Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I'd like to put in my requests for additional FTC fields. As the current two are related to electricity ( the Kite/key and the light bulb) how about Tesla (MCs and announcers would have fun with Tesla vs Edison) and Volta ("I say Alessandro you say Volta!" :ahh: ).
Of course the FTC championship field would get the Da Vinci name!

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

My top four picks for new divisions in order

Schrodinger
Euclid
Pythagoras
Riemann

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Surely we should have a field named Faraday given our robots wouldn't work so well without electric motors.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I would love to see a Rookie Division so that a rookie champion can be crowned each year :)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

^^ I second this nomination. Grace Hopper is well-known in the field of Computer Science and one of my personal idols. A truly inspiring woman in STEM.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I support this.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Grace Hopper has been on my short list of potential field names for a long time.

Clarke, McAuliffe, Asimov, Tsiolkovsky, Sagan, Teller...

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Marconi.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Does anyone else think Houston would be a good city to host Champs? I know it was done back in 2003 in the Astrodome and it was terrible, but now it would be a lot different. There is still the Reliant Center Convention Center but now it has the new and modern Reliant Stadium. Assuming that there is a connection between the two (I have no idea if any sort of tunnel exists), I think the two venues would have more than enough space. Reliant Arena is also right there and could be used as the FTC or FLL venue, keeping one of them very close to the FRC venue, although this might conflict with the NBA playoffs if the Rockets make it.

Also, Houston was Continental Airlines' main hub and is now a major hub for United Airlines after the merger, meaning flights wouldn't be a problem. As far as hotels and things to do in the city, I wouldn't know, but Houston being the big city that it is, I don't think that would be much of a problem.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

When the championship was in Houston, the fields were in Reliant Staduim (not the Astrodome). The pits were in the Astrodome. The biggest problem was to get from the pits to the field it required going up 4-5 floors of ramps and then back down again. It literally took about 20-25 minutes to get from the pits to the playing field (or back). If your match turnaround time was less than 60-90 minutes, it wasn't even worth going back to the pit.

Also, most hotels and restaurants were rather far away if I remember correctly.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I wish it would make sense as the 10 minute drive would me much nicer then than the 13 hour drive but sadly it wouldn't be good. In 2003 we were in Reliant Stadium, it was brand new. The pits were in the Astrodome which is probably going to be demolished in a few years, as the renovation plans were voted down. Any other space in the complex is way to far away for the pits. Downtown we have the George R. Brown Convention Center (home of the Lone Star Regional) and the Toyota Center (Where the Rockets play) but they aren't close enough for what we need to host championships.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

If FIRST went to 6 divisions of 80 teams they could grow to up to 6 divisions of 100 teams then look at further expansion. If you took the 6 divisions and broke them into 2 Finalist divisions of 3 alliances each then had a playoff where 2 teams move to Einstein for finals.

1 vs 2
1 vs 3
2 vs 3

Top team moves on and the final 2 teams play 1 game to move the winner on. Yes we would be adding a few more matches but it seems like a good solution.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I like the idea of 8 divisions with 60 teams each. This would mean FIRST would only have to invite 80 additional teams next season. IT also would keep the round robin even so surrogate matches would not need played by any teams.

This also just adds an additional round of matches on Einstein with the 8 winning alliances facing off in quarter finals.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Im personally sad to see the FTC divisions leaving the same Staduim floor. :( . I loved being able to watch my FTC team compete along with watching the FRC fields. Its going to be interesting next year I guess. From all the pictures I can find of Union though, I have no clue as to where they are going to put the FTC fields.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Thing about 6 divisions versus 8 is that you can probably squeeze in two more FRC fields in the dome if you take out the FTC spot and move around some of Einstein, but with 8 divisions you're likely going to be moving a number of fields out of the dome and that doesn't come off as ideal.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

This is true. If they could find a way to fit it I think it would be ideal. I like the idea of getting as many matches in as possible with smaller divisions during qualification matches. This year you only saw 50% of your division on the field, which does not lead to a very good ranking system.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I think you're on to something, if you just have your two Finalist division winners move on to a final 3 match series, it's 8-9 matches, which is essentially the same as past Einstein matches. This means Einstein takes roughly the same amount of time, and we could have the same or more quals matches per team.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I think 8 divisions is a good idea because smaller divisions mean a more balanced competition. But it doesn't mean there needs to be 8 fields. Each field could have two divisions alternating games. Maybe Curie-A & Curie-B share a field and have a playoff to see who goes to Einstein. Expansion could be implemented in increments of 6 per division, starting with 54 or 60. If there are 2 divisions of 54, with each team getting 10 matches, there would be 180 matches compared to 167 matches with the current set-up.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

