Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Per a facebook post on the FIRST In Canada Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FIRSTRoboti...38714159526973

I'm a little confused, it initially says they're limiting the number of rookies, but then the rest of the post (and the application) seem to imply that they're just limiting the number of grants given out (presumably) from FIRST In Canada. Anyone wanna shed some light?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'm gonna hope this means they're just limiting the grant money available. Hopefully someone from Canada can confirm.

IMO, would be plain-old-wrong to cap the number of teams... If someone wants to play & can get the $ together, why stop them?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I hope/think you're right, but the post is very confusing. It doesn't make sense to limit the number of rookie teams.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

There may not be enough spots for them to play?


Edit: I honestly don't know...just suggesting, could it be a possibility that there don't have enough room.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

There are a bunch of Canadian Regionals, especially with the addition of two new ones this year at North Bay and Windsor (maybe more for 2015 too?) so I don't think space is really an issue. Also rumours of districts, but who knows :P

I'm hoping it's a limit on grants as I'd like to start up a team when I leave SWAT at the end of this year but would like to stay in FRC. That would be unhelpful to work against a clock when there's already a lot to manage. Save time crunches for build season!

-T

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

it says that FIRST Canada will be restricting the number of rookie teams this year. Rookie teams will now have to fill out an application form to be reviewed and approved if you wish to start a team.
This is due to lack of funding for FIRST Canada- they don't have enough money to support the growth that Canada has.
As Canada is moving to the district system in a few years, this will really limit the number of Canadian teams able to go to World Champs. Needless to say, I am very disappointed with the news.
FIRST World Champs heavily pushed starting new teams, and then they do this. There is already some bias against Canadian teams, as many of us Canadian's have found over the years, so this plus the districts feels like they are really pushing us aside.
I hope that this is not needed in 2016.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Source?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'm sorry. I should have said "I believe that..."
That is the only reason I can think of for why you would need to fill out an application grant. I know from my team's dealings with FIRST Canada that they do not like giving out funds, as they don't have very many.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Isn't it impossible to limit the number of teams? They can limit grant money, but if a team finds a way to fund themselves I'm almost positive there is no rule saying they can deny teams entry. I'm pretty sure they cannot limit who attends the regionals as well, just how many teams total the event can accept. If they actually do try to attempt actually limiting the number of teams I can see that getting politically bad really fast, and we all know we don't want that.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

How is funding helped by limiting the number of teams permitted to register? What am I missing?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

My guess is that they can't fund more Regionals to support the team growth.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I've always heard it stressed that FIRST doesn't pay the costs to put on a regional competition, and that it's up to the committee running the regional to obtain funding via sponsorships and grants and the like. Does FIRST Canada do things differently?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Didn't FIRST Canada just receive a pretty large multi year donation from Bruce Power?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

They're not pushing you aside, they're growing the sport.

So FIRST headquarters pushes creating/mentoring new teams. Many new teams show up, and this overloads the regional system, which makes the district model necessary. For the number of active teams out there, that's the way things need to go.

No more win one, go to the world championship. FIRST has outgrown the Curie/Archimedes/Newton/Galileo level of playoffs; there need to be another level. Michigan has been living with a high density district system for a while, and it looks like it works. The best Michigan teams get to Einstein with regularity. Canada seems to be fairly dense in S Ontario, districts there are appropriate and necessary.

With districts out here in the wild wild west, I've got a problem raising travel money. In another thread, someone proposed as SW US district, AZ, NM, TX OK. The teams in Yuma would have a 1500 mile trip to district championships in Omaha. That's not going to work. Most of AZ (Yuma to CA), NM, S Nevada, Utah, S CO might work. State borders will need to be ignored.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'm a little bit curious about this line of thought. I know historically there has been a large amount of flak directed at Canadian teams travelling to other regionals (like 1114 at Pittsburgh in 2011, ugh), but I'm not sure how FIRST pushing for Canadian/Ontario districts can be taken as "pushing Canadian teams aside." Could you elaborate? My understanding of the District model is that regions are given a number of slots based on the amount of teams they have relative to the total amount of FIRST teams/the amount of teams attending Champs. Isn't the model just bringing the amount of Canadian teams attending Champs into proportion? I remember an analysis last year that Ontario was the most overrepresented region at Champs*. I get that frankly Ontario is one of, if not the most competitive, region in the world, but proportionally it does end up soaking up a lot of spots at Champs. I haven't seen any data from this year though, so I can't comment on whether it was the same in 2014.

