2014 MAR Standings
 

Here's the current 2014 MAR standings. Let me know if you spot anything incorrect.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AizgHBYEeVnwdDJVeFBzWTduazNLV3I2Skw5dlh4a FE#gid=1

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Went through the doc really quickly and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I was really surprised to see how 'age bonus' points work out... There are some teams that have played at one event, and are ranked behind a 1st year rookie team that hasn't played at all. That'll make things interesting.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Saw that too. But the age bonus points are only applied once per season, correct?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Correct.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Also worth considering the 8 point bonus for winning RAS and the 5 point bonus for Rookie Inspiration. There are 5 rookie teams in MAR this season. Team 5113 is guaranteed to win RAS at Lenape, since they are the only rookie team attending. Not sure if they'll get Rookie Inspiration also. The 4 other rookie teams will divide the remaining 3 RAS and Rookie Inspiration awards (SCH, BR, CLI). No rookies attended MO.

So the rookie impact is much stronger in MAR than in other regions due to our low count.

All told, it'll be 10 points for everyone plus their share of the 52 points from rookie awards, so in effect it's more like a 20 point rookie bonus.

Team 5113 has essentially already qualified for MAR champs with their guaranteed haul of 52 points - they're a great little inbound bot and were great to work with in our match at Horsham.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Yay, we are last! :P

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

But, they can't. You can only get Chairman's, EI, and RAS once per district system, and they won it already at Hatboro.

Based on my quick analysis of the 5 rookies and the events they're competing at, it seems like only 3 or 4 of the teams will be possible to win it logistically at the districts depending on who wins it where, meaning either 2 or 1 won't qualify to compete for it at Lehigh.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I believe Scott is correct unless the supplemental rules state otherwise. Events with one rookie traditionally give only the RAS award out so 5113 should be lined up to win that award at Lenape...spoiler alert!

I'm glad to see 5113's success. I've been working with them since last spring and they've done a lot of work to ensure a successful rookie season.

Nate

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

As per the new District Standard Points Ranking System, "District Teams will only be able to win FRC’s most prestigious awards – Chairman’s Award, Engineering Inspiration Award, and Rookie All Star Award – once per season at the District level. This supports the broader distribution of those awards."

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks for the clarification!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Your rankings match what I calculated here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...19#post1353419

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Just as a FYI for those curious,

The MAR rankings have been posted on the MAR website.

There is also a blog post outlining the number or District Championship slots, 55, and the number of MAR slots at St. Louis, 18.

The winning alliance members at the MAR CMP are guaranteed slots to the FIRST CMP, like last year. PNW and NE do not guarantee the winning alliance members FIRST CMP slots. Don't know about FiM for this year. Last year the FiM champs were awarded slots automatically.

For 2014 MAR has 5 Rookie teams, 9 2nd year teams, and 9 3rd year teams.

Team Distribution for the MAR events:

In 2013 the last team to be invited to the MAR CMP, after declines, was ranked 69th with 39 ranking points and after the MAR CMP the last team invited to the FIRST CMP by ranking was ranked 12th with 182 ranking points (the 1st ranked team had 337 points).

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

But remember, more teams will qualify based on points this year from MAR Champs to World Champs. In fact, it's double the previous amount.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Double the 2012 amount, not the 2013 amount. Also, worth considering that we will now lose slots for outside regional qualifications. 11 and 2016 would have pulled slots last year, and 2590 and possibly 341 would have pulled slots in 2012. Based on the teams travelling in 2014, I wouldn't expect that trend to end. We'll know by week 5, with only 2234 competing week 6.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...ive_web#gid=22

2012: 12 Slots
3 Winners
2 CA
1 EI
1 RAS
5 Points

2013: 14 Slots
3 Winners
2 CA
2 EI
1 RAS
6 Points

2014: 18 Slots
3 Winners
2 CA
2 EI
1 RAS
10 Points

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks, I forgot that our increased World Champs allotment allowed an additional team attend via points last year.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Just noticed 2607 is registered for the Virginia regional. That brings the total number of MAR regional teams up to eleven

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

1626 from Metuchen will be competing for the first time this season this weekend at Clifton. We are looking to have an after school "out-of-bag" experience with a fairly local team with a full practice field so we can try to dial in our shooter and practice assists with another robot.We saved about two hours.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

So theoretically it is possible that, say, 6 of those 11 teams could win their other regional they are attending and MAR would be left with only 4 teams getting World spots off of points?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Yes, any method of qualifying would remove a slot (Win, CA, EI, RAS).