FIRST could go old school and do Double Elimination Brackets like they used to back in the dark ages of FIRST.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I have an original copy of the elimination bracket from 1996 hanging on my wall if anyone wants to see how it used to be done.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

My thoughts on 2015 CMPs:

• 8 Divisions - 8 Fields
• 64 Teams Per Division
• 32 Teams Make the Eliminations (4 Team Alliances)
• 12 Matches Per Team (Thursday & Friday)
• Alliance Selection Friday Night
• 1-2 Hour Robot Work Period for Alliances
• Division Awards during the Elims (like 2014)
• Division Eliminations Saturday Morning
• Division Winners Move to Einstein
• Einstein Eliminations (QF, SF, F) Saturday Afternoon

Fields Configured in a "/ \" Shape, which allows for the following:

• Spectators can watch more robot action (similar to VEX events)
• Field Reset takes place when the other field is playing a match
• Robots Connect to the field and get setup while other match is being played
• Two MCs that pass the audience back and forth

My favorite part is alliance selection on Friday Night (talk about GP) ... this would allow for the alliances to talk about their strategy, scout / watch videos on their opponents, and maybe even "hang out" that evening. The downside that people will bring up is the 32 x 8 Teams (256) that do not make the eliminations.

But I still think there is plenty of things to do:

• Check out Jr. FLL, FLL, FTC
• Goto the Arch
• Goto the City Museum
• Goto the Finale Party Thing
• I Don't Know ... WATCH the Elimination Matches
• Check out the teams that made the Elims

-Clinton-

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I ran the numbers on the plane back and agree on the Thurs-Fri 8 division setup.

I don't like that it waters down the divisions a bunch, but if we're going to more divisions this happens no matter what.

It deepens the elims at champs without adding any funky structure.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Interesting ideas. I see one area of concern from the scout groups perspective...alliance selection Friday night leaves little time prior to selections to do a detailed analysis and ranking of prospective teams. It takes our guys at least 4 hours to do a thorough job of ranking prospects.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Possibly have a 2 hour "dinner" break, then the last match for all of the teams, before alliance selections begin. We would probably make a rough list on Thursday Night and refine the list all day Friday before alliance selection.

Hopefully the depth of CMPs will start to mimic MSC, as more and more areas go to the District Model.

-Clinton-

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I completely agree with Clint. 8 divisions would allow up to 800 teams to play 10 matches (although I would prefer 64 teams/division with 12 matches). Friday alliance selection would complicate things, but it would be great to have an evening to work out strategy, etc. If I were one of the teams that didn't make it into the eliminations on Saturday, I would gladly do something I rarely get to do (except during Einstein, unfortunately) - just sit back and enjoy some good matches.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I'd have my team take it a step further and put teams in tiers even before the event started (I've done it for myself the past two years to determine overall depth of the field). This past year, I believe there was only 6 or 8 teams on Curie that did not have any match videos online.

On the whole I really like this layout. In the short run, it may water down the eliminations too much but with more places moving to districts, the depth of the 64 teams will only improve.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I overlooked that in Clinton's post, my plan is the same except selections Saturday morning, then 1-2 break before elims start.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I'd rather have quals later into the afternoon/evening on Friday to ensure that each team gets as many plays as possible, and then do selections first thing Saturday morning. I predict that giving each alliance captain a whole evening (with full knowledge of the standings) to come up with their pick list will increase the quality and strategic depth of eliminations in huge ways.

I totally agree with everything else in Clinton's post and would be VERY excited to see it implemented!

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I wonder if teams would even show up to the venue on Saturday if they were not picked on Friday.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

This has to be the main concern with Friday night alliance selections. Obviously all of us on CD would stick around, but nobody wants to see empty stands for Einstein, least of all FIRST with their sponsors, VIPs, and speakers.

From a team perspective, I don't think Friday night or Saturday morning is absolutely superior. In a game like this one, where strategising is incredibly important, being able to work with your partners all evening is great. But in a more regular game, I'd prefer to have the time to refine a pick list. Currently, that last half hour before alliance selections is just awful. Would personally lean towards Saturday morning alliance selections, with a break afterwards (there's time for it, gone are 2 hours of quals, only adding about an hour to Einstein).

