most or at least a lot of counter arguments supporting the move are merely pointing out that the switch seems more neutral than good or bad. People usually don't spend much time on something that they don't think will matter much.

Also dislike of the need to switch vs dislike of the decision. That is dislike of getting surgery vs dislike of someone taking something from you will pull the results negative though everyone in negative isn't mad at HQ.

Michael Blake

15-05-2015, 12:57

Another way of looking at these results is that 55% oppose two championships, 12% are neutral, and only 33% favor two championships. To me, that’s is a much more powerful statement about how the community really feels.

BAZINGA.

And... it would be interesting to know of the 33% who favor two championships what percentage only competes at ONE competition?

Green Potato

15-05-2015, 12:59

From a statistics point of view, there is no way to control for the 2 big reasons why the results are NOT statistically on-par.

1. It's a voluntary internet poll. The results will always be skewed toward the extreme.
2. There was survey bias in the number of possible responses.

All in all, I feel that because of this, the results may be flawed, but there's one thing I can be certain of: the community responded negaitvely as a whole.

Andrew Schreiber

15-05-2015, 13:00

So, the big takeaway is that 50% of teams don't really care.

Well, at least that's not a surprise.

scottandme

15-05-2015, 13:01

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

26% of respondents really, really, really hate the idea, and it's also the most popular answer. I wouldn't look at that as being a "small number" or insignificant.

Looking at the "important elements" - #1,#3, and #4 are all impossible or highly diluted by implementing 2 championships.

PayneTrain

15-05-2015, 13:06

Engineers love data.

Raar. Too much data. By being exploratory, they're manipulating it!

[/s]

The survey itself was pretty manipulative. The options for the response would bias toward a positive trend, and options on why championships are important to teams were presented in a way that would present responses that would invalidate proposals like the festival/champs split.

But since you earned it:

http://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/you_got_me_breaking_bad.gif

Siri

15-05-2015, 13:12

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.More than a quarter of the respondents are as against this proposal as it is possible to register on this scale. That's closed to 2,000 people in itself (numerically 1912.3 people). 55% of respondents are against the proposal; that's more than 4045 people. CD is vocal, but even assuming the relationship between CD and the survey sample (which is a weird assumption when n=7355), opposition by definition is not the minority opinion. And despite the scale shift, the "strongly opposed" outnumbers all those who voted 10, 9, and 8 combined. More people voted for 1 or 2 than voted for anything above 5.

Does anyone know if there's a standard method of "centering" a scale like this? (The true center is at 5.5, the average of 1 and 10). I don't have a statistical method of turning 4 buckets into 5, but I think the worst-case scenario would be that everyone who voted 1 would've voted 0, and everyone in 2 took 1 (no one votes 4). This creates a new weighted average of 3.92, which represents the low end of possibility: thus the average is somewhere between 3.92 and 4.47 when centered about 5. Did I handle that correctly?

wilsonmw04

15-05-2015, 13:15

26% of respondents really, really, really hate the idea, and it's also the most popular answer.

That's the thing: 26% of RESPONDENTS don't like it. When they gave each team "1 vote," it was average out as favorable. Therefore, my statement stands. Certain groups don't like this new idea and were very vocal about it.

Brandon Holley

15-05-2015, 13:18

Stepping away from the scale metrics for favorability-

The #1, #3 and #4 choices for what people want most out of Championship are all negatively effected by a split Championship. I have to say that particular aspect is very unfortunate.

Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
The experience of attending a major, multi-day event with my team.
Participating in a competition that identifies the best teams playing the game
Seeing teams you have built relationships/partnerships with over the years

-Brando

NotInControl

15-05-2015, 13:22

FIRST this is a total failure in my opinion.

I stated this to some of the FIRST HQ representatives while at champs this year who were telling me to go fill out the survey.

What is the point of even having a survey, if contracts were signed for the venues before the survey or even this idea was announced?

The survey would just capture how the community felt about the decision, not influence the decision at all.

Furthermore, when going to two championships, I've heard speculation of possibly holding an official event where both championships alliances compete to have 1 world championship, to possibly rectify a majority of concerns.

In my opinion, this doesn't rectify anything, and in fact unless FRC picks up the travel bill for the teams, it punishes the winning alliances because their season is now extended, and they will most likely need to re-travel to wherever this new event takes place.

2016, were going to be doing everything possible to earn our way to championships, its going to be the end of an era.

P.S. I did fill out the survey even though I knew it had no real effect on the decision. And this data looks manipulated to the point of uselessness.

Michael Corsetto

15-05-2015, 13:22

Stepping away from the scale metrics for favorability-

The #1, #3 and #4 choices for what people want most out of Championship are all negatively effected by a split Championship. I have to say that particular aspect is very unfortunate.

-Brando

You know what answer to this question didn't even make the top ten?

Having the "full progression of programs" at one event. (I can't remember the exact wording)

Yet...

As we noted in the Championship informational session, the facts that there will be two Championships starting in 2017, and that all FIRST programs will be represented at each Championship, will not be changing, and so won’t be part of the discussions undertaken by these groups.

#priorities

Kevin Leonard

15-05-2015, 13:26

That's the thing: 26% of RESPONDENTS don't like it. When they gave each team "1 vote," it was average out as favorable. Therefore, my statement stands. Certain groups don't like this new idea and were very vocal about it.

Except technically, On a scale of 1-10, 5.1 is negative. For the scale to be accurate, it would have to have 0-10 or 5.5 as the average "I don't care" response.

I'd love to see the raw data and make my own biased set of statistics too.

Taylor

15-05-2015, 13:27

This version of the data is much more illustrative to me than the bar graph.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-WZ5bSWRNhOTjZndU92XzBLeGc/view?usp=sharing

edit: apparently I don't know how to put a picture on this. Be assured this isn't a rickroll.

postedit: yes, I realize that's what a rickroller would type.

Andrew Schreiber

15-05-2015, 13:28

You know what answer to this question didn't even make the top ten?

Having the "full progression of programs" at one event. (I can't remember the exact wording)

Yet...

#priorities

I'll be honest, AS IT HAS BEEN DONE IN THE PAST, I don't care about having the full progression of programs under the same roof. I didn't miss FTC at all at CMP this year. I noticed their lack of presence about as much as I've ever noticed their presence. (I'm biased as a former world festival FLL judge I've noticed their presence quite a bit)

The other programs have always been relegated to sideshow status and I don't care if that continues. In fact, I'd like to see it stopped. If they can't be granted real "participant" status then I'd rather they not be there.

Now, I'd like to have A championship that celebrates all the FIRST programs, the values of FIRST, and celebrates STEM.

Just a thought on why that ranked so low (at least in my mind)

DCA Fan

15-05-2015, 13:33

There's an old saying that goes something like "you can make statistics say anything...." That's what I feel like is happening here. The very long justification of favor/oppose is really just trying to find a way to beat the data into saying what you'd like it to say - and really they came very close.

Bear in mind, in surveys such as these, the people most likely to fill out the survey are people with an opinion on the issue, so it's not necessarily surprising that the largest number are in the "strongly oppose" camp, but I think that to have such a high number of respondents with the same viewpoint should be worth something. Should, but apparently, not so much - given that HQ remains committed to the two champs model.

What frustrates me is their continuation of being committed to the geographic lock - their intent to form committees isn't one of "how to allow teams to attend either championship" but exactly what they planned to do before the town hall - nothing's changed. I don't see a particular value in getting people outside HQ to show up and tell them what regions should go to what championship- unless somehow we're allowed to lobby for it and everyone lobbies to go to one or the other.

BrennanB

15-05-2015, 13:35

So the actual average (taking into account that people who care about the outcome of champs) aka not team per team basis is 4.47

Nate Laverdure

15-05-2015, 13:36

Taylor, here's how you upload an image. :)

Alan Anderson

15-05-2015, 13:36

That's the thing: 26% of RESPONDENTS don't like it.

Count again. I get 55%.

When they gave each team "1 vote," it was average out as favorable.

If only two people vote, one for "Strongly Oppose" and one for "Strongly Favor", a naive average comes out at 5.5, which is a larger value than the 5.2 that you're calling favorable. The numbering of options, with neutral placed below the center point, breaks any simple attempt to do averaging.

The strongest takeaway I get from this chart is that over half the respondents (55%) are opposed, and less than a third (33%) are in favor.

wilsonmw04

15-05-2015, 13:42

Count again. I get 55%.

If only two people vote, one for "Strongly Oppose" and one for "Strongly Favor", a naive average comes out at 5.5, which is a larger value than the 5.2 that you're calling favorable. The numbering of options, with neutral placed below the center point, breaks any simple attempt to do averaging.

The strongest takeaway I get from this chart is that over half the respondents (56%) are opposed, and less than a third (32%) are in favor.

Not arguing any of that. The fact that this is voluntary would tend to favor the extremes. Since this is a change, those who favor the change are probably less motivated to complete this survey. I wonder why they even bothered to send the survey out.

Karthik

15-05-2015, 13:43

drwisley

15-05-2015, 13:44

This continues to get more ridiculous, I'm actually insulted by this blog.

DCA Fan

15-05-2015, 13:48

Now, I'd like to have A championship that celebrates all the FIRST programs, the values of FIRST, and celebrates STEM.

To be honest, in my opinion, if FLL were allowed to have its own championship - not just a world festival, but a true, world championship, it would be a true powerhouse STEM event. Right now, since FLL only gets a certain number of slots - they make due with this festival and then rely on event partners to have Open Championships (I believe there are 5 now around the world).

Sadly, the willpower is not there to make this happen.

IronicDeadBird

15-05-2015, 13:53

I sincerely hope that FIRST has a solid plan for those community input channels.

jman4747

15-05-2015, 14:00

I worry about "social desirability bias" within and between teams.

And I hinted at it before but as I think about it how is "Keeping attendance costs reasonable" so low? It bothers me. To me it says that a higher proportion of teams don't need to worry about paying the same or more money for registration and travel. That is not indicative of a lot of teams.

Going deeper:

We do know more people care about (or people care more about):

Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
The experience of attending a major, multi-day event with my team.
Participating in a competition that identifies the best teams playing the game
Seeing teams you have built relationships/partnerships with over the years

Who would care most about these things but also not need to worry about costs?

Lets look as attendance costs as registration fee first. Reasonable is most likely not less that $5,000 as clearly that's whats been needed. It also says "keep reasonable" implying the $5,000 we've had is reasonable. So if the majority of teams/people answering don't need registration to stay = or < $5,000...

Lets even assume that the vast majority of teams actually have a sponsor who will upon the team qualifying pay the fee in full; money they would not have had otherwise. In that case travel costs are the only major money concern. Those costs go over $3,000 for hotels alone very easily.

Who would care that much more about the above 4 than costs staying at least where they are?

AdamHeard

15-05-2015, 14:04

evanperryg

15-05-2015, 14:19

Because it makes their case look better.
The survey providers' need for validation.
So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

Case in point. Angry people tend to be louder than happy people. However, Holtzman makes a very good point that we, and FIRST, should consider. The numbers show a larger negative trend than it might seem.
My problem isn't completely with the 2 championship idea. I think with the right refinements, it will work just fine. I have a problem with how FIRST is dividing the event, because, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, they are moving the wrong way. Here's a quote from Don Bossi, copied from the transcript of the 2 Champs informational session:
"At this event last year we announced that we found a way here within St. Louis
to increase that and try to get that back into the 20 percent [of all FRC teams qualifying for champs] range by going to 600 teams...
The story for FIRST® LEGO® League, FIRST® Tech Challenge, Junior FIRST® LEGO® League is
much worse. FIRST Tech Challenge has the capacity for about 3 percent of their teams at
Championship. FIRST LEGO League, it kills me when I talk to a FIRST LEGO League partner
for a country and I say, oh we can’t even send a team this year, we don’t have a slot this year."
He then discusses some thrown-out options for changing FRC. The fact that he doesn't go into detail about how changing the timing of FRC would improve qualification rates leads me to believe that the ideas he discusses wouldn't have fixed anything. As far as I'm concerned, his presentation of these ideas is little more than a way to strengthen his point through shocking the audience.
Rhetoric aside, the most viable solution to the problems experienced by FLL and FTC are most easily resolved by the one solution that was discussed for the least amount of time. Why not put FTC at one event, and FRC at another? I recognize that FIRST wants to keep their programs intertwined, going along with the "progression of programs," but by giving FTC their own world championship venue, the size and scale of the FRC venue, they will be able to boost qualification rates astronomically. An FTC/FLL championship would also permit FTC to gain its own public identity. When asked about student robotics competitions, I have never come across a non-FIRSTer who knew anything about FTC. Most of them will answer a question about student robotics with something related to "I saw one that plays basketball!" or "oh, the little lego robots, right?" Perhaps it's time FIRST allowed FTC to gain their own identity, and make their championship event into their championship event. Perhaps it would be more logical to expand FLL into a double championship format, as head-to-head competition is a small, even nonexistent part of their program. By splitting FLL, you avoid the problems with not deciding a single winner of a highly competitive program, and you offer more space for more FLL teams to qualify. By putting FRC at one event and FTC at another, you keep the 2 most competitive events together, while significantly increasing the qualification rates for FTC.

GreyingJay

15-05-2015, 14:19

We do know more people care about (or people care more about):

Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
The experience of attending a major, multi-day event with my team.
Participating in a competition that identifies the best teams playing the game
Seeing teams you have built relationships/partnerships with over the years

Who would care most about these things but also not need to worry about costs?

We worry about cost. Of course we do. But cost variability is not huge. I drive or fly to St. Louis or to Houston, or Detroit, or, heck, pick any other major city in the USA. The cost will vary plus or minus a little bit, but not that much in the long run. Not enough to rank cost above those first four items.

Now, if FIRST had announced that the championships would now be held in Paris, I might complain a little louder and say, Hey, as much as I want to see my friends, and all the best teams, I simply can't afford that. Now I have to make harder decisions about whether I want to see all the best teams or whether I settle for something smaller and closer and cheaper.

jman4747

15-05-2015, 14:28

Maybe there is a flaw with ranking things as singularly more important than others in cascading order... World might be more complicated than that.

Well it was and people answered.

Ranking things as singularly more important than others in cascading order is a very necessary tactic of survival in the very real very harsh world. People do it a lot when resources are tight. People around the world are always having to chose between things that should never be opposing each other.

This survey asked what was more important and Ranking things as singularly more important than others is a good way to draw out true motivations and see what actually can be sacrificed for what if you absolutely must chose one. Sometimes you'll find that one thing is actually not as important than another after you are forced to think about it.

A related example was when I got my second desktop I obviously thought I would need to transfer files from the old one. And there were a lot. After using the new computer for longer and longer I never did. It turned out none of that stuff was so irreplaceable or necessary. I never would have thought that while I had it and yet within a year I dissembled the hard drive to see how the insides worked. To think that everything on the hard drive was less important than my basic understanding of the engineering behind it.

That is the sort of thing "ranking things as singularly more important than others in cascading order" can sometimes have and for good benefit. Don't discount the method.

Hot_Copper_Frog

15-05-2015, 14:29

Taken as a whole, I think there is nothing within these survey results that is surprising. They do reinforce the idea that some within our community are strongly opposed to the two Championships concept, and that we should be using the elements identified by teams as most important to them as a guide to refining the concept to help ensure the best experience for all teams as we work through this significant change.

When I think "some", I don't think 26% and I CERTAINLY don't think 55%. This opinion is very representative of the organization as a whole. I find it interesting that it's only stated that results indicate FIRST HQ should use these elements to guide refinement of the concept, not that FIRST HQ is taking them into consideration.

Our intent is to form committees, including representatives from the community outside FIRST HQ, to make recommendations to FIRST leadership in addressing the two key challenges listed below.

Identifying what geographic regions will be assigned to which FIRST Championship as their ‘home’ Championship, including the way in which teams outside the United States would be handled
Identifying a potential way in which teams may volunteer and be selected to attend their non-home Championship

You will hear more about these committees over the next few months. As we noted in the Championship informational session, the facts that there will be two Championships starting in 2017, and that all FIRST programs will be represented at each Championship, will not be changing, and so won’t be part of the discussions undertaken by these groups.

So...the committees are only dedicated to identifying possible solutions to issues related to geographical assignment. And these committees will make recommendations, which may or may not be implemented. Nothing else will be addressed, as nothing else is up for discussion.

Additionally, FIRST HQ will be exploring the possibility of some culminating event to take place after the two Championships, at which we would bring together the top teams from each Championship in some final competition of the season. This idea is still in the early exploratory phase, and we will share additional details, including potential areas for community input, as appropriate.

So, in order to appease a community that is upset that their thoughts were not taken into account for such a massive change, we are going to ask the two champion alliances to participate in an afterthought showdown event. Ask mentors who have already drained most of their vacation days to take MORE time off to travel, ask students who have already missed many days of school to miss some more, and ask teams who have already spent thousands of dollars on travel to spend a few more.

I want to be excited about this. I really do. I AM excited to bring championships home to Detroit. I'm just...uncomfortable with how all of this is being handled.

jman4747

15-05-2015, 14:34

We worry about cost. Of course we do. But cost variability is not huge. I drive or fly to St. Louis or to Houston, or Detroit, or, heck, pick any other major city in the USA. The cost will vary plus or minus a little bit, but not that much in the long run. Not enough to rank cost above those first four items.

Now, if FIRST had announced that the championships would now be held in Paris, I might complain a little louder and say, Hey, as much as I want to see my friends, and all the best teams, I simply can't afford that. Now I have to make harder decisions about whether I want to see all the best teams or whether I settle for something smaller and closer and cheaper.

What that data tells me is many think current costs could change (rise) to make the top 4 options happen. This means that those individuals are very confidant that they can pay even more to get what they really value which are the top 4 options. 5k plus travel (3-4K) is a lot to some of us still...

Drakxii

15-05-2015, 14:35

Jared Russell

15-05-2015, 14:35

And I hinted at it before but as I think about it how is "Keeping attendance costs reasonable" so low? It bothers me.

Because the survey asked respondents to choose their top N items. The decision to split the Championship has only minor effects on cost for most teams.

Anupam Goli

15-05-2015, 14:47

Because the survey asked respondents to choose their top N items. The decision to split the Championship has only minor effects on cost for most teams.

Going to Detroit, going to Houston, going to St Louis, it's all about the same distance for us, and a lot of other teams. Had I not known what the venues were, or were they to tell me to disregard the venue choice, I may have answered differently, but as it is cost isn't a big factor when the only difference will be whether we'll be 10 hours away in intense humidity, or 10 hours away in a just-thawed city.

This also brings up an interesting point: Had this survey been given out before the announcements, I guarantee we'd see a different set of responses, and some different priorities (cost reduction would've been higher priority, and one true champion would've been less important).

I hope the committee will come up with a solution for region locking so that I don't have to go on vacation to California and Washington to see some inspirational teams and my skunk buddies...

Siri

15-05-2015, 14:53

Because the survey asked respondents to choose their top N items. The decision to split the Championship has only minor effects on cost for most teams.True. Ranking cost #4 could mean, at least and in no particular order:
- Cost doesn't matter to me.
- This split doesn't affect my costs as significantly as it affects other things I want to check off.
- If the CMP doesn't give me 1, 2, and/or 3, cost doesn't matter because because I'm not going to fundraise (even some minimum reasonable cost) to go--e.g. I'll go to another regional, or save it for IRI, or build a better robot, or put it in the bank, or...
- And probably at least several other reasons. No need to jump to conclusions about respondents.

GreyingJay

15-05-2015, 15:05

What that data tells me is many think current costs could change (rise) to make the top 4 options happen. This means that those individuals are very confidant that they can pay even more to get what they really value which are the top 4 options. 5k plus travel (3-4K) is a lot to some of us still...

