Re: MN State Tournament Selection Process
 

First, off thank you to the individuals giving shout outs to my team, it's much appreciated. While it's true that my team usually does much better at our second event (last year was the only time in 7 years of doing 2 events that we did better in our first event!), I can tell you that my team doesn't see the ranking system as unfair, and we're happy where we finished at 38th in the rankings. In fact, you'll be seeing some of our students in volunteer shirts at the event anyways :)

Now, to get to the ranking system. For those who don't know, or those from out of state, here is an explanation of the entire tournament: http://mnfirst.org/docs/2014/2014_MSHSL.pdf

The state tournament is part of being a MSHSL recognized organization. Having it comes right along with the official Robotics Letter for the state, and some other recognition from the state, and it probably helps your teachers get recognition from the schools for all the work they do with the teams.

In order to hold a fair and representative State Tournament, we need to have some way of ranking teams. This is a surprisingly difficult task. How do you determine how "good" a robot is? Is a team that looses in the quarter finals to the #1 seed any worse than the team that loose in the semifinals to the #1 seed? Maybe, maybe not. Given the small number of events we have, and the small number of plays each team gets at each event, there really is no perfect way to rank the teams.

Is it fair to only count the first regional each team attends? Without a doubt yes. Does it mean that some teams who end the season with great robots don't get to states? Yes. And that is extremely unfortunate. However, given the nature of the competition we're in, if you have the time and money to attend multiple events, it's only natural for you to continuously improve on your performance, and I don't think it's worth sacrificing fairness in order to recognize those teams who have that time and money.

For the extra points awarded to rookies and second year teams... I say AWESOME! I see the State Tournament as essentially half a regional, and the overall team representation should reflect the regional makeup of our 4 events - and with 2 rookies and 6 second year teams, I think we managed to do alright.

The best and fairest way we can select teams for the tournament is to mimic what FIRST already has in place for districts. FIRST cuts team's off after 2 district events (in terms of points) because that's what every team gets - 2 events. For us, every team gets 1 event, and that's where we set the cutoff. I'm sure there are teams in the various district areas that raised extra money and did 3 or 4 district events, continuously improved across those events, yet didn't get in because their first two events weren't good enough.

Congrats to all the teams that made it in. The system isn't flawed - you all got in because you deserve it.

Oh, and make sure your robot is bagged, and you follow the Bag and Tag rules for the event. Direct any questions or concerns to me, as I'll be the one talking to you if you roll into the event with a problem :)