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Saturday Morning would work as well and there is still potential for the first few teams to get together Friday night to make their remaining pick list for the next morning.

I like the idea of having all night to refine the pick lists and not guessing what the ranks will be after everyone plays their last match.

Either way I hope we increase the number of matches per team and decrease the number of teams per division. 100 Teams is way too many teams properly scout and rank (via the actual FIRST ranking).

-Clinton-

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

It is really unfortunate that at Championships I only share the field with half of my division. The other half might as well not even be on the same division.

With 12 matches to play (6 on Thursday and 6 on Friday) I can play with/against everyone in the division once if there are 60 teams. It doesn't have to be absolutely everyone, so even a number like 66 or 72 teams in a division would allow me to see the overwhelming majority of teams in my division.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Why not have alliance selection first thing Saturday morning? Maybe even alliance selection before opening ceremonies to allow more strategy or inspection time.

Benefits of this over Friday night are numerous:

• Qual matches can go as late as desired Friday
• Teams get essentially all of the time they need to make pick lists.
• Rankings are known for certain during pick list meetings, allowing for better strategy.
• No "surprise captains" without lists (happens less often at Champs but occasionally an issue)
• Saturday doesn't have to be rushed, allowing for a longer Einstein
• No team would ditch Saturday morning as they might still be playing

I think 6 divisions of 70-80 teams is probably the way to go. A round robin on Einstein would mean 6 matches total for the "semi finals" (compare to 4-6 for current semis) and then the top two advance. Tiebreakers could either be a rubber match or highest total score. Finals are same old best of three.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Place to hold the Championship: Walt Disney Florida

1) Big Airport cheap to fly into
2) Lots of hotel rooms
3) Lot of things to do during down time
4) EPCOT big into new technology
5) Lots of space for all the teams.
6) Good weather in April.
7) Very safe

About rookies going to Championship. If they earn the right to go the same way as any other team then great. But they need to change the way seeding rounds are held. They would have to really randomize the seeding.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

More seats for Einstein!

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Sadly, I don't know that we would. That's a >$2,000 decision for our team, and we're comparatively small (30 members).

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

What do you mean? They're already random, within the constraints of an FRC schedule. Randomness means that some teams will get "lucky" and some will get "unlucky". Or are you suggesting that they make the schedules non-random? They tried that before, it didn't work too well...

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I believe the championship was held at Epcot the first 4 years of the program. Then it moved to Atlanta Georgia and then it moved to St.Louis.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Did I just read someone wants a return to EPCOT?

Edit: ^ There was also a period where it was in Houston before moving to Atlanta.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Houston deserves another shot. 2003 felt like a rush job.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Speaking long-term, growing championship much bigger than its current size? I think Orlando is the only city that *can* support it. Nowhere else has a high enough density of hotels, and enough convention space.

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If they don't have a domed stadium then I don't want to hear about how many hotel rooms they have. What happened in late 90's and the early millennium isn't going to fill the bill anymore. FIRST has outgrown Disney World.

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The largest convention center in the world wouldnt work for you?(Orange County Convention Center)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Having an event strictly in a convention center is VERY different than a convention center with an attached arena.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Were the fields in the pits a few years ago really that bad? Or were they only bad because of the minimal seating?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Einstein is impossible in a convention center.

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Technically... McCormick place in Chi-Town is larger but who cares?

A domed arena really has become a necessity for FIRST CMPS.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Mind saying why?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Because you need far too many seats than you can effectively fit into a convention center before you run out of height, or you cannot see the field/stage.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

The 10 minute walk to champs from my house would be fantasmic

Alas,
I agree.

So close to a McDome too, long live.

Also it'd be pretty friggin expensive and likely FIRST wouldn't like the price tag.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I'm not following. Assuming you have already booked travel and lodging, how does abstaining from attending the event (in lieu of, say, a baseball game or more city exploring) save you money?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Well.. Chicago is a larger city than St. Louis. Larger travel hub too.

Costs would be ridiculous, including at the hotels.

Not necessarily... It may be possible in the Philadelphia convention center, but it would be extremely expensive to do it! So cost prohibitive, but not impossible.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Ahh...hopefully one day this will become important. (Edit: because it'll be super international)


As for the expensiveness, looks like we need to infiltrate the machine.