*Full disclosure, Minnesota was the most underrepresented if I remember correctly

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Isn't Omaha in Nebraska? I was just there a couple weekends ago, and while they certainly have a very nice center to host a District Champs, there are no FRC teams in Nebraska. If I remember correctly at one point the VEX US National Championship was held there, but the FIRST family of programs is almost non-existent in Nebraska.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I would like to see the proof behind some of these conclusions.

The district system does 'limit' the number of teams that can go. As districts have been implemented in areas, it has been a goal in most areas to allow as many teams to go after the district system as went before it. In fact, they just changed the number of Michigan teams allowed to go based on %'s to keep it correct with our new influx of teams.

I'm not sure what you mean by bias against Canadian teams either: judges are volunteers and any team who avoids picking a team just because they are of a particular nationality is only hurting themselves.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

IMHO this is a very poor decision. To me, they are sending an implied message that they are limiting growth and innovation, and not giving all the potential kids a chance to experience FIRST in it's fullest. Not classy at all.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I don't like to speak for others, but perhaps the "districts pushing Canadian teams aside" is related to that over 25% of Ontario teams qualified for the championship last year*. If/when Canada (or part of Canada) switches to districts, this number is sure to decrease. I could see how a switch to districts could be viewed as pushing Canada aside.

*Source: 1114's April 6th Facebook post.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

DOH!

I'm a forgetful old fart (forgive just a little, but fly-over country comes to mind :). Should have been to Oklahoma City, just 1200 miles. Still an airline trip instead of a bus, to avoid too many NCLB negative school days (yes, it still lives, despite Common Core.) Still, not like going to San Diego from Yuma; that saves potentially two nights of hotel on a bus death march.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'm curious to see what a member of FIRST Canada who knows intimately of this decision has to say.

One of the main goals of FIRST has always seemed to have been "grow the program." FIRST Canada has undergone an outstanding growth in the past 2-3 season. Since 2012, when the regional in Montreal started up, FIRST Canada has seemed (from my perspective, anyway) to have undergone some of the most successful expansion-of-program I've ever seen in 7/8 years of FIRST.

It seems plausible to me that this is a "too much of a good thing" scenario. FIRST Canada has probably been thrilled with their growth in the past several years; however, it is possible that they're realizing they're stretching their resources thin. As many of you know, one of the Greater Toronto Regionals (I want to say West) was hosted at Crescent School, home of 610. While I'm sure 610 did a great job of hosting the event and that their dedication and contribution was very appreciated, many are also aware that there were severe space limitations. I would venture to say that similar situations are popping up where venue space, volunteer power, and overall funding are being stretched too thin to support the rapidly growing population of teams in FIRST Canada.

Given this, the logical solution, for the time being, seems to be to slow the growth of the population of teams. It would be unfair to tell already established teams that they cannot compete because "there are too many of you." So the only plausible solution is to limit the number of rookies being allowed to join. I don't agree with the solution, nor do I like it, but FIRST Canada is run by some smart people, and I'd venture a guess that they know more about their situation than I do. So if they feel it's necessary, I'm sure it is.

Naturally, that's purely speculation. I am very interested to hear from someone with intimate knowledge of the situation.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

A point of discussion that came up in a Facebook thread on this subject was whether a region should prioritize growth rate or retention rate. I do not have specific numbers, but I am under the impression that Canada had a rather excellent retention rate other than the 2013 teacher strikes. It could be possible that they are not willing to increase the growth rate to the point that it starts adversely affecting the retention rate.

Credit to Navid Shafa from 1983 for the data.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

FIRST Canada would like to address this misunderstanding regarding the Face Book posting: We are absolutely not limiting the number of rookie FRC teams this year. There was an error in the posting and it should have read:
"FIRST Canada is pleased to provide the following rookie team application packages for the 2014-15 season.
We encourage our veteran teams to help recruit new FRC teams and schools in their areas".
We apologize for any misunderstanding this error may have caused.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Thanks, I knew someone would be able to find the data :)

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they want to bring the quality of their rookie teams to new levels. Work on quality instead of quantity.Something I wish First would stress more on. I mean it IS an application process if the sources are correct so if the reviewers see that they have money, the correct mentor support, and resources then those will most likely be the teams accepted. No rookie team likes having a season where they have mentors leave, people they can't rely on; then we come to week 5 with kids crying because they don't have a robot to compete with or they lack support from mentors. I know a lot of people will disagree but I believe it needs to be said.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Back off that limb. FIRST Canada has already clarified what their original message meant.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

The notion that FIRST Canada is hurting for money is utterly ridiculous.