Yes, I guess you can also interpret that as "As long as I still get to see my friends / top teams / etc, I don't mind if the cost goes up a little bit." That is how I ranked the factors, but I did so knowing that there is some reasonable limit to how much costs will change, having some knowledge of what FIRST is planning or typically does. In this case, I know they are looking for some large American city. I am OK with the cost variability of travelling to large American cities. I answered the question keeping that in mind.

My answer might have been different if FIRST had said, say "To give you what you want, in one giant world championship, we will need to move the event to some other country".

maths222

15-05-2015, 15:11

northstardon

15-05-2015, 15:14

My beef with the "Favor/Oppose 2 Championships" question is that it was asked without context (or, more charitably, that it was asked assuming that the respondents all knew that context). It's like asking people if they favor/oppose eating their vegetables.

Better questions might have been:

"Do you favor/oppose two championships, if FIRST brought the two winning alliances together to crown one true champion?"

or,

"Do you favor/oppose two championships that are tiered, with all of the highest-ranked, most competitive robots attending one of the two events to determine the one true champion?"

or,

"The highest number of teams that could be accommodated by a single championship event is 650. The total number of FRC teams is increasing each year. Do you favor/oppose two championships, knowing that the number of teams attending a single championship each year will (on a percentage basis) continue to decrease?"

jman4747

15-05-2015, 15:24

Because the survey asked respondents to choose their top N items. The decision to split the Championship has only minor effects on cost for most teams.
I'm working of the assumption that they are using the survey to see what they can change in both the near and far future to get people what they want. Money being 5th sounds like costs can go up for other things which for many they can't.

Lil' Lavery

15-05-2015, 15:27

You know what answer to this question didn't even make the top ten?

Having the "full progression of programs" at one event. (I can't remember the exact wording)

Yet...

#priorities

Was this survey open to FLL and FTC teams? Was it advertised to them? How about sponsors (both team and event)?

FRC members are not the only stakeholders here.

GreyingJay

15-05-2015, 16:11

One of the biggest things that made the World Championship so special and different from other tournaments, like super-regionals, was the opportunity to see and interact with FRC teams and robots, and by splitting the programs, the FTC championships immediately feel less big and magical. This doesn't mean I support two championships, but it does mean that if there are to be two, some presence of the whole progression of programs seems valuable.

I enjoyed the brief tour of the FTC pits I got, but I was only able to go over to Union Station (taking one of the shuttles) because our FRC team was working on the FedEx Innovation Challenge which required us to go over there to complete a task. Otherwise I would never have bothered to visit. That's not being mean-spirited, it's just that I didn't even really know that FTC was going on over there until I got off the bus and walked in, and even if I had, it's far removed enough from the FRC "campus" that it was quite a bit of effort to get there, and between our matches and the conference sessions and Scholarship Row and the Innovation Faire and that darned merchandise line-up, I probably would not have been able to squeeze it all in.

Was the reverse true for FTC? Did a lot of the students make the shuttle trip over to check out what was going on in FRC?

And, this being my first year seeing it -- were FRC and FTC always this physically separated?

Drakxii

15-05-2015, 16:13

To throw a bit of FTC perspective into this thread: I understand that most FRC participants don't care about seeing FTC and FLL, and to be honest, I probably wouldn't either if I participated in FRC. However, it is the other direction which is much more significant (at least from my perspective). One of the biggest things that made the World Championship so special and different from other tournaments, like super-regionals, was the opportunity to see and interact with FRC teams and robots, and by splitting the programs, the FTC championships immediately feel less big and magical. This doesn't mean I support two championships, but it does mean that if there are to be two, some presence of the whole progression of programs seems valuable.

Very true but I think a model like what Alamo does where the FTC super-regional held at the same time as an FRC event would be a better model then have both the FTC and FRC champs at the same location. This would allow FTC team to interact with FRC teams (and more of them) without the FTC game being totally overshadowed by the FRC game.

Cory

15-05-2015, 16:13

Drakxii

15-05-2015, 16:18

Was this survey open to FLL and FTC teams? Was it advertised to them? How about sponsors (both team and event)?

FRC members are not the only stakeholders here.

True but they are the only stakeholders FIRST seems to be interested in. FIRST has barely talked about the effect this will have FLL and FTC other then their stance that they will be at both champs. I haven't see any details on where they will play, how many teams will be invited to each champs, or how they will decide which teams will go to which champs.

Lil' Lavery

15-05-2015, 16:25

But we are the most visible and highest paying stakeholders here (by a wide margin). FIRST can pretend that doesn't matter... But it does.

My point was primarily to point out that the results for that question could be misleading, when the other stakeholders were not invited to participate in the survey.

Also, I'd say the program/event sponsors are the highest paying stakeholder here (by a wide margin).

AdamHeard

15-05-2015, 16:27

My point was primarily to point out that the results for that question could be misleading, when the other stakeholders were not invited to participate in the survey.

Also, I'd say the program/event sponsors are the highest paying stakeholder here (by a wide margin).

Is that true? Do sponsors really contribute more funds than the combined team fees?

I honestly don't know. Would be curious to hear the numbers.

Christopher149

15-05-2015, 16:34

And, this being my first year seeing it -- were FRC and FTC always this physically separated?

In 2014, FTC had its pits about where Archimedes pits were in 2015, and had playing fields on the dome floor. So, this significant separation is new.

drwisley

15-05-2015, 16:48

My point was primarily to point out that the results for that question could be misleading, when the other stakeholders were not invited to participate in the survey.

Also, I'd say the program/event sponsors are the highest paying stakeholder here (by a wide margin).

I bet the engineering hours of our mentors being donated far exceed any of the green dollars spent by teams or sponsors. We're talking about the 'engineer's engineers' as well. Competing is fun, laughing at teenagers is also, but we could all be inventing or running side businesses with these hours.

Lil' Lavery

15-05-2015, 16:54

I bet the engineering hours of our mentors being donated far exceed any of the green dollars spent by teams or sponsors. We're talking about the 'engineer's engineers' as well. Competing is fun, laughing at teenagers is also, but we could all be inventing or running side businesses with these hours.

If you're going to consider aggregate man hours donated, then FLL wins in a landslide. Even if you appraise an engineer's man hour higher than a teacher's or parent's, the quantity of FLL teams is an order of magnitude higher than FRC teams.

jman4747

15-05-2015, 16:55

Is that true? Do sponsors really contribute more funds than the combined team fees?

I honestly don't know. Would be curious to hear the numbers.

Both FIRST's sponsors and team's sponsors contribute. Though several major sponsors of both are on the board/were part of the decision in the first place.

drwisley

15-05-2015, 17:00

If you're going to consider aggregate man hours donated, then FLL wins in a landslide. Even if you appraise an engineer's man hour higher than a teacher's or parent's, the quantity of FLL teams is an order of magnitude higher than FRC teams.

That could be, but having coached both, most of my mentors could do meaningful work with the 3-7 hundred hours per year donated to FRC. Average FLL hours per mentor don't compare.

IKE

15-05-2015, 17:07

Is that true? Do sponsors really contribute more funds than the combined team fees?

I honestly don't know. Would be curious to hear the numbers.

Looking through the 2014 data, I get pretty close to 50/50 for FRC. If you allocate FRCs portion of the FIRST G&A, then money outside of registration fees pays a bigger portion of what it takes for FIRST to do FRC.
Now if you consider that big chunks of those registration fees are also being paid by some of the same sponsors giving directly to FIRST, then you would likely see something more along 19-25% team generated funding vs. 75-90% Corporate donations. I am not saying teams do not work hard for those donations, but I am trying to remind everyone that FRC is a very heavily subsidized game we all play being subsidized by sponsors who are betting on us to help change the culture of the World, and provide the workforce they need to change the world.

PSA: Now that the season is over, Don't forget to thank your sponsors! It is one of the best ways to ensure they don't forget about you when they start handing out the money.

drwisley

15-05-2015, 17:17

If you're going to consider aggregate man hours donated, then FLL wins in a landslide. Even if you appraise an engineer's man hour higher than a teacher's or parent's, the quantity of FLL teams is an order of magnitude higher than FRC teams.

Additionally, this is my very point, not FRC > FLL mentors, but that mentor engagement and motivation is the critical aspect of all STEM. Schools, sponsors and students have something tangible to be gained. The engineers can just as easily turn their hours into individual profit.

Citrus Dad

15-05-2015, 18:09

Is that true? Do sponsors really contribute more funds than the combined team fees?

I honestly don't know. Would be curious to hear the numbers.

Entry fees to Champs are about $3M. A quick estimate is that Regional Fees are about another $15M. I haven't added in District fees.

Citrus Dad

15-05-2015, 18:24

Case in point. Angry people tend to be louder than happy people. However, Holtzman makes a very good point that we, and FIRST, should consider. The numbers show a larger negative trend than it might seem.
My problem isn't completely with the 2 championship idea. I think with the right refinements, it will work just fine. I have a problem with how FIRST is dividing the event, because, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, they are moving the wrong way. Here's a quote from Don Bossi, copied from the transcript of the 2 Champs informational session:
"At this event last year we announced that we found a way here within St. Louis
to increase that and try to get that back into the 20 percent [of all FRC teams qualifying for champs] range by going to 600 teams...
The story for FIRST® LEGO® League, FIRST® Tech Challenge, Junior FIRST® LEGO® League is
much worse. FIRST Tech Challenge has the capacity for about 3 percent of their teams at
Championship. FIRST LEGO League, it kills me when I talk to a FIRST LEGO League partner
for a country and I say, oh we can’t even send a team this year, we don’t have a slot this year."
He then discusses some thrown-out options for changing FRC. The fact that he doesn't go into detail about how changing the timing of FRC would improve qualification rates leads me to believe that the ideas he discusses wouldn't have fixed anything. As far as I'm concerned, his presentation of these ideas is little more than a way to strengthen his point through shocking the audience.
Rhetoric aside, the most viable solution to the problems experienced by FLL and FTC are most easily resolved by the one solution that was discussed for the least amount of time. Why not put FTC at one event, and FRC at another? I recognize that FIRST wants to keep their programs intertwined, going along with the "progression of programs," but by giving FTC their own world championship venue, the size and scale of the FRC venue, they will be able to boost qualification rates astronomically. An FTC/FLL championship would also permit FTC to gain its own public identity. When asked about student robotics competitions, I have never come across a non-FIRSTer who knew anything about FTC. Most of them will answer a question about student robotics with something related to "I saw one that plays basketball!" or "oh, the little lego robots, right?" Perhaps it's time FIRST allowed FTC to gain their own identity, and make their championship event into their championship event. Perhaps it would be more logical to expand FLL into a double championship format, as head-to-head competition is a small, even nonexistent part of their program. By splitting FLL, you avoid the problems with not deciding a single winner of a highly competitive program, and you offer more space for more FLL teams to qualify. By putting FRC at one event and FTC at another, you keep the 2 most competitive events together, while significantly increasing the qualification rates for FTC.

This is an interesting passage because it reveals an important motivation for FIRST HQ. I think they see FLL, not FRC, as their future. I suspect that LEGO has a huge voice behind FIRST--FLL must be an important market of LEGO. So raising the visibility of FLL becomes most important.

Unfortunately, this is like trying to use AYSO to promote interest in soccer. While AYSO participation has exploded, it has had little impact on the interest in soccer in the U.S. In fact such interest has only increased as the women's team became dominant at the World Cup and the men's team really became competitive in 1994.

Citrus Dad

15-05-2015, 18:31

One question we asked was just a simple ‘How do you feel about having two FIRST Championships starting in 2017?’ with an answer of 1 representing ‘Strongly Oppose’, an answer of 5 identified as “Neither Oppose nor Favor” and an answer of 10 identified as “Strongly Favor”. The average answer to this questions among all respondents was 4.45, somewhat below the 5 "Neither Oppose nor Favor" rating.

This statement is misleading. Based on the graphic, the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s"). That's a pretty overwhelming landslide in opposition. I'm not sure if a presidential candidate has ever exceeded that in the popular vote. The decision looks to be deeply, deeply unpopular.

Siri

15-05-2015, 19:05

This statement is misleading. Based on the graphic, the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s"). That's a pretty overwhelming landslide in opposition. I'm not sure if a presidential candidate has ever exceeded that in the popular vote. The decision looks to be deeply, deeply unpopular.That's actually a very interesting comparison. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_po pular_vote_margin) tells me no; the highest popular vote take home was LBJ in '64 with 61.05%. This means that no US president since 1824* has had this level of a popular vote mandate. Granted, even the US has better voter turn out than this. *First available data.

grstex

15-05-2015, 19:49

This statement is misleading. Based on the graphic, the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s"). That's a pretty overwhelming landslide in opposition. I'm not sure if a presidential candidate has ever exceeded that in the popular vote. The decision looks to be deeply, deeply unpopular.

26+11+11+7=55%. I don't know where you're getting 62.5%. Even if you split the 12% of Neutral responses, that brings you to 61%. But splitting neutral responses really wouldn't be fair analysis. That's like counting undecided voters as going to one candidate or another, when they've clearly stated they're undecided.

mklinker

15-05-2015, 19:55

Knufire

15-05-2015, 19:56

55/88 = 62.5, neutral voters were removed from the total as well. So 62.5% of respondents who did not answer neutral were in the opposing range, which is exactly what his statement said.

Basel A

15-05-2015, 20:01

FIRST's analysis of the survey numbers and this thread are great examples of the old theory of "people are just going to see what they want to see in the numbers."

When I looked at the numbers, I immediately grouped the data into buckets.

Strongly oppose (ratings 1-3): 48%
Neutral (ratings 4-7): 29%
Strongly favour (ratings 8-10): 23%

Of course, my parsing of the data is probably skewed by my own biases. Your mileage may vary.

Seems to me this is the most reasonable analysis (could argue 7 is favour, but could go either way). Removing neutral voters makes no sense. They have an opinion. Neutral is a totally valid opinion.

I don't think you can look at this data and reasonably say "most of FRC is opposed to two Championships," especially when the nonvoters likely don't care/are neutral.

grstex

15-05-2015, 20:01

55/88 = 62.5, neutral voters were removed from the total as well.

I see. But that doesn't actually represent the response to the survey. That's only a poll of those who are biased one way or the other. It's not like the neutral opinions don't count.

ay2b

15-05-2015, 20:06

Was this survey open to FLL and FTC teams? Was it advertised to them? How about sponsors (both team and event)?

FRC members are not the only stakeholders here.

But we are the most visible and highest paying stakeholders here (by a wide margin). FIRST can pretend that doesn't matter... But it does.

I have to disagree with you, Cory. 600 teams at $5,000 each is only $3,000,000. I count 19 "strategic partners (http://www.usfirst.org/sponsors/Founding-and-Strategic)"; I believe I remember hearing that was a minimum of $1,000,000 contribution to be listed as such. There's an additional 10 "founding partners", which I suspect is an even larger contribution. That's roughly 10x the money that teams pay, and is only counting the two two tiers of sponsorship.

I'd have to say that the highest paying (by a wide margin) stakeholders are the sponsors.

Siri

15-05-2015, 20:14

I don't think you can look at this data and reasonably say "most of FRC is opposed to two Championships," especially when the nonvoters likely don't care/are neutral.It's not 62% of respondents, but you can absolutely look at the data and say that: 55% of respondents are opposed to two Championships. That's most.

We can speculate all we want about the opinions of the people who didn't vote, but there's nothing to delineate the reasonableness of those speculations.

I see. But that doesn't actually represent the response to the survey. That's only a poll of those who are biased one way or the other. It's not like the neutral opinions don't count.It's a measure of mandate that's intended to elucidate the misleading nature of the "average" purported in the blog. As yet we don't know of any way to properly center the data (the actual average of 1 to 10 is 5.5, whereas neutral is a "5"). Directly calculating the relationship between those who fall on one side or the other of neutral provides another sort of insight into the flaw in the scale.

Cory

15-05-2015, 20:17

I have to disagree with you, Cory. 600 teams at $5,000 each is only $3,000,000. I count 19 "strategic partners (http://www.usfirst.org/sponsors/Founding-and-Strategic)"; I believe I remember hearing that was a minimum of $1,000,000 contribution to be listed as such. There's an additional 10 "founding partners", which I suspect is an even larger contribution. That's roughly 10x the money that teams pay, and is only counting the two two tiers of sponsorship.

I'd have to say that the highest paying (by a wide margin) stakeholders are the sponsors.

I actually completely missed Sean's line about sponsors when I posted. I agree. FRC teams are not as big of a financial contributor to FIRST as the sponsors are.

However, I think if you polled all the sponsors they're probably not stoked that they get two chances to give their company air time...they're probably wondering how the hell they're going to make their steadily shrinking budgets for FIRST cover two events instead of one.

Taylor

15-05-2015, 20:17

I very consciously voted a 5 in this.
As an American citizen who has consumed the Democracy Kool-Aid, I'd be sorely disappointed if my carefully considered vote was discarded.

Drakxii

15-05-2015, 20:23

grstex

15-05-2015, 20:29

It's not 62% of respondents, but you can absolutely look at the data and say that: 55% of respondents are opposed to two Championships. That's most.

We can speculate all we want about the opinions of the people who didn't vote, but there's nothing to delineate the reasonableness of those speculations.

It's a measure of mandate that's intended to elucidate the misleading nature of the "average" purported in the blog. As yet we don't know of any way to properly center the data (the actual average of 1 to 10 is 5.5, whereas neutral is a "5"). Directly calculating the relationship between those who fall on one side or the other of neutral provides another sort of insight into the flaw in the scale.

But you can't say "62.5% of respondents oppose the split." That's just not true. the "mandate" is that 55% oppose the split. you CAN'T just discard 12% of the responses. That's more misleading than average from the blog.

Dave McLaughlin

15-05-2015, 20:31

I very consciously voted a 5 in this.
As an American citizen who has consumed the Democracy Kool-Aid, I'd be sorely disappointed if my carefully considered vote was discarded.

Why, if you are neutral in regard to the change? Wouldn't that be like answering with "I don't care" if you were asked what kind of pizza you wanted for dinner, only to get upset when your input is not used?

The other Gabe

15-05-2015, 20:35

Why, if you are neutral in regard to the change? Wouldn't that be like answering with "I don't care" if you were asked what kind of pizza you wanted for dinner, only to get upset when your input is not used?

no. it means I'm not sure yet, and want to see how stuff pans out still.

Racer26

15-05-2015, 20:42

Seems to me this is the most reasonable analysis (could argue 7 is favour, but could go either way). Removing neutral voters makes no sense. They have an opinion. Neutral is a totally valid opinion.

I don't think you can look at this data and reasonably say "most of FRC is opposed to two Championships," especially when the nonvoters likely don't care/are neutral.

Karthik has reconciled the unevenly weighted scale by simply clumping the most opposed, and most favoured 3 choices together and leaving the rest as neutral. Counting 7 as favour would make his Favour and Oppose buckets different sizes again.

And his result? I don't know how you can see a 48/29/23 split and suggest anything other than that "most" people are opposed.

The whole thing just really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Some around here know I did not participate in FRC this year due to some issues last year ultimately resulting in my leaving the team I was with. The details surrounding that are unimportant.

I've always been a pretty vocal person when I think things aren't how they ought to be, and many of the responses I've seen from FIRST management come off as being more about saving face and keeping up appearances than they are about correcting mistakes and being the best organization we can be. That's never sat right with me, and ultimately, I decided to sit back and take a year off, and see how I feel about returning to mentoring a team in 2016.

Everything about the championsplit, and this survey, and Frank's blog about it is screaming to me that FIRST is an organization that has lost touch with its goals. I'd *love* to see the distribution of the students-only 4.3 average. The whole point of this is to inspire them. If they are similarly distributed to what we can glean from the overall numbers, only slightly more heavily biased to the low-end? That's terrifying and should be a serious wake-up call to HQ.

This shouldn't be about spin-doctoring statistics to try and appease the masses with "See? We're not *really* doing something you all hate". If an announcement has decades-long mentors suggesting that they are willing to leave the program in favour of building their own within hours of said announcement? THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY WRONG.

