Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I would still advocate for a qualification system like the MAR/FiM model, but you do bring up a good point that we would have to figure out how to accomodate teams who only attend one regional. One of the requirements of MAR/FiM is that teams must attend two district events. Obviously, this is not feasible on a regional level because, as you mentioned, teams from far-off places (Hawaii, Australia, Israel, etc.) simply cannot afford the airfare. And, of course, we can't tell those teams "too bad." I think we could be able to figure out a system that has qualifications for the championship, but only requires attending a minimum of one regional.

What if only the best regional performance of each team was considered?

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Personally, I think averaging the number of events would be the 'best' method of doing a points system based championship that allows for teams to compete at any number of events.

Interesting thing to think about on the subject of a points system Championship:

If FRC moves to a points system Championship, SHOULD there be a larger gap in time between the end of Regional/District play and the Championship? Traveling to the Championship on short notice seems to become more and more of a nightmare each year, do we really want to see ~200+ Teams (Assuming there are some auto qauls) trying to book flights, rooms, buses, dinners, shipping robots in the same 2-3 day period?

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I'd actually advocate against using averages. And here's why:

Take two random teams. Let's say that one (Redateam) is a rookie/2nd-year team, and the other (Blueateam) is not. Redateam attends one event, and does quite well, but not well enough to qualify via a merit-based slot (say, finalist and a couple of non-qualifying awards). Blueateam attends 2, does the same as or even slightly better than Redateam at one, but at their first event they were pretty lousy (not in elims, maybe one award that isn't based on robot design). Redateam will qualify over Blueateam based on that average.

What happens when enough teams start figuring that out? Any team not in a district system will probably restrict themselves to a single event to improve their chances if they're decent to good. Less cross-pollination results, or maybe more as teams travel farther to find an event they can do well at in a one-and-done.

Why do I say this? I've seen it. Anybody who's seen my FF picklists for this year would notice a number of 2nd-and 3rd-year teams near the top of the list, partly because I used a lot of averages to help generate them and those teams have fewer data points than the 4th-year-plus teams (just an artifact of the generating system).

But, on the other hand, the best score method will have teams attending multiple events, trying to get a better score. Ditto for total score.

So, where does that leave us? I'd say back at the District system. Combined score from the first X events. With one minor change:anybody not attending at least X events gets X/N*CS, where N is the number of events they did attend and CS is the combined score from those events. (Basically, assume they got the same score at a second event.)

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

That's interesting, I was about to present the opposite argument, also warning against averages.

Say, Purpleateam and Greenateam are essentially on the same level from build season. Like so many teams out there, they have potential, but overlooked a few things and not fully dialed in Purpleateam attends 2 events, but Greenateam can only afford 1 event. Both go to their first event and do alright, but not well enough. For Greenateam, that's it, better luck next year. For Purpleateam, they go home, spend the next few weeks improving, and end up Finalists and award-winners at their second event. Their points are averaged, or even their best score is taken, and they make the next level.

This seems to happen to some extent at every level almost universally. I don't see a really great way to avoid this. Taking only the first event doesn't account for the phenomenal improvement some teams make, but I don't see a good way to measure the potential of single-event teams. Certainly its worthwhile to compare like elements as much as possible (teams to other teams in their event, or at least other teams with the same number of events at that point). Beyond that though, I don't know.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I'm not sure if this has already been mentioned, but my mom recently came up with a great idea to make regional finals more fair and interesting. If you are a top 8 team, you cannot chose another top 8 team. I for one am tired of seeing the top two teams form a super alliance, and ruining other very deserving team's chances at attending nationals.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I believe that was tried once many years ago, and what happened was that a lot of teams sandbagged "had mechanical problems" and lost their last match or two to drop out of the top eight.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I disagree with this 'solution', because being the top seed *should* be a big advantage going into the tournament -- after all, it's not like becoming top seed is a coincidence.

Want to win? Build a better bot!

(And I say this as the lead mentor of a team that almost always falls short of where we want to be... The current system really pushes us to do more, and do it better.)

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

This has been suggested many times. Serpentine draft helps to remedy the team strength a bit. The top seed has the right to pick any other robot; why should they have to rely on luck whether a good team falls to seed 9?


also maybe only teams who call the championship the championship should get championship bids /s :rolleyes:

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I'm a bit confused as to how the second best team at the event is less deserving than the "other very deserving team's".

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

The "second best team" may not truly be the second best team. At many regionals, the top team could probably win with any one of four or five other teams as the second pick. I don't like the fact that who goes to nationals (or championships, whatever) is determined almost solely by who get's chosen by the first alliance.