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Scott, I have a question. Let's say fictitious MAR team 000 wins the (now) fictitious Brazil Regional, and qualifies for World Champs. However, they don't win on the field at MAR Champs, nor Chairman's, EI, RAS, nor are in the next top 10 ranked. Since they only qualified for World Champs outside of MAR, does MAR still lose a slot allotted for World Champs?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Yup, that's how I read the rules. MAR would essentially just pretend that they finished in the points.

I think the only exception would be if a HoF team (103, 341, 365) qualified outside, since they're already exempted from counting against the MAR total.

Edit:

Here's the rule listed below. It doesn't say what slot gets removed, but I would assume a "points" slot.

District Teams do not earn points for their actions at any Regionals they may attend, but are still eligible for Team
awards at those events, and any benefits that may go along with winning those awards, such as earning their way to the
FIRST Championship. However, if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional
event, that slot does count against the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I was just gonna get to this :p. Yeah, as far as I can tell, there is no mention of what slot is removed. It could be one of the two Chairman's or EI slots for all it says.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Scott, I'm still not entirely sure what happens in the case of HOF teams, there was a lot of discussion about this during the later part of 2013 and early 2014, but I can't remember if we conclusively had an answer. If we apply the wildcard rules/logic to this instance, an HOF team would remove a slot from their district assuming their regional slot was their first qualification of 2014. That being said - the slot may also be passed down, since HOF teams are not 'supposed' to count towards a region's slot allotment.

Regarding which slots are removed, yes, in the case of an outside qualification one of the 'points' slots are removed since they're essentially 'open' slots for qualification.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

HoF teams will not consume a slot even if they win (at) a regional, that's what I was told by Ed Petrillo.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks for the clarification Don. It may be a stopgap, but the intent of that rule is still lost on me, and sets the stage for some problematic scenarios. I think "reverse-wildcard" is the best name for it.

As of now we have at least 7 teams with a legitimate shots at some flavor of a blue banner. I'm sure some of those teams will/would qualify via MAR points too, but the possibility of walking into MAR CMP with only 3 slots open to teams via points is pretty drastic. Obviously unlikely that all 7 teams come back with banners, but stranger things have happened. Something to watch as weeks 4 & 5 creep up on us.

On an unrelated note: sheet is updated, 38 teams have played both of their district events. Looking like the cutoff for MARCMP will be somewhere in the 50's depending on the number of teams that decline the invitation.

As for World CMP, there are 121 teams registered (one more day for week 3 qualifiers to register). There are 284 more slots to be gained, so we're trending towards the 400 number again depending on declines, double qualifiers, and wild cards.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Just for sources, according to this FRC Blog post, there will again be 400 teams at the World Championships in St. Louis, and according to this MAR Blog post, 55 teams will be invited to the MAR District Championships at Lehigh University.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Yup, mostly a reference to expect a very short waitlist (if any) for WCMP this year.

Here's the MAR blog referencing 55 teams.

http://www.midatlanticrobotics.com/blog/category/mar/

For comparison: we went down the rankings list to the 65th ranked team to get 49 teams at MAR CMP last year (16 declines), and we went down to the 64th ranked team to get 53 teams at MAR CMP in 2012 (11 declines). Hopefully the extra week gap between district and DCMP will help fix this a bit, but I think it might be a struggle to add even more teams to the event since we have actually shrunk as a district compared to 2013.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Last year, the 50th placed team had 47 points. The last team to accept an invite, I believe, had 39 points. With five more invite spots and no growth in the region, how are you determining your "somewhere in the 50s" number? Are the first and second year bonus points really that much of a factor?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Also remember that this year the third team on an alliance is getting more elims points and that all of those 2 point awards are now 5 points.

I don't expect the cutoff to be above 50 after all of the declines, but it seems like a reasonable guess for where the 55th rank team will be.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

That would be the cutoff for the 55th ranked team, and I would guess it would be in the low 50's - thought I didn't type that for some reason. No idea how many declines we'll have this year - hopefully fewer with the MAR grant system better developed and more time to get registered and paid. Though we do have more 3rd event teams this year, haven't looked in depth at how those teams are doing/how many points they'll pull from the system through elims/awards.