Lil' Lavery

15-05-2015, 20:49

Why, if you are neutral in regard to the change? Wouldn't that be like answering with "I don't care" if you were asked what kind of pizza you wanted for dinner, only to get upset when your input is not used?

Having a neutral opinion of something is not equivalent to "I don't care."

Dave McLaughlin

15-05-2015, 20:53

Having a neutral opinion of something is not equivalent to "I don't care."

I apologize for my terse language, would it have been more appropriate to say "Neither Oppose nor Favor" a proposed pizza selection?

Siri

15-05-2015, 20:54

But you can't say "62.5% of respondents oppose the split." That's just not true. the "mandate" is that 55% oppose the split. you CAN'T just discard 12% of the responses. That's more misleading than average from the blog.I agree that the statement "62.5% of respondents oppose the split" is not true. I suspect everyone does; it's math. As a side note, the statement "the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s")" is completely true.

However, unless you have a mathematical or industry standard to support the conclusion that 62.5% is more misleading than 4.45, I disagree. At the very least, Richard actually told us directly what his calculation was in the midst of a discussion that already took issue with the neutrality of the 5 average. Frank left his misleading calculation to be discovered, which is a huge problem in itself. I don't think that this was intentional by Frank. A very big part of this problem is that this is an intuitive scale on its face, but he should've done his homework before making a highly misleading and unqualified statement that included both the term 'average' and the term 'neither oppose nor favor'.

The correct 'intuitive' truth that we're looking for--i.e. what the average looks like when centered about neutral--is somewhere between Richard's calculation and Frank's average. There's no way to access it. Do you have a better method of getting closer? This is an iterative issue; Karthik took one approach, I tried another averaging technique (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1482315#post1482315).

Rangel(kf7fdb)

15-05-2015, 21:18

I'd be curious to know how many active users their are on CD. Many have been using the hive mind argument to show how the negative opinion of champs is only the most vocal people but I think this survey pretty much counteracts that. It doesn't really surprise me though after I had talked to many AZ FRC alumni who had pretty similar thoughts about champs. Wasn't sure about everywhere else though. I agree with others though about what was the point of the data if the results weren't surprising. I disagree that the point of the poll was about how to improve the 2 champs when a lot of the discussion just focused on what people thought about it. And why does what people think matter if it isn't going to change a single thing.

Mike Schreiber

15-05-2015, 21:31

As someone who has participated in the planning and execution of customer surveys and clinics before, I'm just going to leave this here for future reference.

Likert Scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale)

jeremylee

15-05-2015, 21:54

I actually completely missed Sean's line about sponsors when I posted. I agree. FRC teams are not as big of a financial contributor to FIRST as the sponsors are.

However, I think if you polled all the sponsors they're probably not stoked that they get two chances to give their company air time...they're probably wondering how the hell they're going to make their steadily shrinking budgets for FIRST cover two events instead of one.

This worries me even more. I don't see 2 "championships" bringing in much for additional sponsorship dollars, but I do see significant cost associated with putting on a 2nd "championship".

ay2b

16-05-2015, 00:12

I think if you polled all the sponsors they're probably not stoked that they get two chances to give their company air time...they're probably wondering how the hell they're going to make their steadily shrinking budgets for FIRST cover two events instead of one.

This worries me even more. I don't see 2 "championships" bringing in much for additional sponsorship dollars, but I do see significant cost associated with putting on a 2nd "championship".

Previously FIRST was selling the sponsors the ability to reach 600 teams at 1 event. Now FIRST is selling the ability to reach twice as many teams. I'm sure that if a company wants to buy advertising at ("sponsor") only one event, they can, but of course FIRST would encourage them to do both.

gblake

16-05-2015, 00:18

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly! :eek:

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life as one of the New World Order's Illuminatis' brainwashed proles :rolleyes:, surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords (whom I look forward to serving)) is this:
Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.
;)
Blake

Ichlieberoboter

16-05-2015, 00:25

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly! :eek:

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, clearly, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life with the rest of the masses who have been completely brainwashed by the Illuminati of the New World Order :rolleyes:, surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords) is this:
Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.
;)
Blake
That, my friend, is deep.

216Robochick288

16-05-2015, 00:40

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly! :eek:

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, clearly, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life with the rest of the masses who have been completely brainwashed by the Illuminati of the New World Order :rolleyes:, surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords) is this:Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.;)
Blake

....Half Life 3 confirmed?

Deke

16-05-2015, 00:53

Another way of looking at these results is that 55% oppose two championships, 12% are neutral, and only 33% favor two championships. To me, that’s is a much more powerful statement about how the community really feels.

When I looked at the numbers, I immediately grouped the data into buckets.

Strongly oppose (ratings 1-3): 48%
Neutral (ratings 4-7): 29%
Strongly favour (ratings 8-10): 23%

I find both of these interesting, so I would like to expand on them:

1 vs 10 = 26 to 12 = 2.16:1 ratio
1-2 vs 9-10 = 37 to 16 = 2.31 ratio
1-3 vs 8-10 = 48 to 23 = 2.09 ratio
1-4 vs 7-10 = 55 to 29 = 1.90 ratio
1-5 vs 6-10 = 67 to 33 = 2.03 ratio

No matter how you slice the deck, for every one person approving the championsplit, there are two people opposing it.

Lil' Lavery

16-05-2015, 01:12

This worries me even more. I don't see 2 "championships" bringing in much for additional sponsorship dollars, but I do see significant cost associated with putting on a 2nd "championship".

Every previous Championship location has results in corporations based in the area contributing as sponsors. Coca-Cola was a giant presence in Atlanta, Monsanto in St. Louis, Disney in Orlando, etc. I suspect we'll see similar in Houston and Detroit.

Cory

16-05-2015, 02:02

Previously FIRST was selling the sponsors the ability to reach 600 teams at 1 event. Now FIRST is selling the ability to reach twice as many teams. I'm sure that if a company wants to buy advertising at ("sponsor") only one event, they can, but of course FIRST would encourage them to do both.

1.5x as many teams, right? 2x400 vs 1x600.

I have heard that key Championship Event sponsors were not made aware of this plan before we were, or consulted at all as to their thoughts on/ability to support two events. That seems like a huge problem.

Steven Smith

16-05-2015, 03:52

From a personal standpoint and as a mentor, I have one opinion on the championship split, and I've expressed that in other posts.

However, I also have some visibility into the sponsor side, so I'll speak to my knowledge there. I'm not an official spokesman of company policy, but since I got involved with FIRST, I've been more involved with the circles where decisions are made regarding educational donations and have lobbied for more support for FIRST.

I see sponsorship dollars (at least at the Fortune 500 corporation level) as being a bit more flexible, with the ability to flex up to account for program growth.

Over $500 billion (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20.html) is spent annually on pre-K to 12th grade education in the US by government. At my company alone, we averaged ~$30M/year (2009-2014) in education related donations. Of course, I advocate for FIRST to get a bigger piece of the pie, but there are a lot of great organizations out there all trying to solve the workforce development problem in unique ways. I quote these numbers simply to say that FIRST is still quite small relatively speaking, and the available funding for education is quite large. If FIRST could truly solve all the educational problems by just throwing more money at it, I suspect it would have happened already. For the FIRST model to work though, you need volunteer/mentor growth in conjunction with funding. If ~200,000 FIRST volunteers averaged 50 hours a year, and it would take $25/hr incentive pay to pull in new volunteers by just throwing money at it, you need ~$250M/yr to double the size of FIRST (assuming doubled need of volunteers). On top of that, the existing volunteers might be a little miffed the new ones are getting paid and they aren't. Sponsor money is important, but volunteerism is the key to growth IMHO.

I think that if FIRST can continue to scale, continue to meet the objectives companies want in terms of increasing the quality and quantity of qualified students entering the workforce, increase its reach/availability to historically underrepresented groups in engineering, etc... funding for the program will continue to grow. We're also very much interested in growing our volunteer base, as employees that are passionate about mentoring, their communities, etc., often bring that passion to work, as well as provide positive representation of the company.

We don't really spend a lot of time talking in terms of "marketing/advertising" opportunities at championship(s). The discussion is typically more of "how can we be most efficient with our donated dollars". Do we fund program A or program B? Who has shown they can do more with less and spend our grant money wisely. There is also the consideration of supporting our employees. If they choose to volunteer with an organization, it increases our confidence in said organization, so we want to back their efforts with additional funds.

As this all relates to championships and the championship split (sorry for rambling)... if it results in an increased student experience and supports growth, it will probably be seen as a positive change. The logistics of being present at two events are workable, and the overall cost to send representation is not prohibitive with respect to typical donation levels. That being said, it is pretty tough to measure "inspiration", and to understand if adding an additional championship is both the best way to support raw growth, as well as a cost effective way to increase inspiration. Perhaps the right answer is to continue to leverage volunteers to increase the quality of "lesser" events, to push the district models harder, etc. I won't claim to know the right answer, but I will say that whatever makes FIRST grow and scale better, will probably be seen as favorable from a corporate sponsor standpoint.

efoote868

16-05-2015, 05:42

This statement is misleading. Based on the graphic, the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s"). That's a pretty overwhelming landslide in opposition. I'm not sure if a presidential candidate has ever exceeded that in the popular vote. The decision looks to be deeply, deeply unpopular.

Voluntary survey. Not a census. Not a study. Statistically speaking, the survey means very little to me.

Now if they had picked individuals in FRC at random, with a very high response rate, I might be more inclined to give weight to the results. Otherwise the survey is suffering from a tremendous response bias (how many people that don't have a strong opinion on a subject are going to volunteer their time to do a survey?)

s_forbes

16-05-2015, 08:15

Voluntary survey. Not a census. Not a study. Statistically speaking, the survey means very little to me.

Now if they had picked individuals in FRC at random, with a very high response rate, I might be more inclined to give weight to the results. Otherwise the survey is suffering from a tremendous response bias (how many people that don't have a strong opinion on a subject are going to volunteer their time to do a survey?)

This is my opinion towards this as well, and I think it's interesting that so many people are drawing the conclusions they want from the survey results.

The response rate to the survey was only 10%. I'm one of those neutrals in the remaining 90% that didn't respond.

marshall

16-05-2015, 08:29

1.5x as many teams, right? 2x400 vs 1x600.

I have heard that key Championship Event sponsors were not made aware of this plan before we were, or consulted at all as to their thoughts on/ability to support two events. That seems like a huge problem.

Are you serious? With the level of commitment and funding that these companies provide, I can't believe they weren't consulted or at least it had to have been considered. The total cost for FIRST has to go up considerably for hosting two of these events. They have to have a plan for fundraising for them to cover the cost of hosting. At least, I hope they do.

Taylor

16-05-2015, 08:29

I apologize for my terse language, would it have been more appropriate to say "Neither Oppose nor Favor" a proposed pizza selection?

I also love to use analogies to help explain difficult situations. But this is a bit more complex than pizza.
It's ice cream, don't ya know?

wgardner

16-05-2015, 09:15

I'll be honest, AS IT HAS BEEN DONE IN THE PAST, I don't care about having the full progression of programs under the same roof. I didn't miss FTC at all at CMP this year. I noticed their lack of presence about as much as I've ever noticed their presence. (I'm biased as a former world festival FLL judge I've noticed their presence quite a bit)

The other programs have always been relegated to sideshow status and I don't care if that continues. In fact, I'd like to see it stopped. If they can't be granted real "participant" status then I'd rather they not be there.

Now, I'd like to have A championship that celebrates all the FIRST programs, the values of FIRST, and celebrates STEM.

Just a thought on why that ranked so low (at least in my mind)

Well of course it ranked low, because the survey was only of FRC teams! The whole point of having all of the FIRST levels under one roof is to inspire the younger kids to go to the higher levels. I bet if you surveyed FTC, FLL, and jrFLL teams you'd get a completely different answer (just like you'd get a different answer on the importance of having 1 championship if you only surveyed the teams that were at the 1 championship).

fargus111111111

16-05-2015, 10:07

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

of those who gave a team number, 52% of teams were represented, that is over half of the teams in FRC.

fargus111111111

16-05-2015, 10:53

I am somewhat relieved that they are even considering an event after "Champs" to become the new Championships because, as my team was discussing the other day, that is what IRI would otherwise become. I am concerned about this format though due to travel costs. Our team certainly is not one of the richest, but we have decent funding and two regionals plus champs stretched our budget this year. I am more optimistic about the district model and advancing through a series of competitions that way, resulting in lower travel costs but potentially more competitions. Also if FIRST is so focused on getting a set percentage of FRC teams to champs why do they not seem to care about FTC or FLL. I find their interpretation of the data odd. If the average response is 4.45 then that suggests to me that while it is not a strong opposition there is an opposition. I am concerned that FIRST seems to be ignoring the community they are supposed to serve. If they truly wanted the community's opinion they would have done a study asking x number of people, students and mentors from each team to complete the survey instead of whoever in the community felt like it. I am concerned about the direction FRC is going. While the game this year was exiting and competitive it did not have the same viewing appeal that many other games have had. If FIRST wants to keep this competition interesting and keep encouraging new people to get involved they need the high level of competition ON the field with the same Olympic high stakes. Last year we went to an off season event and took a number of new members with us. When we returned we asked them what they thought about the competition and one replied, "I thought is was going to be just a bunch of nerds standing quietly around a field watching their robot, I could not have been more wrong." This is the impression that FIRST needs to make on people however I am concerned that if they continue straight down the path they are on the competition will slowly die off and it will become a bunch of nerds standing around a field quietly watching their robot. Please FIRST hear us out, we want competition, this is supposed to be like the olympics right, not Tee-Ball. (although that could be an interesting robot game)

JB987

16-05-2015, 11:11

brrian27

16-05-2015, 16:14

Something used in business is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) based on the simple question to customers of whether they would recommend a product to others on a scale of 1-10 (actually 0-10, but we'll set the bottom at 1 as FIRST did). For the NPS, responses of 1-6 are "detractors," 7-8 are "passives," and 9-10 are "promoters." The NPS is calculated by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.

This model doesn't perfectly apply to this survey question, since it is not a purely recommendation question, but we can view it as basically asking if you would recommend the championship split to FIRST. Despite the imperfect application, this model does remind us that people who vote 6-8 aren't as satisfied as we think.

Anyway, for this question the championship split has an NPS of -55, which is not pretty. An average company gets an NPS between of between 5 and 10. Here (http://www.netpromoter.com/why-net-promoter/compare) is a benchmark for NPS.

Here (http://www.netpromoter.com/why-net-promoter/know)'s more info about NPS. it's not a perfect application, but it's an interesting perspective.

gblake

16-05-2015, 19:08

Are you serious? With the level of commitment and funding that these companies provide, I can't believe they weren't consulted or at least it had to have been considered. The total cost for FIRST has to go up considerably for hosting two of these events. They have to have a plan for fundraising for them to cover the cost of hosting. At least, I hope they do.I suspect that the companies donating noticeable $ to FIRST will continue to let FIRST inspire students, without being the least bit interested in micromanaging how FIRST does it.

My very limited experience in that realm gives some weight to my opinion on the subject, but I'm not remotely close to an expert, and I never was a spokesman for any company.

waialua359

16-05-2015, 22:38

Can we stop suggesting that IRI would become a substitute for a Championship? Many years there are Einstein teams that are unable to make it to Indiana (just look at this summer's team list to see current examples) and often the drive teams are not the same anyways...

Joe, you bring up a good point.
As it stands, there is no easy way to find a solution to how the Blog suggests about bringing together both the North/South Champs to compete at a later date.
The cost would be enormous for teams to play another weekend at a neutral site, and the students/season are already maxed out.
No matter how creative the solution, it will not address what you are pointing out.

Ultimately, the season would have to be extended. Where? Before the New Year? It certainly cant afterwards. Once you hit May, we are talking about AP Exams, graduations, and other Academic Events that students are obligated to attend. Its not everyone, but enough that many teams would either miss events or certain students would miss them.
The point that FIRST is growing and yet wants to give the same % of students the Championship experience, will not find a happy medium to address having one set of Champions and everyone playing under the same roof. Too many pros AND cons. Is it really too late or impossible to find a venue 2020 and beyond that can hold 800 teams?

I wanted to add that it still doesnt sit well with me that in 2014, we had to choose between VEX and FRC Worlds because we do both programs. Even the VEX GDC said we had a good robot! We still wonder the what ifs had we played at VEX Worlds in 2014 for all of our teams that qualified. Many of our students had wished they could do both.
Our underclassmen are already a little bummed that they wont get to see teams from Canada and Michigan, assuming we would be in Houston in a couple of years.

who716

16-05-2015, 23:26

this make me so angry! why even post the results that show the public disagrees with there choices and then try to manipulate and extrapolate the numbers to try and get it to support there decision.
I would much rather them say :this is how it is going to be, deal with it" instead of beating around the bush.

John

16-05-2015, 23:34

I find both of these interesting, so I would like to expand on them:

1 vs 10 = 26 to 12 = 2.16:1 ratio
1-2 vs 9-10 = 37 to 16 = 2.31 ratio
1-3 vs 8-10 = 48 to 23 = 2.09 ratio
1-4 vs 7-10 = 55 to 29 = 1.90 ratio
1-5 vs 6-10 = 67 to 33 = 2.03 ratio

No matter how you slice the deck, for every one person approving the championsplit, there are two people opposing it.

This method isn't exactly fair either. In your first comparison, you are comparing the ratio of 25% of negative responses to 20% of positive. In your second it is 50% to 40%, and so on. In your last comparison, you count 5 (neutral) as negative.

What if we rescaled to a scale from 0 to 10? We can map the negative responses linearly to get the new responses. We replace 1 with 0, 2 with 1.25, 3 with 2.5, and 4 with 3.75. After performing the average based on this data, we get:

.26*0+.11*1.25+.11*2.5+.07*3.75+.12*5+.04*6+.06*7+ .07*8+.04*9+.12*10 = 4.06

This weights everything symmetrically. It keeps positive values positive, and negative values negative. However, I think it is still likely to be flawed, as someone who is approximately neutral might be more likely to lean towards the favorable side than negative simply because the positive side is larger. Someone who votes roughly neutrally based on the "center" of the scale may be unfairly counted as voting positively.

A better method might be to map the entire scale from 1-10 to 0-10. We replace 1 with 0, 2 with 1.111, 3 with 2.222, 4 with 3.333, 5 with 4.444, 6 with 5.555, 7 with 6.666, 8 with 7.777, and 9 with 8.888 (10 remains 10).

We now get:

.26*0+.11*1.111+.11*2.222+.07*3.333+.12*4.444+.04* 5.555+.06*6.666+.07*7.777+.04*8.888+.12*10 = 3.86

This scale is likely to be slightly biased towards negative, because it treats "neutral" according to the instructions as very slightly negative.

I think the true average, if the scale had been 0-10 instead of 1-10, would lie somewhere between these two numbers. In any case, they are closer to each other than they are to FIRST's number for the average (4.47).

There also are quite possibly some psychological effects that I have not accounted for. Do the numbers on the scale themselves affect how we vote? If given a poll, 1-5, and the average is 4, does this imply that if the same poll was conducted on a scale from 1-9, the average would be 7? This would be expected if people simply scaled their votes linearly (or at least, linearly on average) but that may not be the case.

If we remap the entire scale

PAR_WIG1350

17-05-2015, 01:56

There also are quite possibly some psychological effects that I have not accounted for. Do the numbers on the scale themselves affect how we vote? If given a poll, 1-5, and the average is 4, does this imply that if the same poll was conducted on a scale from 1-9, the average would be 7? This would be expected if people simply scaled their votes linearly (or at least, linearly on average) but that may not be the case.