Yes, I know that teams that are chosen do deserve to go, but that doesn't mean there are other teams that haven't earned their shot even more. And yes, I know that some awards can qualify you. I'm mostly concerned with the fact that the first "super alliance" wins the vast majority of the time, despite the fact that there are many teams that could get to St. Louis had the alliances been more balanced.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

So because some teams figured out a way to win, you think it is fair to cripple their chances at winning an event that they paid for with money, time, and hardwork?

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

And how many #1 seeds have won their regionals so far this year? How about #2 seeds? #3? #8?

This year, it's been crazy just how many #1 seeds get knocked out early. I don't have any hard numbers on me, but there have been a lot more lower-seeded alliances than normal winning regionals. Even the 1114-2056 juggernaut had a scare in the GTR-E semis.

And Art is correct, to my knowledge. I've heard the same thing. I've also heard that they tried assigning partners to the top 8, something like the top 8 got the next 8 in order. Also didn't work out, for reasons I don't remember hearing (but probably similar).

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I think it is fair to provide every team that has figured this out a real shot at winning the regional. My main thesis is that super alliances make for competitions where who goes to nationals does not depend on hard work, time, money, but instead on getting picked by the number one alliance. As has been said many times on CD, neither FRC nor life is fair. But I believe FIRST has a chance to make competitions more exciting, and overall inspire more young minds with the championship experience.

To answer your question EricH, both regionals I went to (Davis and SVR) were won by the first alliance.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

1 doesn't always win, and even when they do, everyone on the alliance deserves it. You're just starting to sound jealous at this point.

Also, nobody goes to anything called "nationals," that I know of.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Oftentimes the team picked by the number one seed is better than the number one seed. The way seeding works, especially this year, we may not have the best team seed first. I think it has been determined in analysis by others that the number one indicator of success was being picked by the number one alliance. Second was being number 1 seed.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like overall, the first two teams on the 1st alliance are most deserving.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

At both regionals I went to, the event was not won by the #1 seeded alliance. In fact, my team has been on the first seeded alliance many times when we haven't won and not on the first seeded alliance many other times when we have won. The ranking systems used by FIRST in recent years rarely guarantee the #1 spot to the best robot because it takes into consideration things like coopertition points. As someone already pointed out, it's fairly common for the first pick in the draft to actually be the best team because of the different way FIRST has of determining ranking.

There have been many times when the number one seed has, according to some opinions, been carried to their place. In these cases, they will ask teams to join their alliance and be declined. So your point that winning a regional depends on being picked by the first seed is completely blown apart by these circumstances.

Also, it's pretty outrageous to tell teams that, because they won a regional alongside the #1 seed, that their accomplishment has nothing to do with their hard work and time and effort that they put in. I have to agree with Akash when he said that it sounds a bit like you're jealous.

How can we tell which teams supposedly "earned their shot even more"? That's a very dangerous road to go down...

The idea that you think you can even tell a team that you deserve to go to championships more than they do, despite them qualifying, is absurd and downright offensive to those teams.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

-Statistically the number 1 seed wins about 70% of the time.
-The number 7 seed wins almost never (because they have to play the #1 #2 and #3 seed in order to win.)

These results are derived from data over the course of many years by our coach Jim Zondag.

The real problem is not that the best teams always win. It's that the current system rewards only the winners. Everyone else gets NOTHING; this is stupid. This is recognized by FiM and is why we have a point system where if your really good but get beat by 67 or the like at all your events you still have the ability to qualify for worlds.

There is also something to be said for allowing only the best teams to go to worlds. No matter what someone is going to be excluded. The real qustion is who? And if team A worked really hard and got a finalist award at both their regionals and teams B pre-pays and builds a robot that doesn't even make it into elimination who really deserves to be there? This is basically happening every year, teams who can't effectvely play the game go to worlds while good teams that get beat by the best teams are left out in the cold. IMHO that needs to change.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

FWIW, back in the olden days the draft order went 1-8 1-8. Dave Lavery posted a long time ago (can't find the post, but 99.9% sure about it) that the person who crunched the numbers to see if an the #1 seed won an overwhelming number of times was quite adamant about keeping the 1-8 1-8 draft order. However, the percentage that came back was quite ridiculous, so they switched to 1-8 8-1.