The overall point system has inflated by more than just rookie points. I'm assuming we have 108 teams this year (136 & 896 no show at Clifton?), we had 109 last year with a few only doing 1 event.

Qual Points - same structure, roughly same # teams
Elim Selection - the old system (10/8 pts per round) yielded 196 points per event, the new model yields 210.
Awards - old system gave 49 pts max, new system gives 86 points max
Rookies - 95 points total

So last year we had 5336 points across 109 teams. ~49/team if we're looking at an average - which roughly works for a lazy calculation of a 55 team cutoff. Real cutoff at #55 was 45 points. So a little inflated, but not too bad.

This year we should have 5891 points across 108 teams. Doesn't count any points lost to 3rd event teams in elims or awards. Gives us ~54.5 points/team as an average. So we're looking at increase of roughly 5pts/team from the changes to the point system.

From the 38 teams who have finished both events, the middle of the pack (#19) has 57 points. That grouping of teams looks better than average though.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Forgot about the changes to the elimination scoring and award points. Thanks for the clarification!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The 11 teams registered for a Regional and their current District Points/Rank/# Events

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

So, if 7 team goes to an outside regional and they all win, that means that the spots will go from 10 to 3 at MAR on teams who go to worlds just on ranking?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Yes.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Congratulations to Team 2607 on winning the Virginia Regional.

This means that 2607 will consume the first "points" spot from MAR, leaving 9 spots left.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Another question. Let's say the three teams that win at Lehigh also qualify for STL outside of MAR. Are the three winning spots converted to become additional ranking-point spots for the next top ranked teams?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Based on the old MAR/FiM rules (2012+2013), the MARCMP winner (and other "award") slots couldn't be passed down or inherited. So when 341 won in 2012, that slot was lost (qualified via HoF and via winning Boston Regional). Same applied to the CA/EI/RAS awards, though we never saw a team double qualify that way (or decline). Only the points based slots would pass over a team that was already qualified.

So assuming that stays the same, the question would be if winning an award slot at MAR CMP would trump a slot earned at a previous outside regional, and move the team from eating a "points" slot to the corresponding "award" slot. I would hope the answer is yes - "point" slots are awarded from top to bottom skipping over the MARCMP winners and award winners as they trickle down.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I just updated everything for Lenape, once again, let me know if you spot anything incorrect.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AizgHBYEeVnwdDJVeFBzWTduazNLV3I2Skw5dlh4a FE&usp=drive_web#gid=1

The median number of points for team who have competed two events is 55.5. Expect the cutoff to be slightly lower than this. Declines and a large number of 3rd event teams at BR should decrease the cutoff.

I'm not sure if the new points model did a good job sorting out the teams. Good teams like 2729, 2495, 708 and 1712 are under this 55 point cutoff. Hopefully they'll still qualify for MAR champs because they have good robots that deserve to be there. I'm not sure if the old points model would have done a better job; once BR ends I'll recalculate the rankings with last year's point systems to see the difference in who qualifies.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Not that it matters overall but team 25 did win their first QF match so should have 5 more pts.

Just happy if we qualify....

Wc

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

http://www3.usfirst.org/sites/defaul...ing_System.pdf

"5 points for every match won in which a Team’s robot participated,
only for the Alliance that wins the series"

That rule exists to account for replacement robots in elims.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks for keeping up with this, Scott! It's nice to check and see how things are going.

I noticed that 1089's QPs are wrong -- we won 6 qualifying matches yesterday, and should have 12 qualifying points, and 27 total. We're marked right now with having 18 QPs, and 33 total.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks, sorry. I manually entered the data for the three teams who went to Lenape for their first event. I must have taken the overall record instead of their qualification record for those three teams. I'll fix it now.

EDIT: Actually your team was the only one with the issue. The other two teams didn't win any elimination matches so it didn't affect them.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

My bad. Saw the points but not the win being necessary

Sorry

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Scott, is there a significance to the teams highlighted in green? MAR CMP mathematical lock or something?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The teams highlighted in light green are predicted to be over the cutoff, not a mathematical lock.