If we remap the entire scale

I have never found a study that confirms this, but I have heard it suggested that the widespread practice of using 75 as the 'center' of a 100 point grading scale in US schools has predisposed the people who attended those schools to center their rating on 75%, rather than on 50%. I feel that the most significant thing FIRST did correctly for this survey question was specifying a center, which I imagine would at least slightly help to fix that bias.

David Lame

17-05-2015, 12:28

There's an awful lot of analysis going on. That makes sense because so many of us are engineers. We love to crunch numbers. A lot of that effort is wasted, though. The survey methods weren't designed to give precise answers, for all of the reasons so many others have already stated. This is a non-scientific poll, which is only good for getting a quick read on the general feelings of a non-uniform sample.

Taking a step back, though, the message is pretty clear. The big bars are on the left. The little bars are on the right. Generally speaking, the people who responded to this survey were pretty negative about the split. You don't need much mathematics to reach that conclusion.

Which brings up a couple of very obvious questions.

Do the survey results reflect opinion in general?
Why is the leadership pretending that somehow the survey results are neutral or only slightly negative?

From the discussion and analysis, though, I see a couple of other things.

One is that I find it interesting that there was a significant split between those who had never attended and those who had attended. That, to me, is meaningful.

The other thing that leaps out to me, mostly from the discussions, is....districts. Everyone ought to be doing them. Everywhere. I'm new here, but I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't.

I have to do a bit of interpretation of the numbers in order to reach this conclusion, but I think that those people who like the split may very well like it simply because it gives them another accessible, and significant, competition. A district championship would serve that purpose, much like it does in Michigan.

Monochron

17-05-2015, 12:42

What is a little misleading about the results is the survey scale. On a scale from 1-10 with 5 being neutral, we have 4 options that are negative, one that's neutral, and 5 options that are positive. This skews the data on the positive side. The average answer of 4.45 is misleading since the left and right sides of the data set have different weights.

Another way of looking at these results is that 55% oppose two championships, 12% are neutral, and only 33% favor two championships. To me, that’s is a much more powerful statement about how the community really feels.

I have read all the posts on this thread, but I'm hoping that this point got a lot more attention than it did on the first page. The way FIRST collected data and they way they have presented it in this blog post is legitimately very misleading. The number of negative options versus the number of positive options really rubs me the wrong way.

Steven Donow

17-05-2015, 12:46

Siri

17-05-2015, 13:21

There's an awful lot of analysis going on. That makes sense because so many of us are engineers. We love to crunch numbers. A lot of that effort is wasted, though. ... Why is the leadership pretending that somehow the survey results are neutral or only slightly negative?I think you've answered your own point here. A lot of the analysis that's happening now isn't because we think the data is so useful, it's to highlight the misleading nature of the results. This statement from the blog: "The average answer to this questions [sic] among all respondents was 4.45, somewhat below the 5 "Neither Oppose nor Favor" rating" is an insult to my intelligence as an engineer, and to your point seems to be the crux of that 'only sightly negative' spin that the leadership is putting on these results.

The other thing that leaps out to me, mostly from the discussions, is....districts. Everyone ought to be doing them. Everywhere. I'm new here, but I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't.

I have to do a bit of interpretation of the numbers in order to reach this conclusion, but I think that those people who like the split may very well like it simply because it gives them another accessible, and significant, competition. A district championship would serve that purpose, much like it does in Michigan.Absolutely. This is the District Events --> Super Regionals --> Worlds argument that's been made for years (plus or minus the debate over another level of competition). Championsplit is basically that as a top-down attempt, wherein it limits the number of teams (to only 800) that can get an Large-but-less-than-Worlds Tier experience and also the number of teams (to zero) that can experience a Worlds event. They haven't fixed the core progression or scalability problem. However, standing up a District is unfortunately no small task and takes a certain density of teams and grassroots initiative among other things. There are huge discussions on CD and elsewhere about how to make it work in places that haven't yet--the devil's in the details.

efoote868

17-05-2015, 13:33

I wish they gave actual analysis based off team number. Not even to show that,'this elite team felt this way!' but just to see how votes were split across team age, events attended, teams that have been to champs vs teams that haven't, etc... Then we'd be able to fully understand what the demographic reach that responded to the survey was.

What safeguards were in place to stop individuals from falsely identifying the wrong team? What about stop them from filling out multiple surveys? Prevent FIRST unaffiliated or unaffected from responding?

Why should we trust these results as anything more than a voluntary online survey?

DanielleSisk

17-05-2015, 14:51

More than a quarter of the respondents are as against this proposal as it is possible to register on this scale. That's closed to 2,000 people in itself (numerically 1912.3 people). 55% of respondents are against the proposal; that's more than 4045 people. CD is vocal, but even assuming the relationship between CD and the survey sample (which is a weird assumption when n=7355), opposition by definition is not the minority opinion. And despite the scale shift, the "strongly opposed" outnumbers all those who voted 10, 9, and 8 combined. More people voted for 1 or 2 than voted for anything above 5.

Does anyone know if there's a standard method of "centering" a scale like this? (The true center is at 5.5, the average of 1 and 10). I don't have a statistical method of turning 4 buckets into 5, but I think the worst-case scenario would be that everyone who voted 1 would've voted 0, and everyone in 2 took 1 (no one votes 4). This creates a new weighted average of 3.92, which represents the low end of possibility: thus the average is somewhere between 3.92 and 4.47 when centered about 5. Did I handle that correctly?

This is simple to do by reducing to number of bins instead of increasing them. Put all responses below the Neutral choice, the 55%, in one bin and call it say bin 4 (to keep our median at 5), then put the 12% which are Neutral into bin 5, and those above neutral, the 33%, into bin 6. Finding the average this way, (55*4+12*5+33*6)/100 = 4.78. Interesting... this shows that giving more options for a positive response gave their average, 4.45 (which should have been 4.47) a skew in the negative response direction. Now the same calculation cannot done for a '1 vote per team' because that data is unavailable.

Drakxii

17-05-2015, 14:56

What safeguards were in place to stop individuals from falsely identifying the wrong team? What about stop them from filling out multiple surveys? Prevent FIRST unaffiliated or unaffected from responding?

Why should we trust these results as anything more than a voluntary online survey?

Why do you suspect that these results do not match the views of FRC teams?

efoote868

17-05-2015, 15:24

Why do you suspect that these results do not match the views of FRC teams?

Because individuals without a strong opinion do not invest their time in voluntary surveys.

Squillo

17-05-2015, 15:33

of those who gave a team number, 52% of teams were represented, that is over half of the teams in FRC.

Yes, but I responded, and I know my opinions are not necessarily representative of others on my team.

scottandme

17-05-2015, 15:37

Because individuals without a strong opinion do not invest their time in voluntary surveys.

I fill out every FRC (and MAR) survey that I get. Lots of those are pretty mundane, but I do them anyway since they take all of 5 minutes, and (presumably) give useful feedback to the respective groups looking at the data.

If that was actually the case - there should be a lot more 1's and 10's in the results.

efoote868

17-05-2015, 15:42

I fill out every FRC (and MAR) survey that I get. Lots of those are pretty mundane, but I do them anyway since they take all of 5 minutes, and (presumably) give useful feedback to the respective groups looking at the data.

If that was actually the case - there should be a lot more 1's and 10's in the results.

38% of the response was 1's and 10's.... that's very bi-polar.

dodar

17-05-2015, 15:43

38% of the response was 1's and 10's.... that's very bi-polar.

And that seems odd to you? Were you not here for the original thread and saw how bi-polar the CD community was?

efoote868

17-05-2015, 15:45

And that seems odd to you? Were you not here for the original thread and saw how bi-polar the CD community was?

A public forum suffers from the same response bias that an online voluntary survey suffers.

Nate Laverdure

17-05-2015, 15:51

A public forum suffers from the same response bias that an online voluntary survey suffers.
Why cater to an opinion that doesn't care to reveal itself in a measurable way?

Siri

17-05-2015, 15:56

This is simple to do by reducing to number of bins instead of increasing them. Put all responses below the Neutral choice, the 55%, in one bin and call it say bin 4 (to keep our median at 5), then put the 12% which are Neutral into bin 5, and those above neutral, the 33%, into bin 6. Finding the average this way, (55*4+12*5+33*6)/100 = 4.78. Interesting... this shows that giving more options for a positive response gave their average, 4.45 (which should have been 4.47) a skew in the negative response direction. Now the same calculation cannot done for a '1 vote per team' because that data is unavailable.I'm not sure I understand: your representative bin values are entirely arbitrary, as is the average they produce. I could repeat this same calculation calling "negative" 3 and "positive" 7: I get 4.56. 2 and 8 yields 4.34; 1 and 9 is 4.12; 0 and 10 is 3.9. The problem is that the logical value to assign to each bin is the average of the values in it--1 through 4 as 2.5 and 6 to 10 as 8--but these averages are not centered about the neutral. Shrinking the bin count does not remove this problem.

efoote868

17-05-2015, 15:59

Why cater to an opinion that doesn't care to reveal itself in a measurable way?

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."

dodar

17-05-2015, 16:08

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."

So should we never accept a new president because everyone didnt vote? Just be cause some dont vote, doesnt mean we should neglect those who did.

AdamHeard

17-05-2015, 16:17

The world is run by those that show up...

efoote868

17-05-2015, 16:19

So should we never accept a new president because everyone didnt vote? Just be cause some dont vote, doesnt mean we should neglect those who did.

That's a false equivalency. Responding to the survey had no guarantee of future action.

What I'm arguing is that the results of the survey mean much less than what some in this discussion are giving weight to it, and that putting the numbers in a positive or negative light doesn't matter when the numbers don't mean much.

dodar

17-05-2015, 16:21

That's a false equivalency. Responding to the survey had no guarantee of future action.

What I'm arguing is that the results of the survey mean much less than what some in this discussion are giving weight to it, and that putting the numbers in a positive or negative light doesn't matter when the numbers don't mean much.

You are giving an outcome yourself for something you dont know. If FIRST had gotten 100% 1's, I bet you'd see action and the same could be said for 100% 10's.

efoote868

17-05-2015, 16:25

You are giving an outcome yourself for something you dont know. If FIRST had gotten 100% 1's, I bet you'd see action and the same could be said for 100% 10's.

How is that a guarantee?

Siri

17-05-2015, 16:31

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."I agree on the idea that not voting doesn't mean you matter less to the community, but please don't set up the expectation that everyone who clicked "strongly opposed" to the championsplit wants to quit FIRST. That's a very weird metric by which to assess the meaning of these data.

efoote868

17-05-2015, 16:42

I agree on the idea that not voting doesn't mean you matter less to the community, but please don't set up the expectation that everyone who clicked "strongly opposed" to the championsplit wants to quit FIRST. That's a very weird metric by which to assess the meaning of these data.

I used "quit" as an example of the strongest negative response an individual could have with regard to the situation, as a hypothetical to illustrate response bias.

There are means to get a statistically accurate picture of the opinion of a community, but voluntary online survey is not one of them.

Nate Laverdure

17-05-2015, 16:52

There are means to get a statistically accurate picture of the opinion of a community, but voluntary online survey is not one of them.
We agree. To close the loop on your earlier comments, then:
Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?
Of course the respondents' opinions matter more, at least in the context of providing FIRST some insight into the community's collective view of the topic at hand. The non-respondents had the opportunity to matter just as much, but chose not to use that opportunity. It's great fun to imbue those non-respondents with opinions and motivations for not sharing those opinions, but it's all fiction until measured.
Because individuals without a strong opinion do not invest their time in voluntary surveys.
Because there's no measurement to refute this, I am free to claim that the survey is biased in the opposite direction: perhaps some of those 90% were just so upset at the decision that they refused to fill out the survey. Certainly some number of those people exist-- who's to say how many?

Drakxii

17-05-2015, 16:54

efoote868

17-05-2015, 17:08

Because there's no measurement to refute this, I am free to claim that the survey is biased in the opposite direction: perhaps some of those 90% were just so upset at the decision that they refused to fill out the survey. Certainly some number of those people exist-- who's to say how many?
I don't know, but voluntary online survey wouldn't be a way to find out :p

I'm trying to caution everyone about the limitations of the data presented here, as well as show why it doesn't matter if the response was more negative than it was portrayed by Frank. I think our collective efforts would be better to find a solution to the areas the 2 championship format is lacking.

evanperryg

17-05-2015, 18:27

I have never found a study that confirms this, but I have heard it suggested that the widespread practice of using 75 as the 'center' of a 100 point grading scale in US schools has predisposed the people who attended those schools to center their rating on 75%, rather than on 50%. I feel that the most significant thing FIRST did correctly for this survey question was specifying a center, which I imagine would at least slightly help to fix that bias.

Interesting idea, and definitely something that is very easily observed in day-to-day life. However, I think we are reading into these numbers a little too far. Any kind of mapping or analysis we make is based on a limited amount of information, just the numbers in the chart and the numbers pointed out in the blog post. Our own interpretations of the data will have our own biases, and each will have an inherent flaw of some kind. I wouldn't read into those numbers a whole lot; although they are obviously skewed, it proves one important point without any special interpretation: The number of people who strongly oppose the switch account for the number of "neutral" and "strongly favor" voters combined. That says something, regardless of how this poll may or may not have been intentionally weighted in favor of the poller's preference.

I suspect that the companies donating noticeable $ to FIRST will continue to let FIRST inspire students, without being the least bit interested in micromanaging how FIRST does it.

Among the members of the FIRST board of directors and executive advisory board are executives from Boeing, JCPenny, Rockwell Collins, Qualcomm, BAE Systems, Rockwell Automation, and Lego, all major contributors to FIRST and FIRST teams. Even if the biggest contributors aren't "micromanaging," they definitely have a hand in the workings of FIRST.

Regardless of whether or not the poll was weighted, I believe FIRST will take into account at least some of the complaints we have made. These sort of heated protests happen every year, with every game release. Admittedly, the restructuring of champs has a much longer-term impact on the culture of FIRST, but change had to come at some point- it was inevitable. Sure, it would have been nice to know there were talks about major changes to the championship structure coming soon, but it's not like they didn't tell us something was going to change back in 2012 (http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Who/Leadership/BOD/FIRST_Strategic_Plan.pdf). Again, it would have been nice to get some more specific info before the announcement, but it's not like they never said anything. At the end of they day, no matter how much we analyze, map, or dissect this poll, FIRST is going to change, and it has to change in order to become a universally-recognized program.

Citrus Dad

17-05-2015, 18:31

The point that FIRST is growing and yet wants to give the same % of students the Championship experience, will not find a happy medium to address having one set of Champions and everyone playing under the same roof. Too many pros AND cons. Is it really too late or impossible to find a venue 2020 and beyond that can hold 800 teams?

Solutions to having a single champion while still having 2 events have been posted here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137096). It's just that FIRST HQ isn't interested in entertaining any real feasible alternatives. I'll speculate about the reason for that in a separate post.

Citrus Dad

17-05-2015, 18:47

But you can't say "62.5% of respondents oppose the split." That's just not true. the "mandate" is that 55% oppose the split. you CAN'T just discard 12% of the responses. That's more misleading than average from the blog.

I approached this issue as a presidential election. You can't vote for "neither of the above" or "both of the above." You have to choose. The "5s" refused to choose. In an election, those folks don't vote--it's a very common assumption by pollsters making projections for election results.

Similarly, we don't apply an intensity of like or dislike to presidential candidates. It's either "A" or "B". There's some indication in 2012 that Romney supporters were more intense in their positions, but there were fewer of them. Ultimately, I believe we should really care about which side people fall on.

One other polling note: while this is a voluntary poll so it could be biased, pollsters find that usually the opinions of respondents generally reflect the views of non respondents.

I used a set of common polling assumptions to provide a clearer view of how community preferences fall out. I see others have provided other metrics that arrive at the same conclusion--that opposition is running 2 to 1 against.

Citrus Dad

17-05-2015, 18:54

I don't think you can look at this data and reasonably say "most of FRC is opposed to two Championships," especially when the nonvoters likely don't care/are neutral.

Given the low turnout for elections in the US, that argument would lead to us to the conclusion that we haven't actually elected anyone. The fact is that elections and decisions are determined by those who care enough to respond. If we want a democratic process, allowing indifference to have weight becomes an overwhelming defeating burden.

grstex

17-05-2015, 21:43

I approached this issue as a presidential election. You can't vote for "neither of the above" or "both of the above." You have to choose. The "5s" refused to choose. In an election, those folks don't vote--it's a very common assumption by pollsters making projections for election results.

Similarly, we don't apply an intensity of like or dislike to presidential candidates. It's either "A" or "B". There's some indication in 2012 that Romney supporters were more intense in their positions, but there were fewer of them. Ultimately, I believe we should really care about which side people fall on.

One other polling note: while this is a voluntary poll so it could be biased, pollsters find that usually the opinions of respondents generally reflect the views of non respondents.

I used a set of common polling assumptions to provide a clearer view of how community preferences fall out. I see others have provided other metrics that arrive at the same conclusion--that opposition is running 2 to 1 against.

There is such a thing as a 3rd party candidate. Ross Perot captured almost 19% of the popular vote in 1992, and over 8% in 1996. in 1928 Robert La Follette even won a state. (of course, you could hold the Kang and Kodos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAT_BuJAI70) perspective of politics)

But more importantly, in this survey you DID NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE. You WERE GIVEN A NEUTRAL OPTION. 12% chose that option. FIRST could have structured the survey as a simple for or against, but they didn't. As others in this thread have already stated, the people who chose neutral did so for a reason. Their response counts too.

gblake

17-05-2015, 21:47

...
Among the members of the FIRST board of directors and executive advisory board are executives from Boeing, JCPenny, Rockwell Collins, Qualcomm, BAE Systems, Rockwell Automation, and Lego, all major contributors to FIRST and FIRST teams. Even if the biggest contributors aren't "micromanaging," they definitely have a hand in the workings of FIRST.
...
I realize that you didn't disagree with me, so please notice in return that I'm not disagreeing with you.

Members of the FIRST Board of Directors, when they are carrying out their duties as Board Members, are not supposed to let their duties as members of any other organization bias them (their life experiences should give them wisdom that helps "inform" their decisions; but when they are carrying out board business, they are carrying out FIRST business, not the business of any other entity).

And, when they take their FIRST BoD hats off, those folks have bigger fish to fry, in their primary jobs.

Advising, setting goals, and contributing to high-level policy/strategy is what a good Board does, micromanaging is what a good board doesn't do.

Before we go off on a tangent - I'll claim that debating in CD whether the Championsplit is high-level policy, or a lower-level detail, won't be useful. If there is any confusion about that among the BoD members, or among the people who report to the BoD, they will straighten it out, on their own.

Blake

gblake

17-05-2015, 21:53

...
The "5s" refused to choose.
...
No, they told you and anyone else who looked at their votes, that they were neutral.

Neutral could and does mean many things.

It is simply incorrect to distill it down to a "refused to choose" sound bite.

Blake

Basel A

17-05-2015, 22:41

PAR_WIG1350

17-05-2015, 23:15

No, they told you and anyone else who looked at their votes, that they were neutral.

Neutral could and does mean many things.

It is simply incorrect to distill it down to a "refused to choose" sound bite.

Blake

Regardless of how neutral responses should be counted, the reality is they are probably going to be counted as being in favor of FIRST's proposal.

The reason for this is simple: anybody who is neutral will be just as supportive whether or not FIRST reverses its decision, and FIRST is quite sure that it wants what it said it wants.

Thus, from FIRST's perspective, the results of the poll are 55-45 against the proposal. Given the small sample size, this is probably close enough to 50-50 for an entity with even a slight confirmation bias to say that the community is largely undecided.

So, in reality, the survey gave you 4 options to say that you were against the proposal, and 6 options to say you were for it.

northstardon

18-05-2015, 00:28

EricH

18-05-2015, 00:55

I voted 5.

It was not because I didn't care one way or the other. It was because, "I haven't decided yet" wasn't an option.