Seeding first is typically a lot of skill and a little luck, so I don't see a problem with them getting the best date to the big dance. :)

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

This is why I have been advocating for using a points system like FiM and MAR to determine who goes to CMP. I think it really is the best way to get all the best robots/teams from a region to CMP.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

2815's had the good fortune to be on the #1 alliance four times in its history, the #2 alliance twice, and the #4 alliance once.

Bayou 2009 (Alliance 4, 1st Pick): Bayou's never been known to be a deep regional; 499 was a pretty good dumper, but we also got paired with a purely defensive robot in 2206. The #4 alliance, we reach the semifinals before losing in three to the #7 seed.

Palmetto 2009 (Alliance 1, 1st Pick): We're picked by the #1 seed first; their empty-cell hauler had effectively zero offensive firepower. They pick 1379 next. The lack of firepower and a few mechanical issues on 1379's robot hobble us come finals. We lose in two to the #4 alliance.

Palmetto 2010 (Alliance 2, 1st Pick): We get drafted by the #2 seed in 1379, then we pick a defender in 1293. Quarterfinals go well enough, but then 1293 blows a component deep inside their drivetrain. They think they've got it fixed, but we get knocked out in the semis in two at the hands of the #5 seed.

Peachtree 2011 (Alliance 1, 2nd Pick): We're playing alongside the consensus top two robots at the event in #1 2415 and #3 1771. Everyone's firing on all cylinders for almost the entire run. Champions, 6-0 through the bracket.

Palmetto 2011 (Alliance 1, 2nd Pick): We once again go to the last pick, playing with two of the strongest robots there in #1 180 and #2 2363...but we also run into a couple of electrical issues that cause us to stop for a few seconds at a time (but, fortunately, in pretty good locations to slow our opponents). It takes three matches in the finals, but we win here too.

Peachtree 2012 (Alliance 1, 2nd Pick): 1311 and 1771 slugged it out for #1 seed, with the former winning out in a late head-to-head qualification match and picking the latter. We go in as the last pick, but 1771 (the #2 seed, and I'd say the shooting muscle of the alliance) runs into issues with their drive and camera systems. We get upset hard in the quarterfinals in three, courtesy of the #8 alliance.

Palmetto 2012 (Alliance 2, Backup): 281's shooter breaks beyond a quick repair in quarters, so they call their timeout before their first semifinal match and in we go on the #2 alliance. The first match in, we don't move--a wire got loose--and we lose the match. Fix the wire, and we fire off four straight, convincing wins. Back-to-back regional champions in two.

The reason for this history lesson? If you're in the elimination rounds anywhere, you have a real shot at winning the regional. "Super alliances" have robots break just as easily as teams that sneak into the #8 captain position. To imply being a top seed makes a banner a foregone conclusion is to discount just how hard those teams have to work over those 6+ matches to seal the deal.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

That's also why a lot of people on CD essentially crown Jim the new king of FRC. I don't want to take anything away from 1114 and 2056 because they are great teams who deserve to win what they win, but for all we know, the 3rd and 4th best teams in FRC are competing against them and never earning their spots because they keep getting beaten by the #1 and #2. I think really dense areas (like Canada, the East Coast, Midwest, Texas, and the West Coast) need to be on the district system yesterday.

Like it or not, "inspiration" in this kind of scenario soon turns to "breaking one's spirit and willingness to actually do their best." The conspiracies and bitter feelings towards teams like 1114 "shouldn't" exist in FRC because it's not all about the competition, but at the end of the day, the "robotics competition" part of FRC is still in 2/3 the name.

I think they are great teams, but we need to recognize that teams just one baby step behind these teams will be left out of CMP while Joe Blow who preregistered gets a spot.

No question that FiM has only put out better and better teams because teams know that results from their best efforts are held like coins to be flipped or dice to be cast. We all know MAR will only get more ridiculously awesome.

FIRST, a group that looks towards the future, is still haphazardly tinkering with a competition structure that died between 5 and 10 years ago. We don't live in an ideal FRC world anymore where anyone who ponies up 5k for an "open competition" (old-school verbiage up in here) can tack on an extra dollar amount to bus their team to some tents at Epcot. Winning CMP will always be hard and you will always be able to predict the powerhouses will land there. But getting there and allowing other teams from everywhere to be inspired should be less of a mountainous task. You need to give teams more than a faint sliver of hope that their very best and tireless efforts will become more recognized in the FRC community.

Feel free to move CMP back to after APs, or even to mid-June.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

i fully agree. My team used the kinect ON our robot. We placed 5th in the queen city regional and couldnt connect to the field at st louis. As far as anyone at kc, st louis, and qc, we are the only team to do so, team 1706.