After reading you comment I implemented a way to find out if a team is a lock. It's based off of Brian Lucas's paper from last year. The teams who are a lock are now highlighted in dark green.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Antonio covered it - but keep in mind that I haven't (nor has Antonio to my knowledge) been keeping track of tiebreakers, so tied teams may or may not be in the right order. The MAR site has the tiebreakers as they currently stand. We'll likely be updating the sheet as the event progresses this weekend, should have a very good idea of the cutoff after alliance selections, since ~70% of the points will have been allocated by then.

Bridgewater is also the largest event, and will only yield and average of ~24 pts/team (not sure if 136 is going to show up or not). Clifton gave away 29.16 pts/team - which is basically a 2nd year team bonus for everyone who attended.

Looking at point accumulations for the 8 teams attending Bridgewater as a 3rd event - I would expect 6 of them to be eating up elimination points. That means the cutoff at #55 is probably going to be a good bit lower than the current median of ~55 points. Did 5 minutes of lazy point modeling, came out with 49 points for the #55 team.

After that - it's all up to declines and where the CA winner from Bridgewater is sitting in the standings (433 is probably barely going to make the cut via points once we see a few declines).

If anybody has information about teams planning to skip MAR CMP, I can add that to the sheet so we have a good projection. As of now all I've seen is that 103 is planning on skipping.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

2607 plans to skip MAR CMP this year as well, since we're attending St. Louis

- Ron
Team #2607 controls mentor

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Congratulations to team 225, TechFire, on their Greater DC Regional win!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Great win for 225! Congratulations folks!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Congratulations to 2016 for winning the Engineering Inspiration award at Queen City.

Currently MAR has lost three point slots to
2607- Virginia Winner
225- DC Winner
2016- Queen City Engineering Inspiration

Teams who can still remove points slots are
11-Hawaii (This week, but a 6 hour delay)
555-Windsor-Essex (Week 6)
2234-Lone Star (Week 6)

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

So if 5 'MAR' spots are given out at regional events, and at the MAR District Championship Chairman's, Engineering Inspiration and Rookie All-Star Award winners take the first 3 spots, the winning alliance don't all get to go to St. Louis??

I would think MAR teams will be more motivated to go to regional events next year than the MAR Championship.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Not sure exactly sure what you're asking, but the current system means that teams that don't go out of district are at risk of losing a slot to teams that do, and MAR as a district is punished for having teams travel and win bids to champs. As of now we'll have 15 (down from 18) slots to give out at MAR Champs, only 7 of which will be "points" based slots (down from 10).

Seems to be another rule made by FIRST that was only halfway thought through. Makes the region championship watered down in quality as teams are able to bypass it, removes the ability of the point system and the award system to properly choose teams to represent the district at World Champs, and punishes teams that choose not to travel.

Either get rid of the "reverse-wildcard" punishment for districts, or don't allow district teams to qualify at outside regionals.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FE&usp=sharing

Standings updated after Day 1 at Bridgewater, looks like everyone with 56 points or above should be a mathematical lock for MARCMP. We may have a few more slots depending on what 225 and 2016 decide (225 is rank 3 with 105 points, 2016 is right on the cutoff at rank 43 with 56 points).

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

So I was confused [wrong;) ].... 7 'points slots', Chairman's, Engineering Inspiration and Rookie All-Star Award(3 slots), what are the other 5 slots?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Not a problem. Here's what the 18 WC qualification spots in MAR look like now:

• 3 Slots claimed by teams at outside regions (2607, 225, 2016)
• 3 MAR Region Winners
• 2 MAR Region Chairman's Award Winners
• 2 MAR Engineering Inspiration
• 1 MAR Rookie Allstar
• 7 District Point Qualifiers (was 10)

It is rather disappointing to see spots disappear at outside regionals. I agree with what Scott seems to be saying in that it does take away from the competition within our region by earning points and at the region championship. Hopefully this is addressed one way or another before next year.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

11 just got Chairman's at Hawaii. One more MAR spot!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Congrats 11! Well deserved for your world-class program!