The survey went out a week before Champs, and a day or two after it was announced that there was going to be a Town Hall meeting in St. Louis. I wanted to wait until after the Town Hall and after more data/information was made available before voicing an opinion. And that's exactly what I said in the comment box beneath my response.

Not specifically aimed at you, but you happened to be handy.

For all those who voted 5, would you care to share "undecided (at this time)", "withholding judgement", or "don't care" status at the time of the survey, and have you changed your response at this point?

Full disclosure: I didn't fill out the survey. If I had to respond, I would be leaning in about the 4-5 range: I don't like it, but I think there's enough room to improve (in a variety of ways) that I could be persuaded to go the other way. I could also end up working my way down towards the 1s and 2s, if that improvement doesn't go the way of improvement.

One thing that's finally gotten through to me: Any way you slice the data, if the average is less than 5.5 on this scale, you ain't winnin' no election. Just the way the scale works. The fact that they're trying to SPIN it... Sorry, Frank, but sometimes you gotta bite the bullet! This isn't a popular decision, and not even by going by team number with the data are you going to be able to change that! "There are lies, d****d lies, and statistics."--attributed to Mark Twain.

Taylor

18-05-2015, 07:23

For all those who voted 5, would you care to share "undecided (at this time)", "withholding judgement", or "don't care" status at the time of the survey, and have you changed your response at this point?

I voted 5. As of right now, I have a very strong opinion on the subject, but I am not sure what it is.
I can tell you it's certainly not "don't care" - probably more along the lines of "withholding judgement".
I could be swayed either way; however, I do have a voice and I'd like it to count.
To me, a 5 is telling HQ "If you play this right, I could jump on board. If not, well, add me to the disgruntled California teams."

If you lump 4s, 5s, and 6s together, that's a quarter of respondents who may think likewise.
I'm comfortable speaking on behalf of them in saying we didn't 'throw away our votes'

IKE

18-05-2015, 08:50

Not specifically aimed at you, but you happened to be handy.

For all those who voted 5, would you care to share "undecided (at this time)", "withholding judgement", or "don't care" status at the time of the survey, and have you changed your response at this point?

../snip...

I don't actually remember where I put my mark, but I was somewhere between the 4-6 range.
The 2 event championship was definitely not my preference, but I think it is/was probably the lesser of several evils.
I am generally in the same boat from the alternative 2 event proposals. Not terribly for or against any of them.
I was happy in this blog that they will be discussing with teams possible events mixing strategies. This was actually my biggest concern with the rollout was that there were not be an allowance for mixing. I think Hall of Fame teams should probably get to rotate events. Same with "founders". though I would like if they could keep them at a reasonable balance (no more than a 1/3 to 2/3 ratio).

I have hope that they will do a summer event, and work with teams to find a way to make that work well. I have thoughts on how they could do that, and will see if some of those can be implemented.

Rman1923

18-05-2015, 09:15

I think it's great that FIRST has tried to survey teams, and I thank them for that. But I would like to point out that two championships will completely ruin the prestige of going to champs. This happens in two ways, one, the obvious way, when you get an award at half champs, it's not really winning the award, it's sharing the award. If FIRST really trying to be a sport for the mind, it can't say it has a superbowl because there are two trophies. How are winners going to explain what happened? "oh our robot's the half best in the world"? How can we make it loud when we aren't sure what we are. Are there any winners in two champs? Or just two finalists?
The second way prestige would be affected is qualifying. I have gone to champs twice, and no matter how we did it was really inspirational for me. I have to commend FIRST, that organization that we still all know and love, for adhering to its mission statement and inspiring twice the amount of people. It's great that FIRST is growing and that it is accomodating for its growth. But with more teams qualifying for worlds through regional points, what is the drive going to be to build the best robot, or make it loud to the world? Why go for prestigious positions such as regional robot winner our chairman's winner? Why not just actually care about the safety award a few times and make it to half champs? In the end, we're actually uninspiring teams and people.

I really like FIRST and I love everything it has done for me, my FLL kids, everyone involved, but I don't want to see this awesome organization ruined because it can't scale up properly. I want to be able to come back and be proud that I had the opportunity to graduate from an amazing program. Two champs will definitely uninspire more people than it will inspire. No one wants to say that they are half winners. And again, I have to applaud FIRST for their efforts to get feedback from teams.

billylo

18-05-2015, 09:19

My feedback for Frank and FIRST:

1. Students are the main stakeholders. If trade-offs are needed, articulate the pros and cons factually and consult them. (just like the patient/doctor relationship.)

2. Surveys are imperfect. But I can generally count on those who care to cast their ballots. There is nothing wrong with building a strategy based on the opinions of those who care.

Taylor

18-05-2015, 09:28

I think it's great that FIRST has tried to survey teams, and I thank them for that. But I would like to point out that two championships will completely ruin the prestige of going to champs. This happens in two ways, one, the obvious way, when you get an award at half champs, it's not really winning the award, it's sharing the award. If FIRST really trying to be a sport for the mind, it can't say it has a superbowl because there are two trophies. How are winners going to explain what happened? "oh our robot's the half best in the world"? How can we make it loud when we aren't sure what we are. Are there any winners in two champs? Or just two finalists?
I'm sorry, I have trouble following this logic. There are only two annual trophies, of which there is only one winner: Championship Chairmans and Woodie Flowers. Everything else has multiple winners. There are four World Champions. There are four Engineering Inspiration winners. Heck, there are thirty-two Division Champions.
So of the two actual single trophies, there has been a TON of conversation about expanding these anyway. There are hundreds of really awesome teams and really awesome people who deserve to be recognized at the worldwide level, but only one of each per year is not enough.
The second way prestige would be affected is qualifying. I have gone to champs twice, and no matter how we did it was really inspirational for me. I have to commend FIRST, that organization that we still all know and love, for adhering to its mission statement and inspiring twice the amount of people. It's great that FIRST is growing and that it is accomodating for its growth. But with more teams qualifying for worlds through regional points, what is the drive going to be to build the best robot, or make it loud to the world? Why go for prestigious positions such as regional robot winner our chairman's winner? Why not just actually care about the safety award a few times and make it to half champs? In the end, we're actually uninspiring teams and people.
Why do traditional sports have a regular season? The games don't really matter. We haven't seen a sports champion go undefeated through the regular season in decades (yes I know this statement is not true for FIRST).

R2D2DOC

18-05-2015, 09:32

Anupam Goli

18-05-2015, 09:48

Transitions are always difficult. The USA never quite converted to the metric system. . . .

Ultimately, if we saturate the season with districts (even that is contentious), then district champs would be the primary players at world champs. The remaining participants would be up for discussion: HOF, Rookie, Chairmans, etc. . . .

Would we than go back to a smaller single championship event?

At this point, I don't know if we can tell. Part of FIRST HQ's understanding is the Championship "experience" is what they want as many students to be able to experience as possible. Converting that experience to the district championship level will hopefully be more feasible in the coming future. But what defines the championship "experience"? What does FIRST want to provide to as many students as possible, and how can we make it reach as many students as possible?

While I don't know what the answers to those questions are, the reasoning and logic behind the championsplit, to me, indicates that FIRST is trying to bring the experience by having more championship-scale events. It's entirely possible we go from here to 4 super regionals, and not have a culminating championship event. At least that's what I see is in the realm of possibilities, following the logic of this decision.

Rman1923

18-05-2015, 10:25

I'm sorry, I have trouble following this logic. There are only two annual trophies, of which there is only one winner: Championship Chairmans and Woodie Flowers. Everything else has multiple winners. There are four World Champions. There are four Engineering Inspiration winners. Heck, there are thirty-two Division Champions.
So of the two actual single trophies, there has been a TON of conversation about expanding these anyway. There are hundreds of really awesome teams and really awesome people who deserve to be recognized at the worldwide level, but only one of each per year is not enough.

Sorry, I was addressing the champion title to the winning alliance, not individual winning teams, but the logic is still the same, you can't exactly say that you are a world champion when there's four other teams claiming the same thing. Truthfully this is gong to happen, and when it does, invitationals like IRI and Cheesy Champs are going to be the real world champs. And that's going to be terrible for morale if you're not invited. If FIRST really wants to inspire the world, they should keep worlds an official event.

MrRoboSteve

18-05-2015, 10:37

I agree that the poll shows that, of those responding, there's more negative than positive feedback.

That said, it's possible that there's no solution that makes most teams happy. Here's a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the concept.

Frank discussed 22 "product attributes" ("elements of the championship experience"). Let's imagine a universe where FRC teams have decisive product attributes distributed in this way*:

33% - (1) Seeing and competing with the teams with the best robots in FRC
33% - (2) The experience of attending a major, multi-day event with my team
33% - (3) Keeping attendance costs reasonable

Now suppose you created three ideas for Champs experiences, each of which optimized for one of these attributes. Say along these lines**:

(1) Single WW Champs
(2) Super Regional Champs
(3) State Champs

If you polled any one of these using a "do you support this" question, you'd see the same or worse results than the poll that was conducted.

So put yourselves in FIRST's shoes. You need to select the choice that is best aligned with FIRST's goals, and is realistic about the resources that you have available. You are solving a unique problem -- you run one of the largest HS activity championships in the US***. Any of your choices will make a decent sized set of teams unhappy.

*I selected these items because they seemed to be mostly non-overlapping attributes and seem somewhat representative of the points of view I've read. Please don't take this as my reading of what teams actually think or that the percentages are anything but a hypothetical. What will you do?
**These actually map to the three models used in other HS activities in the US, based on the research I did last week.

***I think it's actually the largest, but haven't been looking at data for long enough to say for certain.

Qbot2640

18-05-2015, 10:56

...Part of FIRST HQ's understanding is the Championship "experience" is one they want as many students to be able to achieve as possible."

"But what defines the championship "experience"? What does FIRST want to provide as many students as possible, and how can we make it reach as many students as possible?

For me this is the essential point. My team has been to Championship exactly once - when we QUALIFIED to be one of the 400 teams there. A significant portion of the "Championship Experience" in our case was the pride of being part of that elite group. The two components of this portion are the singularity of the group, and the degree of selectivity...neither of which are present in 800 teams divided into two events. WHEN my team qualifies again, I don't want to go to "a" championship...I want to go to "the" championship. And I would prefer to wait until we deserve it again (even if it never happens) rather than lower the entrance bar. I suspect there are many survey respondents, and posters to this thread (like Rman1923 above) who find their definition of the "Championship Experience" and FIRST HQ's definition incompatible.

. . . .

Ultimately, if we saturate the season with districts (even that is contentious), then district champs would be the primary players at world champs. The remaining participants would be up for discussion: HOF, Rookie, Chairmans, etc. . . .

Would we than go back to a smaller single championship event?

And this is my great fear. Even with a monumental effort to create universal districts, and roll out a suitable championship "feeding" structure...how does FIRST go from two events and 800 teams back to one event and 400 or 600 teams without it appearing and feeling like a shrinkage. Further, HQ was originally saying that the two championships were guaranteed from 17 - 20...in this blog post that language has changed to "beginning in 2017..." removing any possible end date.

BrennanB

18-05-2015, 11:55

Truthfully this is gong to happen, and when it does, invitationals like IRI and Cheesy Champs are going to be the real world champs. And that's going to be terrible for morale if you're not invited. If FIRST really wants to inspire the world, they should keep worlds an official event.

I would actually say that IRI and Cheesy Champs will never be the real world championships. In the grand scheme of things, nobody watches it, and nobody cares. I would be shocked if more than 10-15% of FIRST 's members have even heard of either of these events.

Rman1923

18-05-2015, 12:10

I would actually say that IRI and Cheesy Champs will never be the real world championships. In the grand scheme of things, nobody watches it, and nobody cares. I would be shocked if more than 10-15% of FIRST 's members have even heard of either of these events.

It's not only about people watching it, but more about finding out who the winners of the world are. I feel like just out of curiosity, invitational events would pit the winners of both champs against each other, to see who wins. That would be cool and fun to watch. When I say they will be the real champs, I mean that we'll find out the best alliance in the world at these events.

Deke

18-05-2015, 12:53

But I would like to point out that two championships will completely ruin the prestige of going to champs.

This is what concerns me too. I love that they are working on ways to get more teams involved, but that can be done through other means. For example, FRC is extremely expensive, can there be more focus on reducing costs instead of diluting the championship? I bet more people and teams would love to be involved if they could afford it. I would think more focus on growing the number of teams could be more inspirational than growing the number of teams at championships.

Loose Screw

18-05-2015, 12:56

This is what concerns me too. I love that they are working on ways to get more teams involved, but that can be done through other means. For example, FRC is extremely expensive, can there be more focus on reducing costs instead of diluting the championship? I bet more people and teams would love to be involved if they could afford it. I would think more focus on growing the number of teams could be more inspirational than growing the number of teams at championships.

FIRST has a system that works as a lower-cost FRC: FTC.

northstardon

18-05-2015, 13:24

Not specifically aimed at you, but you happened to be handy.

For all those who voted 5, would you care to share "undecided (at this time)", "withholding judgement", or "don't care" status at the time of the survey, and have you changed your response at this point?

While more information and opinions have been made available over the past month, the unresolved possibility of bringing the two championship alliances together means that I would probably still answer that question the same way at this point in time. But, as I stated upthread, I would hope that that exact same question isn't asked again, because of its ambiguity. Do you favor one championship if it means that there eventually won't be room for the CA, EI, and RAS teams? Do you favor two championships if nothing is done to bring the two winning alliances together to crown one true champion?

I would "strongly agree" that the current one championship model is unsustainable over the long term. But that doesn't mean that I "strongly favor" two championships. I'd jump off the fence for a single championship if the "championship experience" could be replicated one qualifying step below (i.e. at district championships or super-regional type events). But I would be just as supportive of two championships if there was a viable way of bringing the two winning alliances together to crown one true champion. (BTW I don't think the costs of such an event are insurmountable...aside from possible financial sponsorships, raising the entry fee for the 800 teams at the two championships by just 2% would raise $80k that could cover/defray additional travel and event expenses).

Lil' Lavery

18-05-2015, 13:53

I'd jump off the fence for a single championship if the "championship experience" could be replicated one qualifying step below (i.e. at district championships or super-regional type events).

I've seen this or similar opinions raised in a few places, including multiple times recently in this thread. For those in Michigan, New England, PNW, and Indiana, how close are your DCMPs to the championship experience? MAR honestly isn't even close, in spite of the fact the on-the-field competition is incredibly high. Don't take this the wrong way, I love MAR Champs, but it's not remotely comparable to Championship. The production value is much more akin to a district event than even a regional competition. There aren't any of the conferences or presentations available to teams (I know FiM has some of these). The scholarship and sponsor availability is minimal. There aren't any of the outside/after hours festivities/community building that's part of Championship. You don't necessarily need all of these things for "the Championship experience" (however we end up defining it), but MAR Champs feels like a bigger district event more than it even feels like a regional competition. It completely lacks the grandeur and ceremony of a Championship.

Taylor

18-05-2015, 14:01

I've seen this or similar opinions raised in a few places, including multiple times recently in this thread. For those in Michigan, New England, PNW, and Indiana, how close are your DCMPs to the championship experience? MAR honestly isn't even close, in spite of the fact the on-the-field competition is incredibly high. Don't take this the wrong way, I love MAR Champs, but it's not remotely comparable to Championship. The production value is much more akin to a district event than even a regional competition. There aren't any of the conferences or presentations available to teams (I know FiM has some of these). The scholarship and sponsor availability is minimal. There aren't any of the outside/after hours festivities/community building that's part of Championship. You don't necessarily need all of these things for "the Championship experience" (however we end up defining it), but MAR Champs feels like a bigger district event more than it even feels like a regional competition. It completely lacks the grandeur and ceremony of a Championship.
I would agree with most of this.
With the caveats that the Indiana State Championship was an inaugural event, so we were looking for survival rather than a spectacle. We also host conferences in October, so there's not a real need to duplicate that at this level.
But, yes, the spectacle was roughly equivalent to a regional event. However, if we work closely with HQ and their resources, it could certainly rise to the occasion.

Qbot2640

18-05-2015, 14:03

These are the kinds of questions that should have be asked:

...Do you favor one championship if it means that there eventually won't be room for the CA, EI, and RAS teams?

Yes (for me at least). But there are more options that are possible. I would like to see chairman teams continue to go, but if six teams from every regional is what caused the need for two championships then find ways to reduce the six to five or possibly four...or less if that's what is necessary.

Do you favor two championships if nothing is done to bring the two winning alliances together to crown one true champion?

No regardless (again, for me). Bringing the two alliance together is irrelevant to my championship experience unless I'm one of those winning alliance teams. Otherwise, I have still attended a championship with only half of the teams that inspire me.

Kevin Leonard

18-05-2015, 14:19

Libby K

18-05-2015, 14:23

So are you disagreeing that DCMP's can be similar enough to a "championship experience" or just stating that the respective DCMP's have some work to do to get to the level where they might be able to replicate a "championship experience"?

I certainly can't speak for Sean, but IMO, the DCMPs can & should serve as the "championship experience" in their regions, and it would be to FIRST's benefit to do what they need to make sure all of the districts they work with end up looking at least as consistent across the country as regional events do.

BrennanB

18-05-2015, 14:32

It's not only about people watching it, but more about finding out who the winners of the world are. I feel like just out of curiosity, invitational events would pit the winners of both champs against each other, to see who wins. That would be cool and fun to watch. When I say they will be the real champs, I mean that we'll find out the best alliance in the world at these events.

A closer representation of the best alliance in the world? Sure. Best alliance in the world? No. Many top tier teams don't attend IRI or cheesy champs.

I would hope that a "two winning alliances" event is televised and hyped for that.

dag0620

18-05-2015, 15:29

I've seen this or similar opinions raised in a few places, including multiple times recently in this thread. For those in Michigan, New England, PNW, and Indiana, how close are your DCMPs to the championship experience? MAR honestly isn't even close, in spite of the fact the on-the-field competition is incredibly high. Don't take this the wrong way, I love MAR Champs, but it's not remotely comparable to Championship. The production value is much more akin to a district event than even a regional competition. There aren't any of the conferences or presentations available to teams (I know FiM has some of these). The scholarship and sponsor availability is minimal. There aren't any of the outside/after hours festivities/community building that's part of Championship. You don't necessarily need all of these things for "the Championship experience" (however we end up defining it), but MAR Champs feels like a bigger district event more than it even feels like a regional competition. It completely lacks the grandeur and ceremony of a Championship.

In New England, but especially when it was in Boston, our two DCMPs have felt like mini championships. High production value, a ton of side events (conferences, alumni events, exhibitions from other programs, etc.), and the overall grand feeling. They also served as a great event that brought New England FIRST together, just as Championship really brings FIRST together. It's a model for DCMP I like, and hope stays in NE as well as becoming the standard for DCMPs.

Obviously the consistency isn't there however, and it needs to happen. As Libby said, DCMPs should be held to at least Regional consistency that they were supposed to be as originally envisioned, if not at a higher value.

Deke

18-05-2015, 15:32

I've seen this or similar opinions raised in a few places, including multiple times recently in this thread. For those in Michigan, New England, PNW, and Indiana, how close are your DCMPs to the championship experience? MAR honestly isn't even close, in spite of the fact the on-the-field competition is incredibly high. Don't take this the wrong way, I love MAR Champs, but it's not remotely comparable to Championship. The production value is much more akin to a district event than even a regional competition. There aren't any of the conferences or presentations available to teams (I know FiM has some of these). The scholarship and sponsor availability is minimal. There aren't any of the outside/after hours festivities/community building that's part of Championship. You don't necessarily need all of these things for "the Championship experience" (however we end up defining it), but MAR Champs feels like a bigger district event more than it even feels like a regional competition. It completely lacks the grandeur and ceremony of a Championship.