I'm kidding Chicago, don't be mad.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I mean we'd go home. If we could save a night's worth of hotel rooms and a day's worth of charter bus (assuming the companies refund us), that's a lot of bank.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

But you wouldn't know until around 7 or 8pm that night. Would you be able to change your travel plans on the fly like that?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

It would work for teams who take buses however I'm not sure if you can get your money back for your hotel.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I agree this could be a problem. However, many teams will have to book hotel rooms through Friday or Saturday night anyway, and will have unchangeable plane flights, so I don't think this will be a problem. I expect that most teams come to the Champs hoping that they will advance to elims. And many of the other teams are shooting for other awards that would be made on Saturday. So I don't think the attrition rate would be very high.

To be honest, playing Qs on Saturday AM followed by alliance selection has not been an issue for us. We prep the night before and look at different scenarios. (I'm sure 254 does the same.) Last year we had about a half dozen scenarios. This year we had 3.

From an educational standpoint, I think having this uncertainty and learning to plan for it is very important. This reflects the real world--you have to think ahead and prepare appropriately for different outcomes.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Here are some "official details" about the new layout.

Included is the video shown at Champs this year

And this little blurb:
Bolded for hooray better streaming.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

For those of us not able to get YouTube from behind our work firewall, is there any mention of the number of teams from each program?

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

No unfortunately, although one thing being overlooked is The Edward Jones Dome will apparently be hosting something called FIRST Family Celebration, take with that what you will.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I would assume that that is just some big "opening ceremony" type thing for the entire event

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Frank said at Championship that they're looking at about 600 FRC teams, but it will depend on how they handle the divisions.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Yep. This whole 'Olympic Village' feel means we need dedicated, all-program opening and closing ceremonies where the whole FIRST Family is together and celebrating the season. From an FRC perspective it shouldn't change much, but I think it'll make a world of a difference in making FLL and FTC feel included.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

"New media formats for participants onsite and at home" sounds interesting.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Our FLL team (first time at champs) had a tremendous time sharing the pits with FRC/FTC/Jr.FLL (wandering around, meeting people, trading swag), so in that sense I think that the non-FRC teams are going to really miss out on the whole massive scale of the thing as well as seeing the incredible FRC teams that they can aspire to be like. The schedule is so busy that they would never have been able to visit the FRC pits were they not in the same building.

On the other hand, if they are able to double or triple the number of FLL and FTC teams invited, then it is an all-around win, so long as there are other ways to keep the programs connected.

This might seem crazy, but hang with me on this

A lot of people seem to be anticipating 8 divisions. I don't personally think there is enough space to host 8 separate events because of the fact the noise from the neighboring events would become a problem.

Someone mentioned earlier that we could run two fields side by side... but then you have seating problems, and if you assume 150 per division, getting to know all of those teams becomes hard and makes scouting too hard. (Although it would be more fun)

Ultimately this is the solution, but it would need to be done so there is more separation between the two fields.

Change last years divisions..... to leauges. (insted of curie division it gets referred to as curie leauge)

The two fields making up the curie leauge are now referred to as divisions of the curie leauge.

Right Curie Division, Left Curie Division

East Curie Division, West Curie Division

Upper Curie, Lower Curie

Red Curie, Blue Curie

(you see how there are many more possibilities)

The teams play a total of 10, 11, 12, or 16 matches before elimination.(depending on rank and new selection for worlds) 10 Against their own division and max of 6 "mid selection" against the other.

The first round of the selection process occurs before the "mid selection" matches. (The number one and two teams for the elim. alliances will play together for the six interleauge matches before elim.)

The next 8 ranked teams get to play two games of the 6 while the next 30 only get one. The selection process than resumes, as if the matches never occurred.(followed by an extra round of selection for an alternate team in the event of a malfunction) Although unlikley, a team that did not make mid selection matches can still be selected in the alternate seed.

The only significance of mid selection matches is that record for these matches determine the elim seeding, not the pre selection seed of the alliance captian.

The divisions than play a elimination bracket determining the team that makes Einstein (Two teams from each leauge)

In Einstein, the two divisions making up the leauges play each other first, leaving only one from each leauge for the semifinals.