Here's the list of remaining world championships qualification spots:

• 4 Slots claimed by teams at outside regions (2607, 225, 2016, 11)
• 3 MAR Region Winners
• 2 MAR Region Chairman's Award Winners
• 2 MAR Engineering Inspiration
• 1 MAR Rookie Allstar
• 6 District Point Qualifiers (was 10)

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Unfortunately it seems like the mathematically highest cutoff is actually 59 points. I didn't make the Mathematical Cutoff sheet the most user-friendly and the top section has to be manually updated.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

FYI,for the future.
Noticed this on the previous clinching calculation also, but is the BR DCA team and any DCA teams ranked below the current team the clinch calculation is being calculated for being taken into account? They would take up slots and the cutoff would be less than 55.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The "teams needed to tie" right now is 55-(current rank). I assumed that the BR DCA team will be ranked above the cutoff. So far in MAR every DCA winner has been above the point cutoff so this seems like a fair assumption to make. I suppose that I could(should) skip over the DCA teams when calculating the points needed to tie.

Currently the 55th rank team has 48 points. I'm expecting a few teams to jump them (293, 1089 and 4361) and bring the cutoff up to about 50 points.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

TechFire 225 is planning on and looking forward to MAR champs! See you all there!!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Ok, everything should be updated - did most of the tiebreakers for the bubble down to the ~70's ranked teams.

Everyone with 51 points or more is currently qualified, along with team 433 (48 points, CA qualifier).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FE&usp=sharing

I'll update the sheet as teams are registered for MAR CMP. Feel free to post here and/or PM me if you know a team that will/won't be attending MAR CMP, and I can update the cutoff/sheet as appropriate.

For fun: points in MAR from 2012-2014, teams ranked 1-55.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Hey,

I am a little upset after reading that teams that qualified for spots outside the district model take away spots from teams who only compete inside the district model. What is the point of the district model if the MAR Championship rewards teams to travel outside of the district, and punishes those teams that only compete inside the district?

To me, albeit I will be competing for those now depleted 6 or so seats, this is ridiculous. Why should we as a third year team, who reached the MAR Championship after winning a district event, should be punished and forced to do even better to win less slots. To add to that, teams who have already "clinched" are also competing in this event. Why should we stay in the district model at all? When we could instead travel to the Pittsburgh Regional and compete in Regional events instead of playing in the district model.

The district model IMO is great, however when teams are rewarded for bypassing the district and punish teams who competed in district matches alone, why even hold the MAR Champs when most of the teams awarded spots will not even need their robot to compete. For example Chairman's, Rookie, & Ei now occupy about the same amount of non-winning alliance spots left. I know the idea of scrapping the MAR Champs itself is beyond ridiculous. However to me this feels like an unjust dilution of the reward for even attending MAR Champs.

Add to that many of the spots clinched were clinched through awards, not winning an event. Why should a team at the MAR Champs be punished if a team wins an award outside the district?

My rough solution to this problem (or at least causation) would be to let those teams who qualified outside the district, compete in the MAR Champs, but if they are to win any other seats, skip them and keep the same amount of open slots to Worlds open to other teams.

This is not to discredit anyones hard work or achievements just to point out a flaw in the way MAR distributes it's seats to Worlds

Disclaimer: My opinions do not reflect in anyway the opinion of my team or sponsors, nor am I claiming all facts 100% true.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The logic (I believe/IIRC) in 'taking away' spots for outside qualifications stems from the idea that once district systems become more and more widespread, the amount of qualifying spots (ie. excluding O&S, HoF, Championship Winners, Championship EIs, etc...) should remain proportional to the number of robots at Championships and that district system's population vs all of FIRST.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Three things:

1 - FIRST decides how the distribution works. Don't whine at MAR, call Frank at FIRST. While you are on the phone talking to Frank discuss how much money they take from the regional organizations. (*)

2 - If a team has the desire, support and money to attend another regional and the skills to win it, YAY THEM. We have a MAR team that traveled to Hawaii and flat out won. We should be impressed, try to learn from them and loudly applaud their accomplishment. Oh wait three other teams traveled away and also proved that MAR isn't a group of little toddlers, we build and compete with AMAZING robots. YAY THEM!!!

3- MAR and the others have done a huge amount to improve the robot cost per match. Regional teams get far more plays for their dollars than any other teams. In the future with the growth of FIRST (yes! more teams) everyone will be in regions. It will take some time, but the balance will occur. We are doing competition robotics, more competition and more inspiration is what we are working towards.