This is just my opinion on this, take it as you please. Champs was a let down from MSC for these reasons:
- There were so many fields I had little to no insight to how all the other teams were doing. At MSC with two fields, I knew how most people were doing and how the rankings were shaping up.
- Competition was fierce through the top 75% of teams at MSC, when it was only fierce around the top 25% at champs. Granted champs had more elite teams, MSC was deeper.
-Televised commentary from Dave and Dan was fantastic and awesome shots from the boom cameras at MSC, footage at champs missed the mark.

Champs did have a little better production/viewing experience for people in the stands. But you could only see your fields action.

I might be a little biased based on where I'm from, so maybe an outsider can chime in that attended MSC. I absolutely think district champs would be the perfect thing to replace the championship feel, and it's scaleable.

Loose Screw

18-05-2015, 15:34

I certainly can't speak for Sean, but IMO, the DCMPs can & should serve as the "championship experience" in their regions, and it would be to FIRST's benefit to do what they need to make sure all of the districts they work with end up looking at least as consistent across the country as regional events do.

I've thought of the competition at FiM champs to be very close to worlds. If you take 2011 for example, the #1 alliance was defeaded by the #8 at MSC. The meta changed durring eliminations and teams had to adapt to stay competitive. Everyone was at their best, and you had no idea who would win. Worlds that year, teams died and got stuck on the field. As soon as that happened, you knew who would win.

I find this year to be similar. Yes, the #1 alliance at MSC had the highest scores in Octo/Quarter/Semi, but any alliance there could have beat them if they made a mistake. If the blue alliance had grabbed that one RC 1711 spent the entire match trying to get, they would have won. The can wars wasn't as intense as it was on Einstein, but I feel like that made it more exciting to watch. The winners weren't determined in the first second of the match. Einstein, however, was determined by the can wars. Every alliance there could score 250+ points (some even 300+), but you knew who would win 5 seconds into the match.

TL;DR
DCMP's can be just as competitive and exciting to watch as Einstein.

BrendanB

18-05-2015, 15:41

This is just my opinion on this, take it as you please. Champs was a let down from MSC for these reasons:
- There were so many fields I had little to no insight to how all the other teams were doing. At MSC with two fields, I knew how most people were doing and how the rankings were shaping up.
- Competition was fierce through the top 75% of teams at MSC, when it was only fierce around the top 25% at champs. Granted champs had more elite teams, MSC was deeper.
-Televised commentary from Dave and Dan was fantastic and awesome shots from the boom cameras at MSC, footage at champs missed the mark.

Champs did have a little better production/viewing experience for people in the stands. But you could only see your fields action.

I might be a little biased based on where I'm from, so maybe an outsider can chime in that attended MSC. I absolutely think district champs would be the perfect thing to replace the championship feel, and it's scaleable.

Some good points in here.

The 2014 and 2015 NEDCMPs were the best events I attended over the past two years. Why? Because there was a level of production value but as you hinted to above the field at a DCMP is more competitive than a division. You really feel like you take a step back when you are on your division after experiencing your DCMP a few weeks prior. Yes there are powerhouses and even teams from your district on the field but it doesn't start topping some of the districts until further in the elimination rounds and Einstein.

EricDrost

18-05-2015, 15:49

I've thought of the competition at FiM champs to be very close to worlds.

I would entirely agree with you for FiM. This doesn't necessarily translate to every DCMP event, however.

I'd love to see MAR CMP reach the production quality of MSC, but as of now, it feels more like a large district event than a championship, or even a regional.

Loose Screw

18-05-2015, 15:50

Some good points in here.

The 2014 and 2015 NEDCMPs were the best events I attended over the past two years. Why? Because there was a level of production value but as you hinted to above the field at a DCMP is more competitive than a division. You really feel like you take a step back when you are on your division after experiencing your DCMP a few weeks prior. Yes there are powerhouses and even teams from your district on the field but it doesn't start topping some of the districts until further in the elimination rounds and Einstein.

Plus one thing that I like that DCMP's do that Worlds doesn't is have a single pool of teams to pick from. I know that system would be impossible at worlds, but a guy can hope.

I personally love the way MSC handled things this year. They had 102 teams compete, so to keep everything on time they went to the FTC-style system of having two fields. This and the Octo-finals made this event better than champs to watch IMO. There was only one team at MSC that didn't have an average above 100.

Alliances at MSC were the best alliances at MSC, while alliances at worlds were the best alliances according to who was randomly paired together. Could you imagine if worlds had one single pool to pick from for eliminations?

BrendanB

18-05-2015, 15:53

Could you imagine if worlds had one single pool to pick from for eliminations?

I'd rather not. Sounds like a logistical and scouting nightmare! :rolleyes:

Loose Screw

18-05-2015, 15:56

I'd rather not. Sounds like a logistical and scouting nightmare! :rolleyes:

True, but if the size of worlds was the same size of MSC, it would be a bit easier. I was aiming for a pool of the best 100, not a mix of all 600. That would be hell for everyone attempting to scout.

Siri

18-05-2015, 15:58

Some good points in here.

The 2014 and 2015 NEDCMPs were the best events I attended over the past two years. Why? Because there was a level of production value but as you hinted to above the field at a DCMP is more competitive than a division. You really feel like you take a step back when you are on your division after experiencing your DCMP a few weeks prior. Yes there are powerhouses and even teams from your district on the field but it doesn't start topping some of the districts until further in the elimination rounds and Einstein.I'll back up MAR for this. Our production values (and location) leave a lot to be worked on, and we're certainly not FIM, but in terms of competitiveness I prefer MAR to Divisions. People might like some of the numbers I ran on this issue: attached is a percentile plot of qual match scores for this year at CMP Divisions and DCMPs. Probably no surprise to those of us in Districts, but the Regional folks may find it interesting.

Gregor

18-05-2015, 16:11

I'll back up MAR for this. Our production values (and location) leave a lot to be worked on, and we're certainly not FIM, but in terms of competitiveness I prefer MAR to Divisions. People might like some of the numbers I ran on this issue: a percentile plot (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18997&d=1431724307) of qual match scores for this year at CMP Divisions and DCMPs. Probably no surprise to those of us in Districts, but the Regional folks may find it interesting.

Don't have permission to view that page.

Siri

18-05-2015, 16:18

Don't have permission to view that page.Sorry, fixed. Apparently you can't link directly to attachments from other posts. It's in the linked post.

Rman1923

18-05-2015, 16:28

A closer representation of the best alliance in the world? Sure. Best alliance in the world? No. Many top tier teams don't attend IRI or cheesy champs.

I would hope that a "two winning alliances" event is televised and hyped for that.

Yeah, that would be really cool, I think many would watch and it'd be really easy to market that to non-firsters as well

George Nishimura

18-05-2015, 17:05

Lil' Lavery

18-05-2015, 17:28

So are you disagreeing that DCMP's can be similar enough to a "championship experience" or just stating that the respective DCMP's have some work to do to get to the level where they might be able to replicate a "championship experience"?

I was doing exactly what I stated in my post, asking other district participants how they felt about their DCMP as it relates to the championship experience, and stating my feeling that the MAR DCMP does not replicate that experience. Please assume no larger agenda in my posts.

efoote868

18-05-2015, 17:28

8 teams, potentially from very different parts of the world, are going to travel all the way to New Hampshire/Detroit/wherever, to potentially play two (at most three) 2.5 minute matches?

2 of the teams may never play either.

If the event was at next years kickoff, and it was at no financial cost to attend (championship win = all expense trip paid to New Hampshire), then I think that would be reasonable.

In my humble opinion, there does not need to be a singular championship alliance. Winning a 400 team event is prestigious in and of itself.

Jon Stratis

18-05-2015, 17:33

8 teams, potentially from very different parts of the world, are going to travel all the way to New Hampshire/Detroit/wherever, to potentially play two (at most three) 2.5 minute matches?

2 of the teams may never play either.

It would be better to have the division winners from both events attend. Then they could hold it as a 1-day event like the MN State Tournament - quals in the morning until about 1, then alliance selections, a break for lunch, and elims. You would have 32 teams there, and the eventual winning alliance may have teams from both events on it, which I think would be rather cool. It could also easily fit into a single weekend, not requiring much, if any, time off work or School for people. Of course, the problem with this is still travel costs... Having a team from China, Brazil, or Israel (for example) have to return to the US for yet another event could be prohibitive. Even closer team's may find the cost to be too much, traveling from Michigan, Texas, California, etc to Manchester or whatever the event would be held.

For something like this to work, I think FIRST would have to pick up a significant portion of the tab. No registration fee, secure hotel and flight accommodations for a certain number from each team (10? 4 drive team members, plus 4 pit students and 2 mentor/chaperones). Without doing something like that, I can easily see teams deciding to skip the event and call it a year.

Kevin Leonard

18-05-2015, 17:37

I was doing exactly what I stated in my post, asking other district participants how they felt about their DCMP as it relates to the championship experience, and stating my feeling that the MAR DCMP does not replicate that experience. Please assume no larger agenda in my posts.

Yes, but do you think MARCMP could get to that level?
I've only ever attended one DCMP, and that was the 2014 NEDCMP as a spectator.
It was a fantastic and huge event. It definitely felt bigger and better than a regional event to me, and I felt like with some work and publicity, it could definitely replicate a championship experience.

But I've never participated on a team, because New York is taking forever to get to districts.

So do you (and others who have participated in DCMP's) believe that your DCMP can replicate a championship experience, or could with work?

northstardon

18-05-2015, 17:50

8 teams, potentially from very different parts of the world, are going to travel all the way to New Hampshire/Detroit/wherever, to potentially play two (at most three) 2.5 minute matches?

2 of the teams may never play either.

Yes, there are logistical issues associated with bringing the two alliances together for a summer final final. While I think that some of those issues could be resolved, I'd also like to bump an alternative idea...fly the alliance that wins the Houston championship event into St. Louis/Detroit the following weekend, and have the battle of champions take place during that second event's closing ceremonies.

Some potentially favorable aspects of this idea (to chew on or chew over)...

- Automatically cuts the travel costs for the winning alliances in half (since one alliance is already on site).

- It also limits the additional costs of staging that battle of champions (field/volunteers/FIRST staff/other infrastructure already on site).

- FIRST covers all of the travel expenses for five members on each of the four teams that win in Houston (drive team plus one). Other team members/mentors/coaches travel on team's dime. They'd have a few days to fundraise/talk with their sponsors to help defray those out-of-pocket costs.

- If an international team is on the winning Houston alliance, they stay for the week in between, with expenses covered by FIRST (including cost of changing flights home). The international teams traveling to Houston would need to be prepared for this potentiality.

- Otherwise, winning alliance flies in on Friday afternoon, limiting the number of lost school days. Bagged robots shipped from Houston directly to St. Louis/Detroit.

- Fly-in championship teams wouldn't have to move/set-up their pits...there could be well-equipped "Visiting Champions" pits waiting for them at the second championship. Pit equipment might be provided by sponsors/equipment suppliers, or loaned by other teams at the second event. Second event teams that didn't qualify for their Einsteins (or even for their subdivision playoffs) might even volunteer to "host" one of the four fly-in teams, and lend extra hands/equipment/team spirit.

- If FIRST wanted to crown a single CCA winner, they could also fly in the presenters from the team that won the Houston CA. Award the second event's CA at the start of their Einstein's, then have the two Championship CA winners make one final presentation between then and Closing Ceremonies. And maybe those final presentations could be made in front of a very distinguished panel of judges?

I'm sure that there are logistical issues that I've missed, or that I've poorly characterized at least a few of the issues that I've raised. My intent is merely to see if there's interest in discussing how this type of rapid-fire final event might work.

Gregor

18-05-2015, 17:58

It would be better to have the division winners from both events attend.
.
.
.

While I think that some of those issues could be resolved, I'd also like to bump an alternative idea...fly the alliance that wins the Houston championship event into St. Louis/Detroit the following weekend,.
.
.
.

The more I read about solutions to crown an ultimate champion, the more I realize how absolutely impractical it is.

Most solutions fall apart if even one team cannot attend.

Abhishek R

18-05-2015, 18:02

The more I read about solutions to crown an ultimate champion, the more I realize how absolutely impractical it is.

Most solutions fall apart if even one team cannot attend.

Exactly. It's just unfeasible. Furthermore, for the amount of playing time that will likely happen, with no kind of crowd to be watching and cheering, it's a lesser experience for those competing, and for everyone else that did make it to championships, we still won't get to see them live; we'll all be watching from home.

I think we'll just have to live with two winning alliances (which personally is not a large problem for me, albeit I would prefer a single winning alliance), as this kind of "final final event" solution has a lot of holes still.

Siri

18-05-2015, 18:07

The more I read about solutions to crown an ultimate champion, the more I realize how absolutely impractical it is.

Most solutions fall apart if even one team cannot attend.Exactly. Currently the only potential way around this I see is to stop considering it a Houston Winners vs Detroit Winners event and just says "all division winners (and finalists?) qualify for the World Championship" -- and just rerun quals and elims with the teams who attend that weekend event. Or potentially cut out quals and use a District-esque points system to generate rankings. But I'm not sure how many if any other problems with the situation this addresses besides not locking into the two alliances.

BrennanB

18-05-2015, 19:43

Exactly. Currently the only potential way around this I see is to stop considering it a Houston Winners vs Detroit Winners event and just says "all division winners (and finalists?) qualify for the World Championship" -- and just rerun quals and elims with the teams who attend that weekend event. Or potentially cut out quals and use a District-esque points system to generate rankings. But I'm not sure how many if any other problems with the situation this addresses besides not locking into the two alliances.

I like living in a bubble where split champs aren't that bad. xD

Yes, all div winners qualify. One day event, few quals, repick alliances and do elims. Should have extra teams so if a few don't show its not a big deal. Not sure about finalists, adding a double the number of teams for a one day event.

Citrus Dad

19-05-2015, 15:15

I like living in a bubble where split champs aren't that bad. xD

Yes, all div winners qualify. One day event, few quals, repick alliances and do elims. Should have extra teams so if a few don't show its not a big deal. Not sure about finalists, adding a double the number of teams for a one day event.

An alternative I've proposed: Stop the first event at the division winners, and take them to the second event the next week. Run full Einstein field with all of the division winners at the second event as part of the closing ceremony (which appears to be in different location than the competition site.)

Those at the second event get to see ALL of the top teams, and by alternating dates, each location gets to see ALL of the top teams every other year, and they get to see at least the 50% of the top teams every year.

There will advantages and disadvantages to each group of alliances but that already happens to a certain extent through random (vs seeded) assignment to divisions and random (vs seeded) qualifying scheduling.

cadandcookies

19-05-2015, 15:27

GreyingJay

19-05-2015, 15:28

Loose Screw

19-05-2015, 15:44

I still think the idea of super-regionals is the best for FIRST. The district system is also the best imo. My FTC students had just as much fun at super-regionals as I did when I went to worlds. If FIRST wants to give that experiance to as many teams as possible, this system is the way to go.

Districts --> State (or region) Champs --> Super Regionals --> Worlds.

Districts allow teams to grow between events, rather than stop at one event. DCMP's have shown to be as exciting as even worlds, and super regionals would add another challenging event.

Super regionals would narrow the teams down to the best 100 or so in the world. Worlds could then be used to show and inspire teams everywhere if the production value of the broadcast is excellent. Having one pool of teams to pick from at the best event would produce the most competitive finals; rather than splitting these teams up across divisions and two venues.

I think this method works perfectly for FTC right now, and could work well for FRC in future years

Andrew Schreiber

19-05-2015, 15:45

Loose Screw

19-05-2015, 15:51

FTC season starts in August/September (can't recall) and ends in April. FRC season starts in January and ends in April. Expanding the season is HARD.

You'd have to add an extra event yes, but that would only be for the top 100 or so teams. It would be 5 events for some teams, but some teams this year have attended 5 events. Expanding the season would be challenging, but I think it could be pulled off.

Andrew Schreiber

19-05-2015, 15:55

You'd have to add an extra event yes, but that would only be for the top 100 or so teams. It would be 5 events for some teams, but some teams this year have attended 5 events. Expanding the season would be challenging, but I think it could be pulled off.

Have you ever tried to book travel for 40 students 1000+ miles, on 2 day notice? I haven't. But from what I've heard from the people that have, it's REALLY hard.

It's not about the number of events (we've done 6 the last 2 years) it's about the logistics of last minute travel and the lack of time frame to expand the season either way.

Qbot2640

19-05-2015, 15:55

I'm with Gregor on this-- every solution I've seen has been either inpractical or contrary to many of the goals FIRST or the posters in this thread have been advocating, or both. We're talking about FIRST footing what is likely a six-seven figure bill, causing students to miss school, and/or depriving one of our championships from seeing a champion crowned.

I really, really wish there was a better solution out there, but at the end of the day, it might be that the best we can do is try to make sure as many of us as possible are in Districts by the time these venue contracts are up.

Except that, as I pointed out previously, FIRST is no longer talking about this being a four year phenomenon:

Recent Blog Post:
"As we noted in the Championship informational session, the facts that there will be two Championships starting in 2017, and that all FIRST programs will be represented at each Championship, will not be changing, and so won’t be part of the discussions undertaken by these groups."

(Emphasis mine)

As opposed to the original, April 9 announcement:
"Therefore, in 2017, FIRST will host two Championship events on subsequent weekends, still celebrating our full Progression of Programs at each – one event in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Toyota Center (home of the Houston Rockets) and Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros) April 19-22, 2017, followed by a second event the following weekend (April 26-29, 2017) in St. Louis.

Beginning in 2018, our dual Championship will be celebrated in Houston, as described above, April 18-21, 2018 and on the second weekend in Detroit at the Cobo Center and Ford Field (home of the Detroit Lions), April 25-28, 2018. This alignment will continue for 2019 and 2020."

(Again, emphasis mine)

Can we please stop talking about bringing the two winning alliances together, as if that will solve the problem? We need a solution that lets FIRST achieve it's "inspire as many teams as possible" event goal, while still presenting a single, all-the-best-teams-present championship that is an honor to attend.

Andrew Schreiber

19-05-2015, 15:59

Jon Stratis

19-05-2015, 16:05

Can we please stop talking about bringing the two winning alliances together, as if that will solve the problem? We need a solution that lets FIRST achieve it's "inspire as many teams as possible" event goal, while still presenting a single, all-the-best-teams-present championship that is an honor to attend.

The whole point here, I think, is that the community assumes that teams at either of the championship events will be inspired aOnd everything from that aspect will be fine. But the community is hung up on the "one winner" concept, and needs to find a way to either accept winners from two events or find a way to get it back to "one winner".

Frankly, two champs poses two main problems from most of the communities point of view - having "one winner" and playing with/seeing the best teams. I think most have written off the latter as impractical with two events, and instead are trying to solve the former.

Personally, I'm more worried about the quality impact of holding two separate events, with two mostly separate volunteer crews - can we get enough volunteers, and if so can we keep quality consistent between the two events, or will differences creep up as the group's get separated? We already hear about different ways things are handled at different regionals or between different districts, but as it stands we have, currently, a single championship to help unite how we do things. With two events, how might things diverge?

Siri

19-05-2015, 16:20

Those at the second event get to see ALL of the top teams, and by alternating dates, each location gets to see ALL of the top teams every other year, and they get to see at least the 50% of the top teams every year.In addition how to possibly get all the Division Winners across the country in a week, there's currently no mechanism by which to alternate dates. Houston is first until at least 2021. (I would not want to be the person trying to pull off that booking arrangement even after that, but just so it's understand as functionally impossible for the Class of 2020.)

Lil' Lavery

19-05-2015, 16:29

Michael Corsetto

19-05-2015, 16:33

BrendanB

19-05-2015, 16:35

While I agree the logistics of any post-season championship is difficult, weren't all 12 teams able to successfully travel to New Hampshire in 2012 for the Einstein report? For the teams that attended, how many members of the drive crews were able to come? Was it a significant issue to arrange the date and travel?

