Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

The method of teams earning their way to championships is very skewed. It has its ups and downs.

On the up-side, the winning alliance gets to bring veteran teams, usually the #1 seed, and a rookie, usually the 3rd pick. The great thing about the entire winning alliance going to worlds is that it gives the power teams the chance to go to championships, and it gives the rookie team, or 3rd pick, one that usually doesn't go to worlds, the ability to experience the competition and hopefully make the changes they need to make over the course of the year so that during the next FRC season, they ARE the powerhouse team.

On the down side, there are very few methods of getting the other various "great" teams to a regional. Yes, there is the RCA, EI, and Rookie All-Star awards, but what about the other great teams. Yes, the rest of the best as the topic starter calls it.

Clearly it's not something that I, or any one of us can come up with a fair solution to it, as we all have the best interests in mind for our own team, but this is something that FRC needs to address.

Like Dale from 1056 said, their robot performed great at the competition, and coming from personal experience, their team is a great one, but they didn't make it to champs? Somethings wrong here, as the same thing happens at every regional.

Many months of planning go into the FRC season. Not to mention the 6-weeks of staying till 11PM every night after school to work on the robot. Teams MUST be given the opportunity to go to worlds. Championships should not be only a reward, but an experience and an OPPORTUNITY. All teams should be able to find a way to go. As not being able to go really does give the feeling of being left out.

FIRST needs to address this, but thats just my opinion.

Secondly, where are the students?

Shouldn't teams be represented by the student members. Not the coaches, alumni, college students, or the mentors. FIRST is about shaping future engineers. It's what FIRST is about... the kids. Not the adults helping the kids.

But that's another issue. Probably one that will never be addressed.

That's all for now.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Yes there would be. But then again, the regionals typically get harder and more competitive as the weeks go by. You must have witnessed the dramatic increase in level of play between GSR and CT. Not saying this is always true, and I do agree that there are still logistics to be worked out, but either would be better than what is currently in place I believe. Basically I would argue that in general, teams who are "next in line" at a later regional are more likely to be of championship caliber and readiness than those that are "next in line" at an earlier one. But as I pointed out earlier, any system that is implemented will always result in the possibility of deserving teams being left out. This is an unfortunate and largely undeniable fact.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Regarding "lucky schedules":

My thought of the two regionals we attended - Pittsburgh and Wisconsin - is that the teams finishing in the Top 8 at each event were generally legit.

It would be interesting to see the Top 8 lists from all regionals, with OPR's attached. Let's see how many "lucky" teams really did make it into the Top 8.

And haven't we had the same arguments about "lucky teams" seeding high back in the old W-L-T as first sort, then ranking points as second sort model? Aren't you always going to have some anomalies like that?

I'd much rather have this system, where a team - be they awesome, average, or poor - can TRULY accomplish something of value to directly earn CP to overcome bumps in the road (communications issues, mechanical breakdown, etc.), than any of the old systems where match losers get extra, rather meaningless "ranking points" that don't give them a realistic shot at rising very far in the overall rankings due to being a slave to their W/L/T record.

Most of the best teams in FIRST have had few issues coming out on top with this CP model in place, because they've embraced the coopertition bridge and gotten the job done, in addition to their usual excellence at scoring points elsewhere.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

A few thoughts and a conclusion:

1. Logistically 360 is probably the right number of teams for Championships.
2. Eventually all those spots will be taken by qualifiers under the current system.
3. But with some teams earning multiple championship qualifications and some choosing not to go there will always be room for some from a wait list.
4. There was no announced merit system for moving teams from this wait list.

Conclusion: I saw the teams at CT, they are great. But it is too late to change what is done to move teams off the wait list this year.

Looking ahead a merit system for filling out the Championships field makes a lot of sense. It needs to be announced in the Fall so we can all make appropriate plans. I think the system should involve order of finish (finalists, semifinalists) as the primary criteria.

