Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Not sure if its the extra slots, 9 were open at Lenape (a great event btw). I suspect its mostly playing 'for nothing', you can't qualify for the MAR championships. Teams with more resources may prefer non-MAR regionals We'll do them when we are able, we miss the friends we've made in NY, DC, etc..

But I am very surprised that more teams, especially rookies or newish teams don't take advantge of the extra experience. (and fun, and days out of school :) )

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

There are also teams that do three regionals. At the Smoky Mountain regional this weekend, there will be two teams attending their third regional. Team 1319, Flash, has also been to Palmetto and Peachtree. Team 3196, SPORK, has also been to Palmetto and North Carolina.

I'm worn out with 2 myself - I 'm looking forward to seeing these teams that are crazy enough to go to 3 regionals!! :)

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

I think the "days out of school" factor is more likely to keep teams from going to another competition than it is to encourage them to attend. District events do only eat up a Friday, but getting even one more day off work isn't always easy for mentors.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

We chose to register for the Bedford District due to our two districts both being in West Michigan and less than an hour away. We wished to have at least one "travel" experience with the team staying overnight at a hotel after a Friday of competition. This is our first time attending three districts since the inception of the district system. We have not accumulated enough points to attend Michigan State Championship so this would be the only overnight event for the team.

Regarding your concern with the points that are stolen it is definitely an issue. There are a lot of good teams going that will probably snatch up a lot of points. However, on the other extreme is a 12 team event. How will FiM ensure these teams gets points fairly because every team is guaranteed to be in the semi-finals which normally gives points. Also, scheduling for qualification matches would be a mess since there needs to be 6 teams in every match. I cannot think of any solution that does not involve teams registering for a 3rd event and playing. Maybe one day they will be a better solution but for now it is the best solution.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

I believe his team's concern is that they may on the edge of qualifying for the state tournament. The teams on their 3rd districts may receive points that will take away valuable points from the other teams on their 2nd events trying to qualify. Understandable point on his end.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Under a completely different line of thinking....

We have a huge team - 89 registered online and active and anotehr 20 or so that kind of hang out with us. Of those, we only have 6-10 seniors, so we are anticipating a lot of growth next year. We are discussing the possibility of participating in a third regional event next year (or districts, if go go that route) with the idea that we'd use different students (primarily sophomores and freshmen) as our drive team, pit crew, etc. as a way to get more kids involved. We are not looking at it as a a way to improve our chances at making nationals, but, rather, as a way to encourage more kids to participate.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

In MAR you do not receive qualification points for your third district event. Only points gained in your first two events are used to qualify for the MAR championship.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

This is true in FiM as well (I thought we stole it from them, but you'd know better than I). I think the point is that if, say, Bedford's winning alliance is all 3rd district teams, those points are effectively "gone". Whereas, if it'd only had 2nd district teams, the points wouldn't be gone, and everyone competing for them would have had the same work time prior. The OP would rather compete against all 2nd district teams, so that the teams the points matter to would have an improved shot at getting them, correct?

Of course, in this case there wasn't much FiM could do. The 2nd-3rd imbalance is so bad because there are so many necessarily open slots, and the event was added so late.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Since the points are "gone", they reduce the total number of points available to qualify for the state championship, and therefore reduce the threshold for qualifying for the state championship, making it easier for everyone to qualify.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Agreed--I think it's by far the best solution, for this reason and others. What I meant is, I think the OP sees playing against a field that is all/majority/more at his level of experience this season is better. It's not so much about the points directly, as that the fact that they would be gone (3rd district teams dominating elims) is "kind of cheating those other teams out of an event".

I can see this perspective--if those 2nd district Bedford teams had gotten into, say, Kettering (no, I know nothing about FiM districts, thanks for asking :o), they might have had a better chance to play Saturday afternoon. At the same time, it's far more equitable this way than running it as just a 2nd district event with ~12 teams, and logistically there wasn't really an option in between.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

I realize that this solution is better than the alternative; this isn't strictly true, it makes it easier for everyone else to qualify for state championships (not strictly speaking, I'm sure some of the 2nd event teams will be picked/captains and be successful enough in elims to improve their standings). A team that gets snuffed out due to the high level of competition probably won't get enough points from their second event to qualify, but a similar calibre team on the edge of qualifying won't lose their spot due to the outcome.

It's just the way the cookie crumbles unfortunately. One teams lucky break is another teams downfall.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

2612 did something a few years ago that was shocking to most that their third event. They declined to play in eliminations, so that other teams (possible needing the points) would have the chance to gain them.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Yes. We don't really want to hurt other teams' chances of making it to states.

We have already qualified for states actually, this was a concern that I have as a result of someone affiliated with my team mentioning the high number of 3rd event teams.

After speaking with our lead mentor, we are considering (should we make it to eliminations as captains) selecting teams for whom the event counts to help them out.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

I share the same concerns as moogboy about teams playing in their third event, particularly the massive number at Bedford. From seeing what happens at these later events in years past, our team didn't even consider going to Troy, Livonia, and especially Bedford. The "home" event that is selected for us has been a later event the last few years, and we don't even consider going to it.

Yes, filling in those empty slots "increase[s] FRC team participation". The problem is that the teams that are going to a third event are typically better than your average Michigan FRC team. They're frequently the more well established teams that also have better than average robots. To back up this point, I looked at the 26 third event teams competing at Bedford. On average, they scored 30 points towards going to MSC at the events that they have already played. Michigan teams earn an average of about 24 points towards MSC at each of their events. Those third event teams are higher caliber teams that now have two events of practice and tweaking their robots under their belts. They're going up against "average" FRC teams with only one event of practice. I'd be curious to see the average number of points that the 14 second event teams get at Bedford. I'd bet that they are going to get much lower than average of 24 points.

I don't really know a good solution to the problem. I understand that having an event with 14 teams isn't acceptable. If there was a better way to distribute the open spots across all the events, that would be optimal (e.g., all events capped at 36 teams). The only problem is that you don't really know exactly how many Michigan teams there will be next year so an exact cap amount isn't known immediately, but a reasonable approximation wouldn't be that hard. It would mean that teams can't go to third events (they can still go out of state), but it would make it more fair for the teams at the later events.

At the very least, teams shouldn't be eligible for awards at their third event. Every award the third event teams win also sucks away points from the second event teams. Judging by the awards that the third event teams have already won at their first two events, it wouldn't surprise me if only a small handful of awards (if any) are won by the second event teams at Bedford.

Re: 3rd Regional Question
 

Congrats on qualifying for state, I guess I should have looked first!!
As mentioned, there may be some teams that are needing qualifying points yet.