IIRC in 2012 it was two members from each team and people who were in that group would have to share if travel costs were covered.

Getting a whole team or a skeleton crew to make another trip isn't easy especially if its another round of airfare.

If FIRST can come up with a way to help with travel arrangements its doable as well as impacting minimal school days for already strained teams. Summer is also tough and really pushes your season out.

Karthik

19-05-2015, 16:57

If I remember correctly, one student and one mentor were flown in from each team. I believe FIRST covered all associate travel costs?

Yes, this is correct. Flights, hotels, and airport transportation were covered for two team members. Most teams chose to send one student and one mentor.

Zebra_Fact_Man

19-05-2015, 17:14

I still think the idea of super-regionals is the best for FIRST....

If I can condense you idea down even further. Your idea had 4 tiers; I think it can be done better in 3.
The reason most of the ideas proposed in this thread are bad is because they require additional travel/cost/time out of school for only the winning alliance(s), which will never fly if the main motivation is "inspiration". Thus, I suggest:

Tier 1: Districts and Regionals
Tier 2: District Championships and Super Regionals
Tier 3: World Championship

Regionals would feed into 100-400 team Super-Regionals (such as Houston or Detroit) [not directly into the WC]. The # of teams moving on from the Sup Reg to the WC would be proportional to the # of teams competing at the event, similar to how the # from a DCMP is proportional to the District size. District teams would be completely unaffected in this plan. Non US/Canada areas like Israel, China, and Australia could either convert to Districts immediately or just get a free pass to the WC if the desire to prevent them from flying to two America-located Championships exists.

This plan gives every team competing at a District OR Regional Event a persistent 25% chance to compete in a championship environment (for inspirational purposes), while maintaining the quality of the World Championship. Every event gets to see its champions crowned and all World Championship teams get to see the World Champion crowned.

connor.worley

19-05-2015, 17:26

iVanDuzer

19-05-2015, 18:12

Champs and "Poverty Champs"?

Sorry for going all ricky-bobby, but there's two champs (fact, it's happening, boo hiss whine complain). The only way to have a single "all the best teams" championship is one of them be the REAL championship. The other be "the other champs where we huck all the teams that don't really belong at a real championship".

This is not possible for a variety of reasons, the least of which is probably that I just said the phrase poverty champs.

I would love to hear why a two-tier Championship model wouldn't work.

I disagree with the label "Poverty Champs." I'd rather call it "stepping stone," or "redemption" Champs.

Let's face it, the current system is not great at recognizing the truly "great" teams. Every year, there are teams with great robots that don't qualify for Champs, because of a variety of factors (bad luck, bad partners, they're the third-best-team at a deep event, ect). Are you saying that these teams, that would normally have no post-season play at a Championship event of any caliber, would feel slighted or cheated by attending a second-tier championship, and being given the chance to prove their ability?

There are also plenty of teams who attend Champs for "the experience" but otherwise gain nothing, because they are blown out of the water every single match. This is demotivating and disheartening on a regional level, and I'm sure it's similar on the World Stage. Having a second-tier championship event would give these teams an arena they could be competitive in. And if the people in this thread who say that the District Championships are inspiring are to be believed, why can't these second-tier Championships be just as inspiring as the World Championships?

What I propose are Super-Regionals, but not as a stepping-stone to the World Championships, but as an end goal. In my ideal world, all of FIRST would be converted to a district-points system, where FIRST takes each team's top event scores and uses that to determine who goes where. The top 400 teams go to the World Championships as they are now: four divisions, winners face off on Einstein. The 401st - top40% teams attend a Super-Regional.

I invite FIRST to set up more Championship events for the 2017 season. Super Regionals of 200 local teams. Not only is it much easier to find facilities for 200-team events, but they're also big enough to warrant the inclusion of sponsorship displays, scholarship rows, and seminar series.

Furthermore, this idea is scalable. Whenever one Super Regional fills up, simply add another to keep with FIRST's 25% (minimum) stat. This allows FIRST to keep their "quota" of FRC teams, while still running an exclusive, competition-oriented Championship.

And because this system adds another destination, and not another stepping stone, the FRC season does not go any longer than it is today. There will be some last-minute hotel bookings as teams find out where they compete, but that's the case right now as well (and it's the same case as any model FIRST can come up with).

In the short term, FIRST can take Houston (which I believe is scheduled for the week before St Louis / Detroit) and make it a Super-Duper Regional of 400 teams that services the area of two Regular Super-Regionals, and then "downgrade" to a regular Super-Regional in 2021.

(If all this sounds familiar, it's because I've already written about it here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1479643#post1479643).)

waialua359

19-05-2015, 18:34

Yes, this is correct. Flights, hotels, and airport transportation were covered for two team members. Most teams chose to send one student and one mentor.
This is very doable when the costs are covered by FIRST.
I wonder how many would have gone, if all of the associated costs were to be covered by teams.

The cost alone would make it very difficult for teams that win one of the Champs, to attend yet another event.

On a side note,
I do however like the idea of having all Einstein participants (division winners) compete at a later date to determine who is the overall champion. But of course, subsidized by FIRST as a reward for winning the division.
If it was in New Hampshire at headquarters, I'm sure they could take care of the registration fees, robot transportation, and other costs associated with putting on an event. Pay for hotels too while were at it. Or make it part of the suppliers summit event and offer tours of Dean's house and FIRST headquarters much like the Dean's list agenda.:)

dag0620

19-05-2015, 19:30

What about this: FIRST runs 2 champs with a postseason tournament to decide the true winner. Then, some time down the road, they add two more championships and just send all 32 division winners to the postseason event. Kind of like super-regionals, just a backwards way of getting there.

I sometimes get the feeling this might be the plan HQ is actually shooting for all along. In some ways it make sense as it allows for growth of the Super Regional tier as the program grows, instead of just a flip the switch change.

Andrew Schreiber

19-05-2015, 20:54

I would love to hear why a two-tier Championship model wouldn't work.

I disagree with the label "Poverty Champs." I'd rather call it "stepping stone," or "redemption" Champs.

1) Prestige - One event would mean more, it'd be where the sponsors put out their A game because, let's be honest, the top tier teams more than likely spend more and push equipment harder. Recruiters and media would be more likely to be in attendance. And sponsors would want their names associated with the A champs instead of redemption.

2) Qualifying - Teams would be offended they were "relegated" to B Champ. And how would you determine it? Would it be 3rd picks? EI/RaS winners? Point System? None of those are completely fair. And where do CA winners end up?

3) Locations - Part of the incentive for 2Champz is cost savings for teams (I think this is horse crap). This defeats it completely.

iVanDuzer

19-05-2015, 22:11

I believe my ideal solution (posted above) addresses a lot of these points by emphasizing multiple, local "second tier" "Super-Regional" Championships.

1) Prestige - One event would mean more, it'd be where the sponsors put out their A game because, let's be honest, the top tier teams more than likely spend more and push equipment harder. Recruiters and media would be more likely to be in attendance. And sponsors would want their names associated with the A champs instead of redemption.

Local sponsors and local universities can advertise at their local Super Regional. For example, I've walked up and down Scholarship Row at St Louis, and I have never seen a single Canadian University there, despite many offering FIRST-specific scholarships (York, Waterloo, Western, Windsor for sure - I'm not really looking for scholarships anymore so I don't know what's out there). There would be space for these schools at a hypothetical Canada / Michigan / New York Super-Regional.

Similar case for local sponsors. There's not really an incentive for a corporation located almost entirely in Michigan to pay for an event in Missouri, but put a big event next door and they might be interested.

Since these local schools and sponsors no longer need to compete with the "big dogs" for advertising and/or speech time at Champs, they get to be headliners at these smaller, more local events. I would hazard a guess that, if FIRST ran with multiple Super Regionals, they would see an influx of sponsors (especially if their sponsorship scale shifted accordingly).

Alternatively, FIRST could allocate money spent for Champs towards the Super-Regionals. Sort of a "if you want to sponsor our Big Show, you have to also help our Slightly Smaller Show" deal. This definitely isn't an ideal situation, but it is a model that is used.

2) Qualifying - Teams would be offended they were "relegated" to B Champ. And how would you determine it? Would it be 3rd picks? EI/RaS winners? Point System? None of those are completely fair. And where do CA winners end up?

There would be basically three types of teams at these Super Regionals:

1) Teams in the ~30 Percentile who wouldn't make it to Champs, regardless of whether we're using the current model or the Championsplit (FIRST wants 25% of FRC teams each year, but as shown elsewhere in this thread, having a Champs with 25% of all FRC means having a ton of repeats, so very few teams make it every four years anyways). These teams should jump at the opportunity to have post-season play and a Champs experience.

2) The Teams that should be at Champs but don't quite make it. These are the "redemption" teams. As the system currently stands, these are the teams that make it to the finals and lose, while missing out on Wildcard spots. The current reactions can either be unmotivating disappointment (we tried so hard but didn't make it, what's the point?) or motivation (we came so close, and we'll make it next year). In either case, the existence of a lower-tier Championship does nothing to change this current dichotomy, so I would argue it's a moot point: some teams will be disappointed, other teams will come out guns a-blazing trying to prove they're a force to be reckoned with.

Sidenote, generally speaking, the teams that make the biggest splashes at IRI are the ones who feel "shafted" at Champs. For example, 2056 winning in 2014 after being knocked out in the QF (their worst showing). Or 469, who put on a clinic on winning in 2010 after losing on Einstein with arguably the best robot ever built for an FRC game. This would apparently support my idea that most teams would jump at the opportunity for redemption.

3) The "Non-competitive" teams. The third picks, the "carried" robots, the RAS, the Engineering Inspiration winners that don't have a "competitive" robot. This is the only group that would feel "offended" that they're at this event, I think. However, winning an event could still net a butt-load of points that, paired with a decent qualification record, would be worth a ticket to Worlds.

In terms of qualification, one of the things I like most about the District system is the points system, so I would love to adapt a points system to the Regional Model. In terms of Chairman's, I would love to say "all Chairman's Teams should end up at the Tier One Event." I think that winning Chairman's would net a bunch of points, but unless you have a semi-decent robot (say, Semi-Finals at a regional, OR decent seeding, depending on how the points work out), then you wouldn't qualify for the Championship Event. A similar structure should be implemented for RAS and EI, although they'd need better on-field performance to qualify. Basically, winning any of these big awards should make it easier for you to get into the top-tier event. I firmly believe in the worth and value that Chairman's, RAS, and EI teams bring to the Championship event.

In terms of accidentally stopping a Chairman's team who would win the CCA from attending Worlds... this is again another issue. BUT I don't think it's a huge issue, given that, traditionally, the Hall of Fame teams are competitive on the field as well (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1482198&postcount=117) and generally would have an easy time qualifying even without their automatic HoF status.

Additionally, teams that qualify "twice" should probably get an automatic invite to the top event. This includes multiple event winners, but also teams that win Chairman's at their first regional, and then EI at their second, or a rookie that wins multiple RAS. Or a team that wins an event and also wins Chairman's. These teams would probably have qualified anyways, but it's good to solidify their place.

One issue with a points system is that in Districts, you get points between two events. Until FIRST goes completely to districts, I think the point system should count for each team's most-successful event. Yes, this is unfair in favour of the teams that can afford to attend multiple events, but so is the current system. I think the best thing, in terms of fairness, would be for all of FIRST to convert to the District System, but until that happens, we have to work with imperfect systems.

The Districts would still use their current qualification model.

3) Locations - Part of the incentive for 2Champz is cost savings for teams (I think this is horse crap). This defeats it completely.

Right now the cost savings "excuse" is horse crap, I agree. But if FIRST were to expand the second-tier Championship model and include multiple second-tier champs, then the events would actually be local, and therefore would actually save teams money.

The locations for a 200 team event would be much easier to find. For example, such an event could be held at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, Ontario (previous home of the Greater Toronto Regional). It would be very cozy, but the teams would probably fit. I would assume that there are plenty of other venues that would be good for a competition of this size scattered throughout Canada and the US.

northstardon

19-05-2015, 22:19

1) Prestige - One event would mean more, it'd be where the sponsors put out their A game because, let's be honest, the top tier teams more than likely spend more and push equipment harder. Recruiters and media would be more likely to be in attendance. And sponsors would want their names associated with the A champs instead of redemption.

2) Qualifying - Teams would be offended they were "relegated" to B Champ. And how would you determine it? Would it be 3rd picks? EI/RaS winners? Point System? None of those are completely fair. And where do CA winners end up?

3) Locations - Part of the incentive for 2Champz is cost savings for teams (I think this is horse crap). This defeats it completely.

4) Inspiration - The "A" Championship would probably contain most all of the "elite" or "inspirational" teams that other teams want to see/compete against/be inspired by. If that's the most important aspect of a "championship experience" for a team, then how enthusiastic are they going to be about settling for second best (but paying just as much)? I'm going to guess that the "elites" and a lot of the "almost-elite" teams that just miss qualifying for an "A" championship will decline the invitation to "B," and save their money in the hope of qualifying for the top tier next year. Which would mean that there would be an even bigger competitive gap between the two events, and even less "inspiration" at the B event.

Gregor

19-05-2015, 22:22

A quote from Dean at 4:07 in this video. (http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/05/18/superbowl-of-robotics-rachel-crane-ts-orig.cnn/video/playlists/most-popular-domestic/)

I think that most of the kids here in a year or two will not remember which robot won, they will not care which robot lost...

That pretty much settles it.

northstardon

19-05-2015, 22:48

In terms of Chairman's, I would love to say "all Chairman's Teams should end up at the Tier One Event." I think that winning Chairman's would net a bunch of points, but unless you have a semi-decent robot (say, Semi-Finals at a regional, OR decent seeding, depending on how the points work out), then you wouldn't qualify for the Championship Event. A similar structure should be implemented for RAS and EI, although they'd need better on-field performance to qualify. Basically, winning any of these big awards should make it easier for you to get into the top-tier event. I firmly believe in the worth and value that Chairman's, RAS, and EI teams bring to the Championship event.

Isn't there some conflict between a tiered model that relegates CA winners to the lower tier event and the fact that the Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award that a FRC team can win? If regional/district CA winners with "semi-decent" robots qualify for Tier 1, and the other CA winners are in Tier 2, then how would you go about determining a CCA? Would there still be HOF teams?

Knufire

19-05-2015, 23:15

Isn't there some conflict between a tiered model that relegates CA winners to the lower tier event and the fact that the Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award that a FRC team can win? If regional/district CA winners with "semi-decent" robots qualify for Tier 1, and the other CA winners are in Tier 2, then how would you go about determining a CCA? Would there still be HOF teams?

I think he's saying that a Chairman's award AND a semi-decent robot should be necessary, but a Chairman's Award alone shouldn't be enough. However, I'd guess the Chairman-winning teams with a bottom tier robot are few and far in between; the type of program that earns a Chairman's Award correlates strongly to the type of program that will put out a quality machine.

EricH

19-05-2015, 23:20

Isn't there some conflict between a tiered model that relegates CA winners to the lower tier event and the fact that the Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award that a FRC team can win?
I do believe there is. HOWEVER, I think that that is primarily because certain people absolutely insist on having "tiered" events rather than geographically-apportioned events. Remember, folks, always choose the LESSER of two evils (if you have a choice, which I'm pretty sure we DON'T).

If regional/district CA winners with "semi-decent" robots qualify for Tier 1, and the other CA winners are in Tier 2, then how would you go about determining a CCA? Would there still be HOF teams?Probably about the same way you'd do it under the "even-tier" system. Each event contributes one. And of course they'd be HoF teams. Think about it this way: Is [insert sport here]'s Hall of Fame cheapened by the addition of X players/year instead of just 1, when there are about 5X players that are probably deserving? Course not. And, just to drive the point home: There are about 60 RCA/DCMPCA winners per year right now. 1/60 is a shade under 2% of all current regional/district champs winners. For reference, that's about how many Boy Scouts make Eagle in any given year. Pick 2 instead of 1, that's 3% or so. It just means that it's a slightly bigger crowd in there.

And if you're giving double the CCAs, that should mean more inspiration from (and for) those teams, and definitely means more recognition (within FIRST) for one or both of their efforts. Now that, I think, is a win-win--might even be something that should be done anyways. Bring back the CCA Honorable Mentions!

iVanDuzer

20-05-2015, 00:36

I do believe there is. HOWEVER, I think that that is primarily because certain people absolutely insist on having "tiered" events rather than geographically-apportioned events. Remember, folks, always choose the LESSER of two evils (if you have a choice, which I'm pretty sure we DON'T).

Well, I'm still under the impression that a two-tiered system (where there are multiple tier-two events) IS the lesser of two evils ;)

And if you're giving double the CCAs, that should mean more inspiration from (and for) those teams, and definitely means more recognition (within FIRST) for one or both of their efforts. Now that, I think, is a win-win--might even be something that should be done anyways. Bring back the CCA Honorable Mentions!

I like this. The Chairman's Award judging process is always so nebulous and opaque. Giving teams a "runner's up" nod would go a long way to transforming many of these already-great programs into Hall of Fame worthy, astronomically inspiring programs.

iVanDuzer

20-05-2015, 00:37

4) Inspiration - The "A" Championship would probably contain most all of the "elite" or "inspirational" teams that other teams want to see/compete against/be inspired by. If that's the most important aspect of a "championship experience" for a team, then how enthusiastic are they going to be about settling for second best (but paying just as much)? I'm going to guess that the "elites" and a lot of the "almost-elite" teams that just miss qualifying for an "A" championship will decline the invitation to "B," and save their money in the hope of qualifying for the top tier next year. Which would mean that there would be an even bigger competitive gap between the two events, and even less "inspiration" at the B event.

Here's the pinch: the Championsplit will make sure that there isn't an event with every elite team. The two-tiered system makes sure that there is an event that does have every elite team. Furthermore, it makes reaching said event a meaningful accomplishment that's worth celebrating.

Also, under my two-tier proposal, the tier-one Championship is still 400 teams. There will be plenty of "in flux" spots present every year.

Even today's Championship model doesn't guarantee that Champs will have all of the very best teams. I've addressed this point when I blocked out the three types of teams that would be at these tier-two events, and how such an event would be inspiring to them. In every case, all the teams at the tier-two events would be engaging in meaningful, higher-quality competition that is better suited to their level (ie no "Blowouts" from the powerhouses). Every team would have a legitimate chance at winning the event.

These tier-two events give the "almost elite" teams the opportunity to be a bonafide elite team, for the duration of an event. And those "elite" teams that have all the bad luck in the world and end up at the Super Regionals? From my first-hand experience, they're going to be disappointed, sure, but also fired up to prove that they deserved to be at the tier-one event by winning their tier-two event.

Isn't there some conflict between a tiered model that relegates CA winners to the lower tier event and the fact that the Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award that a FRC team can win? If regional/district CA winners with "semi-decent" robots qualify for Tier 1, and the other CA winners are in Tier 2, then how would you go about determining a CCA? Would there still be HOF teams?

Yes, it's a bit of a conflict. I acknowledged this in the part you quoted. One possible solution is what they do in Michigan (and in other districts? I'm not sure) where the winners of each Super-Regional's Chairman's Award is invited to present at the Championship event. That is, their robot does not compete, but the team still competes for the Championship Chairman's Award. This way you would get the best Chairman's team recognized at the tier-one Championship, and you would also maintain the high competitive playing field.

I think he's saying that a Chairman's award AND a semi-decent robot should be necessary, but a Chairman's Award alone shouldn't be enough. However, I'd guess the Chairman-winning teams with a bottom tier robot are few and far in between; the type of program that earns a Chairman's Award correlates strongly to the type of program that will put out a quality machine.

This exactly. Again, I want to point out that, going back 10 years to 2005, the only Hall of Fame team that would not regularly qualify for the Tier One event under the model I put forward would have been 597, this year's winner. And they would have automatically qualified this year because of EI + Chairman's, and probably made it last year with an EI and a Semi-Final appearance in New York.

