FTC Email Blast//Championship Eligibility and Awards Criteria Information

[Mark McLeod]

Dear Teams,

Championship Eligibility and Awards Criteria Information:

Important changes have been made in the World Championship Eligibility
Criteria. Please follow this link for the details,
http://www.usfirst.org/community/fvc/content.aspx?id=4378 and if you
have any questions, don’t hesitate to send them to ftcteams@usfirst.org
<mailto:ftcteams@usfirst.org>.

We’ve updated the Judges Manual with new Awards criteria. This
information will help you to understand what the specifics are for each
FTC Award. Please follow this link to read the judging criteria for Quad
Quandary Awards. http://www.usfirst.org/community/fvc/content.aspx?id=724

We believe the Engineering Notebook is an important part of the build
and design process, and we want your efforts at creating an Engineering
Notebook to be successful, so in addition to the guidelines offered in
the coaching manual, we’ve added an Engineering Notebook info page to
our web site. You can access this information here:
http://www.usfirst.org/community/fvc/content.aspx?id=7366

**************************

****Autodesk FIRSTbase Coming Soon for FTC Teams**

Last year Autodesk launched a website dedicated to FRC teams called
FIRSTbase. This year, we are pleased to announce that we are expanding
the FIRSTbase site to include FTC teams. Here are some of the items you
can expect to find on FIRSTbase:

· Autodesk Inventor 2008 software ( 3 licenses)

· Online training materials designed especially for you

· The Autodesk Kit of Parts

· Technical support access

· Team sharing functionality including photos and communications

Here’s what you can expect:

· The current site is for the 2007 FIRST season for FRC teams only. FTC
teams will not be able to access the current site.

· When the FIRSTbase site is launched for FTC teams, the main contact
that is listed in the FIRST TIMS database will receive an email
communication with instructions on how to register and activate the team.

· The Autodesk FIRSTbase site is expected to launch in early November 2007.

We hope all teams will take advantage of these great benefits offered by
Autodesk!

~Go Teams!

The FTC Support Team

[jgannon]

Some discussion of the ramifications of this plan went on a while back in this thread:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58729

The one difference between that speculation and the new rules is that the winning alliance captain does in fact get an automatic bid, which is most assuredly a step in the right direction.

[Rich Kressly]

Hey gang, to help out with your Autodesk Inventor Vex work, www.VexCAD.com has Inventor files posted ... woohoo :)

[basicxman]

is the Inventor going to be free?

[Holtzman]

These new selection criteria totally change the face of QQ alliance selections... and not for the better.

For example, Redateam is a strong ring scorer and seeds #1. Blueateam seeds number 2 and is also a strong ring scorer. These two teams are clearly the strongest team at the regional. Both teams want to attend the championship. If Blueateam accepts Redateams request in the alliance selections and they go on to win the tournament, Blueateam must rely on the lottery to attend the Championship Event.

Blueateam may even decline Redateams offer in an attempt to secure their own spot at the championship. These new selection criteria radically change the way alliance selections will play out, and at this point in time, a rule change like this is ridiculous to say the least.

With so few matches at most regional tournament(4 at the Toronto Tournament last year), one bad match, one mismatched crystal, one tiny slip-up, can knock you out of the top 8, and thus kissing goodbye to any chance of guaranteeing a spot at the Championship. I haven’t attend a single VEX tournament yet where we didn't have at least 1 crystal issue. I'd hate to see something that silly prevent someone from earning a spot at the championship.

Another thing that I find ridiculous is this section.

"C. Should a fourth team be brought onto the Winning Alliance during one of the elimination matches, that team will then be placed into the Second Tier Lottery, provided that they were attending one of their first three Championship Tournaments during the 2007 FTC season. If spots become available after all of the Inspire Award Winners, Winning Alliance Captains, and all eligible teams entered in the First Tier Lottery from each of the 2007 Championship Tournaments have been approached, the Second Tier Lottery teams will be drawn at random to determine their position in the lottery, and will be notified if there is an available spot at the World Championship Event in order of their picked position."

Whoever is writing these new criteria should consider reading over the Tournament rules again. There is no way a 4th team could be brought into an alliance in the elimination rounds in QQ. There is no Backup robot rule. The fact that this is stated just goes to show that whoever is coming up with these rules, doesn't fully understand the game, and the ramifications associated with such a rule change.

[Joe G.]

is the Inventor going to be free?

Yes, everything from the autodesk FIRSTbase will be free for download for FRC and FTC teams once it goes live.