We all knew this day would come. Let's not let it spoil our FIRST experience.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

"Lucky schedules" will always be a part of any system that anyone can devise, as it is with almost every sport or competition. Stay in the game long enough and it all evens out.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

It seems like a strictly mathematical system will always have its flaws, i.e. teams seeding high based on lucky schedules. So, why not take the system previously mentioned where teams that qualify more than once give one of their tickets to the championship to another team, and have the judges determine who gets that ticket? They already get a close-up view and detailed description of each robot as well as being able to see them in action from the best seats in the house, so it wouldn't take that much extra effort to get them to determine who moves on. I am relatively unfamiliar with the judging process, but from what I have seen, they seem to be the closest to an unbiased yet human way of determining who moves on.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

My thought on that was to draw from teams who attended either event. So, for your example, both the teams at Chesapeake and Connecticut would be eligible to fill 181's extra spot and would be sorted by whatever criteria is selected.

Obviously, this does increase the chances of ties in a point-based system. Additionally, any biasing in the ranking system towards running more qualification matches (FiM/MAR rankings reward 2 points per qualification win) or larger events (FIRST's proposed ranking system would award 50 points to the #1 seed at a 50 team event but only 35 points for a #1 seed at a 35 team event) would have to be considered as well. But I think this is a less fundamentally flawed system than encouraging later season events.

FIRST is about inspiring young budding engineers and it has done an amazing job thus far. I would propose a simple adjustment to make it even better.

*** All regional finalists are not allowed to pick each other again in subsequent regionals in the same season. ***

1. This promotes diversity so that teams can learn a more diverse set of teammates and as we all know, diversity foster innovation.

2. Younger, less established teams get more opportunities to learn from veterans and super-teams on the field. This is priceless.

3. From a fans viewpoint, it is more exciting to see a wider variety of alliances. Just watch F1 between 1114/3161-led red team and 2056-led blue team in the GTR west this year. It was riveting and exciting. It's this kind of excitement that brings us back every year.

4. It enables more REST of the BEST teams to get into CMP and reduce the need for a waiting list.

5. It is a small tweak that is more likely to be assimilated into the system. Simple is good.

What do you think?

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Well, taking an old idea I had about the Championship - imagine if every team was slotted to a Division right at the start of the season.

Team 1 Archimedes
Team 4 Newton
Team 5 Newton
Team 7 Galileo
Team 8 Curie
Team 9 Galileo
Team 11 Archimedes
Team 16 Curie
(repeat)

The teams are divided up randomly like that, so to ensure the same teams don't always end up together. And teams will be randomly set up at the start of each year.

90 teams from each Division will be invited to the Championship. In order to be invited, you must either a) acquire one of the many automatic qualifiers, b) apply and have the top ranking of all teams applying.

Firstly, all of the automatic qualifiers will be given their Slot at the beginning of the year: the original 32, last years winners and so on. So if Team A, B and C won last year, and Team A and B are in Curie and C is in Newton, there are now 88 Slots left in Curie and 89 left in Newton.

Then, all Automatic qualifiers will rank next, filling up the majority of the Divisions. A team with multiple qualifiers will be placed into the division first, and all other teams with only one will be placed next, in their total year ranking order based on all events they played. This way, if a division is top heavy and more than 90 teams earn qualifiers, those who earned more than one will be given a more automatic chance into the Division. Teams with better yearly records will be given their single bid bid whereas the lower teams who were simply selected second by the top seeds of the event will be left out (if that ever happens)

So lets say that Archimedes has 20 Slots left after filling all of their Automatic Qualifiers. This means that the top 20 robotics teams in that year's Archimedes Division apply for Champs will be accepted in. If a team like 2056 has won 4 bids in a year, that means that 3 additional spots will be open to fill additional "application bid" teams.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

1) The waitlist is very important. It allows teams that would never have gone to championships otherwise, to attend. I think it is very important for the m to see the best, and WANT to not only earn their way there next year, but to also see how the best teams got there.

2) Teams who have one championships should definitely be allowed to go the next year. First of all, they worked hard to get there. Second of all, I think everyone wants to see the improvement they have made since the last time we say them

3) While it should be hard to get to championships, teams that deserve to go(namely 118) should be going. There needs to be a way to fix the system.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

At the risk of a me-too post, me too. The number of open-registration slots will get tighter and tighter, but is highly unlikely to be zero in any given year. I'm not sure how you balance the regional-vs-district part out, but I think Championship would benefit from trying to get in the teams that performed admirably over the season but didn't earn an automatic bid.