(*) No disrespect intended. I'm a huge Frank fan, he seems to be the guy that would finally be willing to talk to you if you have issues.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I don't believe I ever said MAR doesn't produce world class robots, I think its great that teams are able to travel to other regionals and more power to them. What I AM saying is that to me, It doesn't make any sense that teams who cannot afford to travel to multiple districts and regionals have less seats at the District Championship to win, based on the performance of teams who can afford to travel outside of the district.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Were have you been hiding? This was announced months ago.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

2495 & 2729 are flipped, we have more alliance selection points (tiebreaker) and should be in 55th (as reflected in the official rankings)

I think it is fair that teams can travel and win, I'm not complaining. I think they should be looked up to as an example. Especially the folks over on 11. However, I do not think that at this point in time this rule should be in place. It makes sense when we move more into the district system. But someone was going to win chairmans in HI anyway, what difference does it make who it is? It just takes a slot away from someone else that earned it, and creates less 'earned' spots at CMP

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

11 and 193 do intend on attending the MAR championships at this time.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

As a preface, this is probably most relevant to MAR (as opposed to FiM, NE, PNW) as we have a few unique characteristics that exacerbate the problem.

1. We have a good number of teams that continue to travel to outside events, and qualify via those outside events.
2. We have a comparatively small number of slots to award, being the smallest district (though in the same rough proportion as FiM, NE, PNW).
3. We have the largest % of slots devoted to "awards" at our region championship, and losing any number of slots has a bigger impact on remaining "point" slots. I haven't been able to find the distribution for FiM/NE/PNW for this year - if anyone has those, it would be helpful.

That was the rough explanation I remember as well...

It doesn't hold up to scrutiny too well though.

1. As districts become more widespread, there will be fewer regionals to attend/earn slots at, reducing the significance of the problem. The Regional to District transition is a long way off for many regions, if it ever happens at all. Doesn't really make sense to be solving a problem that doesn't exist yet, unless it doesn't cause any unwanted side-effects.

1a. That explanation only "fixes" the problem for the district region. The outside Regional is not compensated in any way for an "outside" team coming in and winning a bid - same as it ever was. So that undermines that particular explanation.

2. FIRST hasn't (to my knowledge) made an effort to make CMP slots proportional to any particular locale/community. No value judgement there - depends what you think the purpose of WCMP is. If it's to give every region a fair shot at attending, the slots should be proportional. If it's to showcase the best robots - we should have way more slots for Michigan and Ontario teams. This has previously caused teams to flee highly competitive regions for less competitive ones, and who can blame them. Ontario is to thank for the current wildcard system, which is a pretty good band-aid to make Regionals more "District-like".

3. It reduces the efficacy of the point system in awarding the District Champion and Point slots. One of the main benefits (IMO) of the district point model is that it allows high-performing but unlucky teams to advance, and reduces the number of low-performing but lucky teams that advance. As far as I remember, that was a primary focus of the Michigan teams & mentors who designed the system. Worst case, a district championship will give a "winning" bid to the 24th best team in the region (out of 110 to 200+ teams). Much better than the 24th best team at a 30+ team regional.

3b. It distorts the balance of slots awarded by the district. Slots can be lost by any method, but they are only removed from the "points" slots. Fewer of those high performing but unlucky teams get to attend WCMP. MAR will effectively award 3 slots via Chairman's award, 3 slots via Engineering Inspiration, and another 2 slots via winning events. So instead of 5/18 slots being awarded for RAS/CA/EI, we're now at 7/18 slots (39%). Pretty big jump. For reference, Michigan gave 5/27 slots for those awards last year (19%). See point 3 from the top.

Again, this is all through the lens of my personal preference for the district model to reward more of those high performing but unlucky teams, instead of giving out an excessive % of culture awards. I think I'm in line with the initial FiM perspective on that point. Our team has been honored to win DCA awards the last 3 years running - before eventually losing to other very worthy programs at our Region Championship. Would I turn down a bid to CMP if we ended up winning RCA at an outside regional? No, but it makes sense to let the District sort out the most competitive applicants and send those teams to WCMP on their relative merits.