[coriolis]

Holtzman makes a great point.

Seed 2 would be crazy to accept seed 1's invite. Seed 2 would have just an outside trip to making it to Atlanta. You would be crazy to accept seed 1.

The seeding is based mostly on luck. Who is your opponent and who is your alliance is more important than the strength of your bot.

Look at the Nationals. The number 1 seed certainly wasn't the strongest team in the Nationals. If memory served me correctly, Simbiotics, Intelitek and Team Impulse were not that close to the top of the leaderboard.

I feel that gracious professionalism might be difficult to find this years.

Mark

[ManicMechanic]

Holtzman makes a great point.

Seed 2 would be crazy to accept seed 1's invite. Seed 2 would have just an outside trip to making it to Atlanta. You would be crazy to accept seed 1.



Not necessarily -- it depends on how many lottery spots there are.

I am only seeing 30 Championship events listed: 30 Inspire winners + 30 Alliance Captains = 60 spots taken. Suppose that 15 spots are reserved for International teams and that there are 100 spots total. That leaves 25 lottery spaces remaining for 30 first pick teams, which are decent odds, especially considering that a few of the originally invited 60 might decline.

Remember that your alliance has to WIN to even be considered. With those odds, if I were a high-ranking team, I would rather be picked by an even stronger team than mine, making a win more likely than if I were to choose a weaker team than mine (which might possibly decline, forcing me to choose from even further down the list).

Of course, if the number of teams is significantly greater than 30, the odds decrease rapidly, making the decision more difficult.

Yolande

[sovierr]

I am only seeing 30 Championship events listed: 30 Inspire winners + 30 Alliance Captains = 60 spots taken. Suppose that 15 spots are reserved for International teams and that there are 100 spots total. That leaves 25 lottery spaces remaining for 30 first pick teams, which are decent odds, especially considering that a few of the originally invited 60 might decline.

Don't forget that some of the regionals will have the winning alliance captain also win the Inspire Award freeing up more spots for the lottery. I have to figure that most/all of the second teams in the winning alliance will be able to attend Atlanta, but very few of the 3rd teams will.

Remember that your alliance has to WIN to even be considered. With those odds, if I were a high-ranking team, I would rather be picked by an even stronger team than mine, making a win more likely than if I were to choose a weaker team than mine (which might possibly decline, forcing me to choose from even further down the list).

It all depends on who picks you and who you might likely get in your own alliance selection. As a general rule, though, I tend to agree with you.

[Karthik]

I am only seeing 30 Championship events listed: 30 Inspire winners + 30 Alliance Captains = 60 spots taken. Suppose that 15 spots are reserved for International teams and that there are 100 spots total. That leaves 25 lottery spaces remaining for 30 first pick teams, which are decent odds, especially considering that a few of the originally invited 60 might decline.

This is assuming that there will still be 100 spots available at the Championship for FTC teams. Last year there were many complaints about the size of the FVC championship, and the small number (4) of qualification matches. There is a distinct possibility that the Championship event will be smaller in order to accommodate more qualification matches per team.

Until the total number of spots is announced for the Championship Event, there is no way of knowing what odds a first pick will have in the lottery. Teams should be careful not to plan their accept/decline strategies based upon this speculation. Hopefully FIRST will release the capacity of the Championships in advance of the initial qualifying tournaments.

[GaryVoshol]

This is assuming that there will still be 100 spots available at the Championship for FTC teams. Last year there were many complaints about the size of the FVC championship, and the small number (4) of qualification matches. There is a distinct possibility that the Championship event will be smaller in order to accommodate more qualification matches per team.

Until the total number of spots is announced for the Championship Event, there is no way of knowing what odds a first pick will have in the lottery. Teams should be careful not to plan their accept/decline strategies based upon this speculation. Hopefully FIRST will release the capacity of the Championships in advance of the initial qualifying tournaments.
A good point. FLL has announced that there will be about 84 teams invited, down from about 100 in 2007. Not every State Tournament Champion will be invited to the World Festival.

[sovierr]

This is assuming that there will still be 100 spots available at the Championship for FTC teams. Last year there were many complaints about the size of the FVC championship, and the small number (4) of qualification matches. There is a distinct possibility that the Championship event will be smaller in order to accommodate more qualification matches per team.

Why can't they expand the number of days that FTC is played to accomodate more qualifying matches instead of limiting the number of teams?

[KathieK]

Yes, everything from the autodesk FIRSTbase will be free for download for FRC and FTC teams once it goes live.

It appears to be live.