Consider 1319 (who registered for Championship on an open slot this year, but roll with this). Their trophy cabinet this year?

Smoky Mountains Industrial Design Award
Smoky Mountains Finalist
Peachtree Engineering Excellence Award
Peachtree Industrial Safety Award
Peachtree Finalists
Palmetto Industrial Safety Award
Palmetto Innovation in Control Award
Palmetto Quality Award
Palmetto Semifinalists

That's eight trophies this year, and two silver medals...but nothing that punches their ticket to St. Louis. In a perfect world (and one where they weren't registered), they'd be one of the top contenders for an open slot.

Or consider 343, who collected two regional finalists this year and is not set to go to Championship this year. Obviously, 1319 would be the higher priority to get in...but two medals should get you pretty far up the list.

Other notions:
1) WFA should remain not an automatic qualifier, but it should have a heft to it compared to other awards.
2) Every animation or website team that complains that their competition is meaningless would get something to hustle over. I don't know whether it'd draw the award back to the regional level as in years past, but imagine if even the top X teams in the contest as it sits got a rub. What bubble team fighting for a spot in the show wouldn't give it their best shot?
3) This system should lead to the end of the restrictions on rookie teams at Championship only getting there through RAS or a championship. If a rookie team can produce at the level that gets them in, they deserve the spot.
4) Performance from the prior year should be a tiebreaker across points. If one team has 30 points and earned 30 the year before, they should be offered the spot ahead of a team that earned 30 this year and nothing the year before.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

After wading through 70-something posts here, I find it hard to believe that nobody has yet proposed increasing the size of championships.

Can you say "six fields"?

While we're possibly not ready for this now, at the current growth rate we should be there before the St Louis agreement runs out.

Maybe I am missing something here, but such a thing could satisfy both camps: Those who want merit/performance to play a greater role, and those who want to allow those "wild cards" to "buy" their way in to get the CMP experience. Win Win?

Surely there's a venue that can manage this.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I think we could fix a huge part of this using a sort of "post-season Judges Award". Here's how I think it would work:

A few teams from each regional that did not qualify for Championships are nominated by judges (or even other teams could submit a story about a team they think is deserving, if you want) based on something exemplary displayed at that regional, be it on or off the field. In my mind there would be 4-5 awarded per regional, with 2-3 being teams very close to winning the regional (the 118 and 177 award, if you will) and the remaining 2-3 being particularly inspiring teams, a sort of RCA/EI "runner-up". At this point it is basically your typical Judges Award, but with maybe a few more of them given out.

After week 6 a group of judges would then select teams from this pool to fill the slots opened by teams winning multiple events/awards (leave a few slots for teams nominated out of the districts, I assume you would award these spots after that region's local Championship event). If any of these teams cannot attend for whatever reason, their spot goes to a waitlist, which could prioritize other teams from this Judges Award pool or be styled like the current waitlist.

My original thought was to have this be decided completely within the regional, with any spots won by teams that are already qualified being given directly to winners of Judges Awards. However, this would be unfair to any teams that compete only in a Week 1 event, as no teams would already have a slot except teams from the Hall of Fame, original teams, and the defending champions.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I suggested quite a while ago that there should be an additional Judges Award, optional as the existing ones are, that would also qualify a team for championships; the judges would award it to any team with a compelling reason to go, whatever that may be. That could include performing very, very well but not qualifying for whatever reason...

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Much of this thread has been about competitive robots that do well on the field.

What about teams that narrowly miss out on a Chairman's Award? Or teams that narrowly miss out on Engineering Inspiration?

If RCA is the most important award at a regional, shouldn't a team with a "near miss" on their RCA application deserve more consideration than a finalist or "top seed" spot?

Jason

P.S. No. Despite some occasional overlap in criteria, the Engineering Inspiration award is not the "Runner Up" for the Chairman's award. They are seperate and distinct awards.