As for solutions? If the intent is truly to evenly distribute slots to WCMP - then don't allow District teams to qualify via outside Regionals. Exclude them from the CA/EI/RAS judging process, as they will still have the ability to compete for those within district (don't even need the robot at DCMP to win those). If they win the event, open up a wildcard slot for a Regional system team. The only disadvantage that remains is the lateness of qualifying for Worlds, but I don't think there's a good solution for that with the current District structure. Gives all district teams an equal bite at the apple, with the ability to still travel out of region.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Fixed, I didn't bother sorting you guys initially since you were above the cutoff.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

No need to jump on Max's back here. He's a former student of mine and knows very well what hard work and dedication are and what it takes to be able to travel outside the system and still win awards and banners.

Edit: Scott has a good summary of things. Thanks!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the district rules, but I'm assuming if a team that already is qualified for worlds (say 225) were to rank high enough to take one of the remaining points slots they would be passed over instead of the slot vanishing correct?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

That is part of the inspire. Do well in MAR, then the next year, fly outside your zone and do well. New reports in that the upstart Miss Daisy 341, flew to the NY Tundra, trimmed Ice Kings of GRR, but failed to capture the giant snowball.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

How many points does a team gets for winning a match at MARs?:confused:

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

That was the case in 2012 and 2013. We were skipped over in 2012, and 11 was skipped over in 2013. Points slots were/are? the only ones that "trickle down". In this instance 225 wouldn't eat another slot, but you can essentially assign 11,225,2016,2607 point slots #1 through #4 right now.

I have no idea what will happen if one of those teams ends up winning MAR Championship as well. The document is lacking in a number of very important details, and seems to be only half-complete in current form. You would think that whoever made the document would have taken the time to think through and address all possible scenarios...

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I am not even sure what that last part meant, but the first part I think my point isn't being grasped. I am not complaining about our lack of funding or the unfairness of that. I am saying that if slots at MAR are being secured through awards and wins outside of the district, it is not fair to anyone. We have a situation where "slots to CMP" given at regionals are awarded by Regionals but the actual slots come from MAR's "slot pool" thereby destroying more slots to CMP in total. Not only does this destroy another team's chance to get to CMP at whatever Regional they came from, but it also makes it harder for me (as a competitor at MAR champs) to get to CMP.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

My assumption was that it would eat up the winners slot, but that would be based off the old rules I believe.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The week 5 ranks have been posted to the MAR website,

All 6 event summaries as well as the cumulative ranking points are available.

If you believe there are errors, please let MAR know asap (you can post here or PM)

=====

All of the following has been stated before in previous posts in this thread but by re-stating it all here hopefully it will clarify things wrt qualification to FIRST CMP:

This year MAR has 18 FIRST World CMP slots allocated.
MAR has 3 pre-qualified teams, all are HOF teams.

Of the 18 District slots, 8 are for "Designated Awards": 2 CA, 2 EI, 1 RAS, 3 MAR CMP winners. (There can be one additional slot taken if the Winning Alliance had a substitute team included.) These slots cannot got to any other team, in particular, the winning alliance slots are not "passed down" to the ranking slot pool if a member of the winning alliance has qualified for the Worlds in another way.

Of the 10/9 "Ranking Slots", they are reduced by the number of non-pre-qualified teams that have qualified at a Regional competition. After recalculating the Rankings to include the MAR CMP results (3x weighting), remaining "Ranking Slots" are offered to teams in rank order, skipping over teams that have already qualified in ANY manner, until all the remaining slots are filled.

Eg. If a MAR team wins an Regional, there will be one less "Ranking Slot". If that same team also wins CA and is on the winning alliance at the MAR CMP, then MAR can send a max of 16 teams instead of 18 (+ the 3 prequalified teams)

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Teams currently registered for MAR CMP
https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....14&event=mrcmp

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

As the first team on the "waitlist", we haven't received an invite yet so I think its safe to assume no one has officially declined as of now.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

While I don't know if we have "officially" declined yet, I can guarantee you that 2607 will not be attending the MAR Championship (we are crating our robot tonight), so it is safe to assume that you will receive an invite at some point.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Gracious Professionalism right there - huge props to 2607 for letting other teams play at MAR Champs.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Of the 55 teams qualified for MAR Champs at this time (not including spots that will most likely be passed down due to declines):

• 34 teams attended MAR Champs in 2013 (2 of these teams have stated intentions to decline their 2014 MAR Champs Spot)
  
  
• 8 teams Qualified for MAR Champs in 2013 but declined their spot (4 of these teams are already registered for MAR Champs 2014)
  
  
• 2 teams are rookies
  
  
• 11 teams did not qualify for MAR Champs in 2013

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

For other bubble watchers, 103 is one of the 50 teams currently listed as registered for the event.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

We're up to 50 teams registered for MARCMP. No teams have been pulled from the "waitlist" yet. All 3 HoF teams (103, 341, 365) are registered, as well as 3 of the 4 teams that qualified for World Champs via an outside Regional (11, 225, 2016).

