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Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
I'll share my perspective on the Rookie/2nd year team points bonus; however, my experience may not be the same as the majority of rookie teams in FRC.
While on 3929, our team focused on creating a competitive robot to play in eliminations, but we also focused most of our energy on the rookie awards. We happened to get lucky and win a district with 25 and 222, but I don't think I would have minded if we did not qualify for MAR Champs. What my team experienced was rookies who were way better than us, for example 3974 and 4342. What our 3 rookie teams showed is that you can still earn a spot at your Regional Championship without needing a special boost, even if it does take luck and hard work. 3929 focused on awards, and the other two earned their way through better robots. I just don't see the need for an added bonus. By just giving us points to get ahead, it would have discouraged veteran teams who aren't as lucky to have experienced mentors. A team's age doesn't mean that people on that team have been members for a long period of time, so age in FRC does not inherently equal experience. I think this would be pretty discouraging for both the rookies and weak veterans. Adding a bonus for the age of the team makes sense from the perspective of someone on the outside-looking-in, but I think some rookie teams might take it as a sign of pity, I believe many of my students would have. They worked hard to earn their rookie awards, but if we happened to earn more points over a veteran who is stronger than us simply because we were a rookie, I would feel pretty bad about it. These are just my thoughts based on my mentorship of 3929, not necessarily the views of 3929. |
Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
Preface: This is opinion ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as I've been in Michigan since the dawn of districts and am most likely suffering from resistance-to-change syndrome (rather prevalent at times here on CD).
I question the points for rookies and second year teams. As noted both earlier in this thread and in many other threads, the mark of a good system is not how it ranks the very top teams, but how it ranks teams at the cutoff. 10 points is a pretty big boost at that level. Michigan is currently sitting at 49 rookies, so we are infusing at least 490 points into the system before the season even starts (not counting the bonus for second year teams). I understand that it's important to keep rookies and second year teams inspired and coming back, but bonus points just on team age are sending them to states at the expense of some other team who has also worked hard, and quite possibly hasn't been to states in four years or more. I have stats I'll pull up later about the number of veteran teams in Michigan who either have never been to states, or haven't been in the past four years. I'm glad that EI is worth points now, as previously it was neither worth points nor was it worth a bid. It'll be interesting to see how the Chairman's auto bid affects the invite list for states. Barring a change in venue, the MI District Champs have capacity for 64 teams, so 20% of the teams there will be attending on an auto bid (13/64). Overall it seems like the changes are somewhat diluting the value of robot performance in favor of cultural factors. Not necessarily good or bad, just an observation. Allison |
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Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
I really hope that the 10 and 5 points are a one time thing for each team and not at each competition. Or else you are looking 20 points for rookie teams, and then since it says that all teams will earn x3 points at championship rookies who attend are at 50 points walking in to finals.
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Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
So along with have awards for only rookies, that only rookies can get points for, they get points for just showing up? Instead of giving rookies an easier pass to get in to the state championship or CMP, why don't we start working to make rookies more competitive?
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Or when you just blocked an Einstein team from attending CMP. |
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In truth, until everyone moves to Districts, I have to completely agree. |
Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
I think we need a clarification of intent on the "outside of district eating a slot" thing. It seems to me that the intent was to keep the number of teams attending championships from each district region predictable, so that, for example, New England sends 30 teams, not "30 plus a few from regionals," especially since those extra few would come at the expense of non-district regions. However, I'm not seeing that a team that double-qualifies outside of their district, or even outside/inside their district, would eat two slots.
If a team qualifies for championships at a regional once, it makes sense to me that one less team will be able to qualify from the district. If a team qualifies for championship at a regional, and then again at their district championship, it would make sense to me for the next team by points to qualify instead of double-counting a single team. If a team qualifies twice outside of their district, it would make sense for only one district slot to go away, as taking away more would reduce the number of teams from the district that qualify. |
Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
Before people keep freaking out about the auto-points for rookies and the regional CMP slot thing, remember that all in all, this is a very good FRC Blog for FRC in general. This panel just laid the foundations for inter-district competition in FRC, something very, very important for it's continued growth, sustainability and the level of competition. In five years, when anyone can play in any district and district CMP is the stepping stone to CMP for everybody, this will be seen as the plan that that started it all.
Yes, it does seem a little unfair to most people on CD (me included) that rookies and second year teams get points just for participating. There may have been a more graceful way to do this (rookies get 3 points instead of 2 for their first 10 match wins, overall points multiplied by 1.1, etc), but the goal is a still very good one. All in all, I think if it's a toss up for attending DCMP or CMP between a rookie and a veteran team, I'd much rather have a rookie go. They've almost certainly had a tough time getting off the ground. This rule isn't around to completely overhaul the system for awarding points, it's just to give rookie teams a bit of a boost. |
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And while that's something that comes down to the teams in the community being willing to help out the rookies around them, and not something HQ or any district can decide -- it's a better solution long-term. Yes, saying 'First-year-team advances to State Championship!' might help them get some attention in the community, it's better for their team in the long run to have the support and resources around them to help them learn and improve (and hey, maybe get to DCMP on their own merit!) than to get free points just so they can 'have the experience' of the DCMP - where they might just get stomped. Not very inspiring to me. The fact that simply existing as a rookie holds the same value as a District Chairman's Award doesn't sit well with me. |
Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
I think that if a district team qualifies for CMP at a Regional, then eating one of the district's CMP tickets is better than earning an additional ticket for that district and throwing off the proportions. It seems like an improvement. I'm not sure if it's the best or most balanced compromise, though.
Are there any glaring flaws in implementing something like a local wildcard system? For example, if a district team becomes Regional Champion 2, then they earn a CMP ticket and eat one of the district's tickets, but that spot doesn't disappear from the Regional, and, instead, Finalist 1 gets a ticket as well, thus still awarding the 3 Regional Champion tickets but not giving district teams access to more opportunities to qualify. |
Re: FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure
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54 (32%) have NEVER been to District Championship 5 (3%) last attended in 2009 11 (6%) last attended in 2010 16 (9%) last attended in 2011 24 (14%) last attended in 2012 60 (35%) last attended in 2013 70 out of 170 (41%) 3rd year and above teams have zero students that have ever experienced states. These teams are arguably more in need of a culture boost than rookie and second year teams are, yet they don't have any special points allotted. Allison PS - I attached the spreadsheet with data if anybody else wants to play. Be forewarned that it's a bit messy. |
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