Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Ah, come on, Don, you haven't read enough threads lately! This idea was brought up some years back.

Space constraints are an issue, as is the extended time for Einstein. With 6 teams, you have to figure out who gets the bye.

A thread to consider:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=76476 (8 divisions, 4 fields)

I know there are more, but I really don't want to go digging that far back right now. Maybe some other time.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

this...
don't forget the robot is just the product.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I think it was in my quote from my other post, but it's all but inevitable that another division or two will be added to CMP and Einstein will shift to a round-robin tournament where alliances play each other and the top two teams go to finals.

Over the last half decade, FIRST has essentially added a whole other division "internally", meaning they upped the count to where you would have 4-90/5-72 team divisions instead of the earlier 4-70 team fields. Would FRC downsize the divisions when they add two, or actually add ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY PITS AND TWO FIELDS IN ADDITION TO THREE HUNDRED SIXTY FRC PITS, 4 FRC FIELDS, and everything else... I feel like we would make more of a large town than a village or hamlet in the pits.

I don't know of any kind of facility that has all of that room... but I'm sure there is one.

Let's go back to Reliant Park! /kidding

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

While I'm not completely sure if this is directed at me, I have a good feeling it could be. I guess I may have been somewhat obtuse in my wording earlier, but I intended no such thing. My point was that there could be a "runner up" to each RCA and EI in the form of the Judges Award, not that EI is runner up to RCA, and that out of a pool of these "runner-up" teams some could be selected to qualify for Championships at the end of 6 weeks of competition. These would be intended for teams that judges feel could have easily been a winner at another event, or are particularly deserving of special recognition.

If I'm just being paranoid and this is directed at someone else, then simply disregard. :D

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

The question: How do you do Einstein with an odd number of teams in the bracket?

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Does anyone else feel that the "Rest of the Best", kind of has an Invitational sound to it? When I hear this, it kind of reminds me of the NIT.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I like this idea. FTC does something a bit like this, actually. Their system has its own issues, but it's setup so that each event always qualifies a set number of teams, which can vary depending on the size of the event. They have a pecking order in the rules, and if one of the top teams is already qualified, an invitation goes to the next team on the list. An advantage of this system is that teams know if they're qualified by the end of their event - no waiting for results from subsequent events and making travel plans the week before the Championship.

FTC Qualification Order:
1.* Inspire Award Winner (Inspire is similar to Chairman's)
2. Winning Alliance Captain
3. Inspire Award 2nd place
4. Winning Alliance, 1st team selected
5. Inspire Award 3rd place
6. Winning Alliance, 2nd team selected
7. Think Award Winner
8. Finalist Alliance Captain
9. Connect Award Winner
10. Finalist Alliance, 1st team selected
11. Rockwell Collins Innovate Award Winner
12. Finalist Alliance, 2nd team selected
13. PTC Design Award Winner
14. Highest Ranked Team not previously advanced
15. Motivate Award Winner
16. Highest Ranked Team not previously advanced
*Technically, #1 on the list is "Qualifier Host Team" but this only applies to local qualifiers, and it doesn't translate to FRC, so I left it out for simplicity.

It would not be that difficult to design a similar pecking order for FRC. The top six spots could be the same as they are now. The next on the list could be, for example, the finalist alliance captain or the highest seeded team not already qualified.

Note that as the Championship gets more crowded (absent an increase to six fields), a pecking order lets you easily scale back to five qualifying teams per regional. #6 on the list is not completely hosed, because they still qualify some of the time.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

As much as inspiration is important to students, keep in mind regardless of who goes to the Championship event, people will be inspired. Team ABC doesn't make it but Team DEF does, people still get inspired. I do not understand the "You are taking inspiration from teams who otherwise may not qualify for Championships." If you want to get there you have to earn it. The teams that I have grown up on, followed through FIRST, and mentored at all shared this idea that you have to earn your place, TINSTAAFL (There Is No Such Thing as A Free Lunch).

So lets say we implement Lucien's novel idea and beef up the competition at the Championships. Wouldn't seeing more competitive robots play on the field inspire more people? I'm pretty sure more people would follow Championships outside of Einstein if we had multiple match ups during qualifying along the lines of Poofs, Hammond, Baxter vs Simbotics, RoboWranglers, Wildstang? And this in turn introduces more people to some of the great designs in all of FIRST and inspires students next year to come up with even better ideas and helps show a greater understanding of what is possible in the realm of engineering.

I'm all for adding the #1 and #2 seeds and potentially going to #3 and #4 seeds if there is room across the board at championships but I do not think elevating others is a good idea (A qualifies at earlier regional but still seeds #1 at later regional, team B does not move up) as space is always limited and whatever is left at the end could always go to the lottery.


Pavan


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Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Maybe get away from single elimination brackets?

Or instead of 4*90 teams, go to 8*45. This is 8 alliances for Einstein, and game play more like a small regional on all 8 fields, so the timing isn't as much of a problem. (Small regionals can fit in 12 matches + eliminations in <2 days easily)

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

If there are six divisions, you could do something like the four alliances with the highest combined winning elimination round scores advance to Einstein. Or... the two alliances with the highest cumulative winning elimination round scores could get byes while the other four duke it out in Einstein quarters.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I have a feeling it could be done already, but it'd probably require some sacrifices in pit space, FLL/FTC areas, more fields in the pits, etc, and from old discussions about Championships arrangements, those types of sacrifices aren't very popular.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I would advocate for the second option if it were expanded to 6 divisions. It would really kind of suck to win your division and then be told that it's the end of the line without even having the chance to face the higher-ranked teams, y'know?

Most importantly, what would the other two divisions be called?! :p

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

I know this sort of throws support behind the current system, but I'd like to point out that part of the buy-in's function is to allow teams to make travel plans with greater notice when it's more affordable. For instance, the one time we went to Worlds, we bought in and then qualified by winning Philadelphia. (Granted, we had no idea we'd win...) We probably would not have been able to travel there if we hadn't per-arranged, at least not with our entire team. Unfortunately, the students who could and did most benefit from the inspirational opportunity would probably have been the ones that couldn't attend (i.e. students who aren't yet essential personnel).

I'm not specifically advocating the current system, but the issue of lead time is something, I think, to consider. Having just gone through some difficulty registering for the MAR Championship (we had, in fact, pre-paid), the more teams that qualify later in the season, the harder it is for everyone logistically.


Just a note that MAR (and I assume FiM) does adjust for number of qualification matches played. For instance, Rutgers played 13 rather than the other-wise standard 12 quals each, so only the points from each team's first 12 matches counted towards their MAR ranking.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

It may be a bit difficult to fit 9 FRC & 3 FTC fields in a single venue.

However, I really like the thought of lower amounts of teams per divisions. 10 Qual matches per team split between 2nd half of Thursday and all of Friday. Then Saturday would start out with Division Finals, wrapping up around 11am. Then Einstein could start at 1pm instead of 4 pm. It'd basically negate the need for many teams to stay overnight on Saturday night in order to catch flights on Sunday since flights would be spread across more of Saturday.

Re: The Rest Of The Best
 

Gonne provide 4 here :)

The "Awesome Historical Figures" 4:
Tesla
Euler
Maxwell
Morse

Alternatively I propose a "New 4":
Ritchie
Hopper
Sagan
Turing

I would be interested in going to a slightly-smaller-per-division, 8-division Champs. Would require QUITE the venue though...

I'm also in support of "extra" invites trickling down in a merit based system (hopefully keeping a robot/Chairmansy balance).

Edit: i dont remember all the FTC/FLL names. I think Euler might already be one.