I know I said team instead of alliance like 20 times, and I know there is probably a good reason why this won't work, but it is good to switch things up, to keep them interesting.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I like the idea of alternating plays between adjacent fields. The audience gets (almost) non-stop action, teams get more plays, and to some extent you can re-use volunteers (ex. non-head refs and field reset). Still certainly more than 1x the number of volunteers you need to run 4 fields, but hopefully less than 2x. Keeping the number of teams per division down is also good for letting more teams make elims, albeit with a shallower pool of talent in each division. Observation: With ~64-75 team divisions at a World Championship, you run the risk of having very watered down eliminations unless you eliminate the serpentine draft (even if it is just for this event).

The idea of playing a bunch of extra inter-league matches between two separate alliance selection periods...not a fan. Teams would have some really mixed incentives during the intervening matches, and it adds complexity without addressing any real problem.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I disagree. In Archimedes this year there were EASILY 10-15 more teams that had eliminations-caliber robots that weren't on any alliance for eliminations- and that's with every team picking their own backup robot. so that makes 32+15 or 47 teams in the division with eliminations-caliber robots.
47/100= 30/64-35.25/75
30-36 teams in the division with eliminations-worthy robots. That sounds just right to me.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

The difficulty of scouting and getting to know teams should not be a primary concern when deciding how the new setup will work. The 3v3 matchup already makes scouting "too hard" for many (most) of the teams out there, but I would be rather annoyed if 3v3 matches were changed to 2v2 just because of this. "Getting to know" all of the teams in your division at championships is near to impossible already, and if anyone has done this, they still have 300+ other FRC teams to get to know.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Kind of off topic, but still in line with the discussion: why wouldn't they adopt an IRI style draft for elims at CMP? It would make it way more competitive if the draft order was 1-8, 1-8, 8-1. The 8th seeded alliance would still have a shot, seeing as so many good teams don't make elims.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Because it already WAS 1-8, 1-8 (no picked 4th team), and blowouts were common in QFs. Trust me. If they liked it as that, they wouldn't have changed it. "Still have a shot" as in "you still have a shot at having a world high score set against you"...

The year after they made the change, you guys benefitted by being able to be part of a very good #8 alliance, and take it all the way to a World Championship. I don't think that would have been the case two years prior, even with the same game and same robots.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

You will inevitably lower the bar across the board, meaning with a division that is inherently weaker (if you are adding any more teams to CMP, I'm going to wager the new average ability of a robot at the 400+n level will be lower than the average ability of a machine at 400 teams). Just like with the new college football playoff where there will be a 5th place team that wants to get in instead of a third place team, you could argue that any number of robots "could have made eliminations" if you are lowering the overall average ability of teams in the division.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I don't think a drastic lowering of event quality is inevitable in the slightest. The assumption your post rides on is that we're letting the 1st through 400th best teams in the world into Champs. We're not. It's really more like 1st through 150th, then a more random distribution with a concentration near the bottom for rookies and weaker second picks. If we allowed more teams into the Championship that were in the middle tier, it's possible that the average strength of a team in a division could go up.

Also, what Kevin was saying is that there were another 10-15 teams that were almost identical in performance to those picked - these are teams that, if picked, could have won. He is not arguing that any team "could have made eliminations" if the bar was lowered - he's saying for a bar at its current height, fewer teams are making it into elims than there are teams which can clear the bar, so to speak.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Hello,

Please see attached. . . . Just an idea. Gotta fit eight fields in there !!

Thanks

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I don't think that would work well for spectators. Fields will definitely have to be where the pits were this year (think: 2011). Also, they could just use Einstein for divisional matches and just give it a once over before actual Einstein matches are played. It would eliminate one extra field.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

That would be bad for spectators. An end view isn't very good. Also, field 3 would be blocking the tunnel between the convention center and dome.

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

Wouldn't 8 fields (whether 8 divisions or dual fields) create roughly 2x more traffic in the tunnel, down the robot lanes, and everywhere else? Is there capacity for that? Einstein would be a nightmare as well, just because 500/600/800 teams are there instead of the typical 400 all fighting for seats, even if Einstein were in a more practical spot. Many, many more teams sounds like a logistical nightmare to me

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

There's the possibility of adding some robot lanes through the other lower entrance to the dome, but that would mean moving more humans to the upper entrances. For Einstein, depending on layout, it might be best to have a couple of the field screens staying up and on to provide a better view for teams sitting near those fields. (Call it last two to finish have to delay getting their screens down, just to make it easy.)

Re: New Championship Layout 2015
 

I would thnik that they're just trying to make things a bit less "cramped." However, even so, this could mean a larger size playing field.