EricH

20-05-2015, 01:41

Well, I'm still under the impression that a two-tiered system (where there are multiple tier-two events) IS the lesser of two evils ;)

That whole "multiple" part is where I can agree, somewhat--if you look at my other posts, I actually advocate scrapping DCMPs AND any "extra" championships for super regionals once enough areas go district. Just that some folks seem to be thinking that there are two CMPs, therefore there must be tiers between the two.

To be clear, where I see FIRST given enough time: "local" event (district) x2 -> Super Regional (x some number TBD) -> Championship. Possibly sneak a "state" championship in there somewhere. Super Regionals get a lot of the attention CMP currently gets--conferences, etc.--and CMP is the best of the best, for both competition and CCA/EI. WITH their robots!

Citrus Dad

20-05-2015, 01:49

Citrus Dad

20-05-2015, 01:59

2) Qualifying - Teams would be offended they were "relegated" to B Champ. And how would you determine it? Would it be 3rd picks? EI/RaS winners? Point System? None of those are completely fair. And where do CA winners end up?

Others have answered the other 2 points, and there's a whole thread on two-tier championship proposals here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137096).

On this point, if teams know at the beginning of the season the qualifying process, they are not going to be offended. The current qualifying system isn't completely fair--no system is. That's a strawman.

Bryce Paputa

20-05-2015, 07:59

Yes, it's a bit of a conflict. I acknowledged this in the part you quoted. One possible solution is what they do in Michigan (and in other districts? I'm not sure) where the winners of each Super-Regional's Chairman's Award is invited to present at the Championship event. That is, their robot does not compete, but the team still competes for the Championship Chairman's Award. This way you would get the best Chairman's team recognized at the tier-one Championship, and you would also maintain the high competitive playing field.

That isn't true of the chairman's award in Michigan, only EI/RAS. Chairman's winners compete in full at MSC.

Anupam Goli

20-05-2015, 09:02

A quote from Dean at 4:07 in this video. (http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/05/18/superbowl-of-robotics-rachel-crane-ts-orig.cnn/video/playlists/most-popular-domestic/)

That pretty much settles it.

I remember every robot that won Einstein since I started participating in FRC. Then again, I may be not your average robotics dude.

I'm an avid sports fan as well, but don't remember who won the super bowl last year, or the college football national championship 3 years ago. I'm not sure if we can apply a greater context to that quote.

JesseK

20-05-2015, 09:09

Heavy Sigh. I wish there were a better option than abstaining from the survey. This is the exact crap my company just pulled to skew data in order to convey to 17,000 employees that a "majority" want a 9/80 schedule. It's the same conclusion too, ironically: only 33% of the total favor it.

My Decision Theory Professor would put heavy red marks all across this blog post and give it a 'D' as a paper. She might not have even accepted the original survey for turn-in. '5' cannot be 'neutral' if there are 4 options below it representing 'against' and 5 options above it representing 'for'. There is also no analysis given for whether or not the survey represents statistical significance, but I applaud the effort to analyze on a per-team basis (just keep in mind that 5.2 isn't "in favor"...).

These are the game politicians play. Luckily, we're engineers.

Fundamentals, people.

Rman1923

20-05-2015, 10:12

An alternative I've proposed: Stop the first event at the division winners, and take them to the second event the next week. Run full Einstein field with all of the division winners at the second event as part of the closing ceremony (which appears to be in different location than the competition site.)

Those at the second event get to see ALL of the top teams, and by alternating dates, each location gets to see ALL of the top teams every other year, and they get to see at least the 50% of the top teams every year.

There will advantages and disadvantages to each group of alliances but that already happens to a certain extent through random (vs seeded) assignment to divisions and random (vs seeded) qualifying scheduling.

I really like this idea as well, but I know teams will have issues paying for travel for two events, even if you alternate which champs go first every year.

As for DCMPs being replacements for champs, I can't honestly say MAR CMP is or ever will feel like champs. There, for me at least, is always a feeling of familiarity at MAR championships where I know what team is going to do well or not. I also know many people on other teams. Part of the appeal of champs, again, for me, is the feeling that you never know what you'll see, you meet and make new friends from all around the world and there is tons of anticipation and buildup to it.

Just my 0.02 dollars

JB987

20-05-2015, 15:21

The venue dates are already set, so wouldn't that mean Houston division winners would be forced to travel for 3 years straight while our friends in the midwest and northeast enjoy substantial cost savings (even if FIRST kicked in to defray costs for travel teams? Unfortunately, the only fair way (IMO) to have interaction between split champs is to have division winners from both 'championships' travel at another time which would be a huge cost in $$ and time for FIRST and the division winners. Would it really be worth it? Alternatively, would it really be worth it to just send the 'split champs' champion alliances to compete on another date to decide an overall 'world' champion alliance? I would love to be able to have a single champion alliance but it just doesn't seem reasonable as things stand now. And maybe having two 'champions' won't be as bad as many have postulated...or will it?:D

marshall

20-05-2015, 15:24

And maybe having two 'champions' won't be as bad as many have postulated...or will it?:D

It's demotivating... that's for certain.

efoote868

20-05-2015, 15:30

It's demotivating... that's for certain.

Likely the high school-ers 6 years from now won't even know the difference of pre-championsplit to post. Those mentors that do with have their rose-tinted glasses because lets face it, despite everything we perceive to be wrong with 2 championships, we still know the current format now is far from perfect.

AdamHeard

20-05-2015, 15:37

Likely the high school-ers 6 years from now won't even know the difference of pre-championsplit to post. Those mentors that do with have their rose-tinted glasses because lets face it, despite everything we perceive to be wrong with 2 championships, we still know the current format now is far from perfect.

Doesn't logic like this rule out any and all improvement? People will just get used to whatever the new thing is, and all will be well.

Lil' Lavery

20-05-2015, 16:35

I remember every robot that won Einstein since I started participating in FRC. Then again, I may be not your average robotics dude.

I'm an avid sports fan as well, but don't remember who won the super bowl last year, or the college football national championship 3 years ago. I'm not sure if we can apply a greater context to that quote.
Anupam, I can say for certain that you're not an average robotics dude (nor are you a student ;) ). Don't take CD's investment in the on-the-field success as total community's investment in the on-the-field's success. What Dean said is 100% true. The majority of student won't remember who won on the field in a couple years. Chief Delphi will remember, but Chief Delphi is only a small portion of our community.

It's demotivating... that's for certain.

Is it? For the vast majority of FRC it won't change any motivations. The vast majority of teams don't have that on their radar when deciding their motivations, and plenty more will still be motivated to win the highest level awards they possibly can. I don't buy that's "for certain" at all.

Citrus Dad

20-05-2015, 20:15

What Dean said is 100% true. The majority of student won't remember who won on the field in a couple years.

Do you have empirical evidence for this statement for students who attended Champs (which is only a small proportion of all student in FRC)? Dean was talking about Champ attendees, and they are more invested than the average FRC participant (and I agree from most of them they won't even KNOW who won much less remember.) I assert with at least as much evidence as you have that those who attended will remember who won for a fair amount of time, or at least will need little prompting to remember.

Citrus Dad

20-05-2015, 20:19

I really like this idea as well, but I know teams will have issues paying for travel for two events, even if you alternate which champs go first every year.

I think FIRST would have to pay for it. No team has enough $ reserves to pay for a second trip on one week's notice. I expect it would cost about $150,000 for 4 alliances. That's less than 1 Regional (in California at least).

Lil' Lavery

20-05-2015, 20:54

Do you have empirical evidence for this statement for students who attended Champs (which is only a small proportion of all student in FRC)? Dean was talking about Champ attendees, and they are more invested than the average FRC participant (and I agree from most of them they won't even KNOW who won much less remember.) I assert with at least as much evidence as you have that those who attended will remember who won for a fair amount of time, or at least will need little prompting to remember.

I don't have anything of statistical significance, no. I did text a few members of my senior class on 116 if they remember who won in 2007, and none of them did (with the exception of me, if that counts). One of them had even returned to mentor 116 afterwards.

marshall

20-05-2015, 21:28

Is it? For the vast majority of FRC it won't change any motivations. The vast majority of teams don't have that on their radar when deciding their motivations, and plenty more will still be motivated to win the highest level awards they possibly can. I don't buy that's "for certain" at all.

Fair enough. Maybe it isn't for you or your team. I can tell you that it is for me and mine. It's been a conversation we've had this season since it was announced and it's definitely going to be a drive towards success for this next season... beyond that, I'm uncertain.

MichaelMcQuinn

20-05-2015, 21:30

Even if there are two championships, no matter how diluted they are, teams will STILL try their hardest, and THAT is what motivates the kids.

efoote868

20-05-2015, 21:38

Doesn't logic like this rule out any and all improvement? People will just get used to whatever the new thing is, and all will be well.

Not really, especially when the two championships can be a vehicle for improvement. Problems with the single championship includes a cap on the number of teams that can attend, the fact that it has never been the best of all teams, the limited number of matches teams have at championships, the format of the awards, the limited amount of time between week 7 and champs, and the lack of incentive for areas to go to districts to name a few.

Also since FIRST is paying attention to our solutions, as a community we have the ability to propose and debate the merits of new ideas. Apart from the two locations, FIRST has made it fairly clear that details still need to be worked out. While there may be pains right now, I believe ultimately it will work out for the best.

Madison

20-05-2015, 22:09

I don't really recall (nor care to recall, honestly) who won the Championship a month ago. That doesn't mean winning it isn't important to me.

Siri

20-05-2015, 22:10

I don't have anything of statistical significance, no. I did text a few members of my senior class on 116 if they remember who won in 2007, and none of them did (with the exception of me, if that counts). One of them had even returned to mentor 116 afterwards.I'm not sure that 2007 qualifies as "a year or two" (-quote by Dean). Anecdote: Using 1640 for the past two years would be cheating, but I know most of my students from say classes '11 to '14 could've told you how 469 didn't win in 2010 and (for '12 onward) that 1114 didn't in 2012, even if they don't remember who did. (This is an example of something below*)

--

Dean's next sentence in that quote is: "They leave here with a whole new perspective on the world." He seems to be making the argument that the N people who don't remember who won also don't care who won. I'm not sure this is accurate. Think about what you remember most vividly in FIRST or even in life. *I think people remember inspiration, they remember upsets, they remember crazy amazing things. Using the inability to remember a string of numbers as a proxy for not caring about the elite competition doesn't make sense to me. If we want people to be inspiring by STEM, then the vehicle we're using should be as good at its intended purpose as possible. Dean's quote is in a CNN article entitled "Superbowl of Robotics". Worlds is what people are supposed to watch when they want our Superbowl.

I understand the argument that not enough people see that vehicle right now, and I can accept that HQ sees the Split as a solution to that. I just want it to be understood as a legitimate trade-off rather than an 'any level of play is good enough' or a 'not enough people watch Einstein now, so it doesn't matter how good it is'. (These aren't intended as direct quotes of anyone, least of all Sean.) I guess what I'm saying is, Dear FIRST: near time fix your webcasts, up your production values, improve the Einstein broadcast, help DCMPs and Regionals do the same, up your broad PR initiatives, accredit your conferences so teams can come for teacher PD and student leadership. Then try to tell us as a community that we would will still benefit from getting more teams to an experience that's half of Worlds. You could've helped a lot more people with a lot less mess.

EDIT: Or, you know, what Madison said.

EricH

20-05-2015, 23:04

Not really, especially when the two championships can be a vehicle for improvement. Problems with the singlesplit championship includes a cap on the number of teams that can attend, the fact that it has never been the best of all teams, the limited number of matches teams have at championships, the format of the awards, the limited amount of time between week 7 and champs, and the lack of incentive for areas to go to districts to name a few.
FTFY.

And now I add that there's one set of teams that gets an extra week, there is no single world champion alliance (at this time), and that you have to watch (or attend) for TWO weeks to see "all" the top teams. Oh... and now we get to listen to TWO of Dean's speeches within two weeks of each other! (NOTE: This last could be a positive. YMMV, you'll have to form your own opinion on that.)

Just as a reminder that there will be a cap of 400 teams/championship event, neither event will have the best of all teams, matches will still be limited*, the awards will still drag on, time will still be an issue between Week 7 and either champs, and there will still be not much incentive for some areas to go to districts.

*I could see 8 50-team divisions, OR 4 100-team divisions. I suspect the latter, and hope for the former. If it is in fact the latter, matches won't improve. OTOH, if it's the former, there will be more matches.

efoote868

20-05-2015, 23:27

FTFY.
The team cap is now an arbitrary number, not capped by one venue. We don't know if all the best teams will be at one event (I suspect probably not), though expanding the field can get more of the best teams to events. 400 teams is more easily managed than 600 teams in terms of number of matches, especially if FIRST keeps 8 fields per championship (dual fields per division would be nice!) Awards format is still up in the air, and due to proportional representation at championships districts earn more slots than regional competitions in areas.

and that you have to watch (or attend) for TWO weeks to see "all" the top teams.

Even with a webcast, I have a hard time trying to focus on more than 1 field at a time. As a remote spectator, I will be able to gain exposure to more teams.

Pault

21-05-2015, 01:12

Having attended worlds for the first time this year as a senior, I just wanted to chime in about what made the experience so special for me.

The first thing was that it was a goal that I had finally achieved. For four years I have worked countless hours to try and help my team reach the world championships. And it nearly didn't happen. But that fact that I can say that I did it (not to undermine the teamwork aspect of FRC, I obviously could not do it alone) made the experience worth so much more to me. If my team had simply gotten off the waitlist, or had won a regional by being nothing more than a cheesecake platter, than I'm not even sure if I would have wanted to attend. And everytime I hear the phrase "top 25% of teams," I lose a little excitement, because that makes it sound like making it to worlds is not an achievement at all, but rather just something that I was gifted (even though I know this wasn't the case).

The second thing was watching matches on Saturday. The shock of seeing 254 being taken out in the quarter-finals. The entertainment of seeing how various alliances synergized, and what ended up working the best. The anticipation of seeing 900 on the sidelines of Einstein, being put into transport configuration before every match only as if they were going onto the field, only to be taken back out a few seconds later. And finally accepting that 1678 really has become one of the best teams in the world, and not just some team that got lucky a couple of times. So Dean can say that who wins doesn't matter as much as he wants, but in the end I have found that the competition is the most inspiring aspect of FIRST.

YMMV, but for most of the students that I have called teammates, I am fairly confindent that a lot of what I have said holds true.

Lil' Lavery

21-05-2015, 02:47

Fair enough. Maybe it isn't for you or your team. I can tell you that it is for me and mine. It's been a conversation we've had this season since it was announced and it's definitely going to be a drive towards success for this next season... beyond that, I'm uncertain.

So you're not going to try and win just because there are two championships? Having to share the championship title with 7 other teams instead of 3 other teams will change your motivations as a team? You'll no longer have any drive towards success if you can only win in Houston and not Detroit?

David Lame

21-05-2015, 07:18

marshall

21-05-2015, 07:59

So you're not going to try and win just because there are two championships? Having to share the championship title with 7 other teams instead of 3 other teams will change your motivations as a team? You'll no longer have any drive towards success if you can only win in Houston and not Detroit?

I'm sorry, I'm not explaining myself completely. Let me try. Yes, it does change our motivations. It doesn't change them for any single event in that we will strive to do our best. That's not what I'm saying. What it might do is split our team. We have been growing continuously for the last 3~4 years to the point where we have finally started talking about forming an FTC or VEX team as a sort of "JV" team. Instead, what we might do because of this is make FRC our "JV" team and then attempt to enter into some of the college-level robotics competitions that exist. We are in a unique position in that our primary school is technically part of the UNC university system so we could be afforded to do this without a lot of headache.

For the first time I can ever recall in the team's history (since 2002), and I've been around for a lot of it (since 2003), we are seriously considering taking the energies/focus/resources off of FRC and putting them into something else. There are a lot of reasons for this but believe me when I tell you that this notion of a split championship has been a catalyst for having these conversations. Striving to be the best in the world at something is a huge driver for us. Removing that goal (or adding more if you prefer looking at it that way) is demotivating.

Qbot2640

21-05-2015, 09:11

For the first time I can ever recall in the team's history (since 2002), and I've been around for a lot of it (since 2003), we are seriously considering taking the energies/focus/resources off of FRC and putting them into something else. There are a lot of reasons for this but believe me when I tell you that this notion of a split championship has been a catalyst for having these conversations. Striving to be the best in the world at something is a huge driver for us. Removing that goal (or adding more if you prefer looking at it that way) is demotivating.

^This

Our team probably has some different reasons - but the outcome is the same...it is demotivating. We've also been growing over the last four years - ever since our successful 2012 season which earned us our first and only trip to Saint Louis. We've budgeted each year to return, but have not qualified so we did not...we could have waitlisted but we want to return again on merit. Lowering the bar removes some of this motivation...but more important, making the event that we would attend one of two...and having only half of the teams we want to see and interact with at each removes much more.

Our team is not currently entertaining Vex participation, or any other outlet - but I also see it possible now. From an economics perspective, "bang for the buck" if you will...the split reduces the bang. And while it is still a year away, I've already sensed a reduction in the desire to raise funds by our team.

R2D2DOC

21-05-2015, 09:24

Hello All,

With the objective of establishing as many FIRST programs at the high school level as possible, we need to look at HIGH SCHOOL level events as well as the limited time and resources for these young people.

The district model has been working well in Michigan. My son was a student and I was a mentor when we transitioned from regionals to districts. It was an adjustment in 2009. But by 2010 it was fine. The process of the state championship is scaleable and is evident by the success of the 2015 Michigan State Championship.

Will the district model work everywhere? Hopefully in one form another. We rely on the wisdom and dedication of the students and volunteers throughout FRC to make that happen. Will there be regionals? Perhaps, if it fills the need. Any crossing between districts and districts to regionals? That still needs to be addressed and may change as we move along. The same could be said concerning qualifications to go the world championship. That too may evolve.

We are in a challenging transition, albiet on a larger scale, for the entire FRC community compared to the Michigan experience. FIRST is seeking a balance between incuding as many teams as possible and making the championship experience gratifying and unique. Do District Championships fulfill part of the goal of inclusion as well as a "championship" experience? Depends on who you ask.

I have judged at Michigan districts, Michigan champs and World Champs. Each has it's own benefit and I believe district championships fills the void for inclusion, and a good portion of the championship experience.

FIRST will have to gauge the community's reactions. I believe they will steer a viable course for the future. Remember, this is all for the students.

R2D2DOC

21-05-2015, 09:25

Hello All,

With the objective of establishing as many FIRST programs at the high school level as possible, we need to look at HIGH SCHOOL level events as well as the limited time and resources for these young people. An extra level of competitions after a championsplit seems a bit much.

The district model has been working well in Michigan. My son was a student and I was a mentor when we transitioned from regionals to districts. It was an adjustment in 2009. But by 2010 it was fine. The process of the state championship is scaleable and is evident by the success of the 2015 Michigan State Championship.

Will the district model work everywhere? Hopefully in one form another. We rely on the wisdom and dedication of the students and volunteers throughout FRC to make that happen. Will there be regionals? Perhaps, if it fills the need. Any crossing between districts and districts to regionals? That still needs to be addressed and may change as we move along. The same could be said concerning qualifications to go the world championship. That too may evolve.

We are in a challenging transition, albiet on a larger scale, for the entire FRC community compared to the Michigan experience. FIRST is seeking a balance between incuding as many teams as possible and making the championship experience gratifying and unique. Do District Championships fulfill part of the goal of inclusion as well as a "championship" experience? Depends on who you ask.

I have judged at Michigan districts, Michigan champs and World Champs. Each has it's own benefit and I believe district championships fills the void for inclusion, and a good portion of the championship experience.

FIRST will have to gauge the community's reactions. I believe they will steer a viable course for the future. Remember, this is all for the students.