Teams that have yet to register:
#17 - 2607 (qualified for worlds, stated that they don't plan on attending)
#23 - 4954
#35 - 303
#38 - 4361
#41 - 1495

Teams on the "waitlist"
#55 - 2495
#56 - 2729
#57 - 708
#58 - 1712

The point system did a pretty poor job this year if those 4 might not make it to DCMP. They all had the unfortunate fate of registering for 3 of the deeper events in Hatboro, Lenape, and SCH.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

This wait is wrecking my nerves. On the bright side, not as many declines as last season. Especially bright because of the game this year. Should be pretty competitive, hopefully nearly every qualification match is as exciting as elims.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I wouldn't say that it's an issue with the point system so much as an issue with imbalance in regards to event difficulty.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

In 2013 there were 8 declines, 4 were already qualified for FIRST CMP, the other 4 were between rank 35-50. Went 15 deep into the rankings to fill the 8 slots. Perhaps a large factor was that there were only 3-4 days between the last event and the start of MAR CMP, teams replacing the declines had even less time.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

No doubt - hence the comment about HH, LEN, SCH. But I also think the changes to the point system were detrimental to sorting by robot quality. More points for 3rd round selections means that many teams ranked above the cutoff earned half or more of their total points from winning an event as one of the last picks. The changes to the award points were also detrimental (except for awarding points for EI & DCA). I wouldn't say that winning Quality/Industrial Design/Engineering Excellence is the equivalent of winning the Spirit/GP Award.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I recalculated the rankings with the old points system. With the old system teams 2495, 2729 and 708 would qualify for MAR champs while 2577, 3142 and 5113 would not. Additionally, 1712 would be the first team on the "waitlist".

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Unfortunately for 708... We don't have a choice not to compete week 1 at Hatboro-Horsham as the event host. Fingers crossed for us and our friends who are on the edge of the bubble!

2495 | 2729 | 1712

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Just received the Invite email.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks Eric, keeping our fingers crossed for you too.

I just received an invite from HQ, so we're in. Not sure who is officially out, but we're in.

The point ranking system is interesting this year to say the least. I wonder what last year's results would look like with this year's match outcomes? Neither ranking system accounts for strength of schedule but I'm just wondering if the nature of this year's game has a lot to do with it in how some of the role player type robots have found a niche and a part of this year's game.

Nate

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

We just received an invite email from FIRST HQ... Looking into it now... Not sure where the declines came from...

Here's to hoping for 1712, I really do hope that one more slot opens up!

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Fans of dark comedy can also look at the foul-adjusted records of these teams, infer changes in points, then laugh/cry.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Thanks for all the friendly support for our team here. But it shouldn't extend only to 1712. I'm rooting for 4373, who's right behind us in line, to make it as well. They were a terrific alliance captain at SCH and there's no way we upset the #1 alliance without them.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

Registration just shuffled around a minute ago, with 2016 and 3340 dropping off the list of registered teams. We have 49 officially, with 3 teams saying they got invites who aren't on the list yet (2495, 2729, 708). So that makes 52.

Teams about the cut still missing:
4954 (#23)
303 (#35)
4361 (#38)

So if all those teams register, we're all full. If any of those decline, the order is:

1712 (#58)
4373 (#60)
4653 (#61)

Everyone below #61 is out of the running unless any currently registered teams drop out. Surprised to see 303 still missing, since they have been eligible to register since Clifton ended (week 3). Anybody have an idea about them?

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

I ran the new system with last year's results. If we have a 55 team MAR championship like this year then teams 4460, 203 and 4653 would be in with the new system while teams 357, 1647 and 223 would not be. Due to teams declining their invitation to MAR champs 4460 and 203 were invited last year anyway. 203 did not attend the region championship.

Re: 2014 MAR Standings
 

The main question is would they still be allowed to submit for Chairmans at DCMP without registering robot wise?