Chief Delphi - The Rest Of The Best

Quote:

Originally Posted by BJC (Post 1154395)

-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.

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.