Each year, I've seen FIRST Canada provide various Canadian teams with grants to help them get to championship where qualified, and even helping them get to a second regional. There is no evidence to suggest that FIRST Canada is in a bad spot in terms of money.

Mr. Hobbins has clarified that they are not limiting rookies (as I'm sure we can all agree that would be silly), and that is good. There certainly is a pinch for capacity in Ontario, though.

Some teams struggled this year to get the two or three regionals they usually do without needing to travel great distances. Yes, Ontario has 5 regionals now. They're spread out though, and most of Ontario's teams hail from within half an hour of Toronto. GTRWest shrunk in size by ~50% in 2014, to a capacity of 30 (down from 65+), despite being geographically the closest regional to some 55ish Ontario teams. Hopefully districts helps to alleviate this problem, because Toronto area in particular needs more capacity.

To the poster talking about representation at CMP? Ontario is quite overrepresented at CMP, when compared against FiM and MAR. FiM and MAR both send around 10% of their teams, IIRC. I expect that FiM and MAR are sending about what HQ wants from a given area, and I would expect with a move to districts that Ontario will send fewer teams, BUT, they'll be of a higher caliber on average, because of the ranking system.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I agree that Ontario sends more then our fair share of teams to Champs, *but* the calibre of teams we send is already pretty high IMHO. Of the 29 Ontario teams that made it to champs this year, 13 went on to division eliminations - almost 45%. (several more won other awards). For comparison, only 32% on average (32/100) of all teams at champs make it to elims. I know: Lies, D. Lies and Statistics, but at least we're pulling our weight :)

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

No, go out on that limb.

I've long been a proponent of establishing FRC teams instead of merely starting them. I saw this post and got excited because I figured maybe, just maybe, FIRST is waking up to the fact that every failed team (and roughly 50% or more of FRC teams that ever form have failed) hurts their goals more than most people realize. A failed team is like dropping a carcass in a well. It rots and destroys the well. And sometimes that gets back into the water table. The teacher/contact thinks FIRST is too hard/expensive. The students think STEM is too hard for them. They think it's for people better than them.


Isn't our goal twofold? We're supposed to build a culture where STEM Professionals are celebrated like the pop culture celebrities and a culture where kids realize that STEM is a field where they can all go pro right? Failed teams have lasting negative impact on the culture by spreading seeds of "can't".


We should focus on ensuring that every FIRST team we establish has a sustainable base. This is done by building relationships with sponsors, mentors, and the community. Teams consistently without all three of these are destined to fail. Maybe not fail as in go under but fail in the sense that they are not being as effective at our goals as they COULD be.


How can FIRST do this? Stop accepting rookies without a business plan, without at least a PLAN for establishing these partnerships. Without showing that they have a plan for when (not if) Bad Things(tm) happen. Because, you know what, even if the plan is total crap you've at least forced them to think it through. Cuz Bad Things will happen.


So, Ronnie, kudos on asking one of those taboo questions.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

THIS. Starting and running a FRC team is hard, really hard, you need to have the commitment to stick with it for years to build up the organization. FIRST should focus more on sustainable rookies, and helping to build up weaker FRC programs. Churn is a major issue that can burn bridges with schools and students that we need to reach.

I commend FIRST Canada for making rookies apply for their grants, we need to ensure sustainable teams are getting started.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I still stand by my point. First needs to put that into place. It would be such such a blessing

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Second this. The hardest places (that I've encountered) to start teams are the schools who had defunct FRC teams.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

There are also several veteran teams that are barely floating and can't improve due to a lack of organization and effort. It's not fair to just say rookies can't enter FIRST without a plan. There are several rookie teams that enter every year that do better than many veteran teams. If a team can only spend $1000 on their robot after paying registration, they don't have a sustainable model. Yet whenever I suggest that some of these teams should scale back or even do Vex or FTC instead, I'm met with negative responses and glaring looks...

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

One of the things I've appreciated most about Frank Merrick is his openness and transparency. Although I am not staff of FIRST Robotics Canada, I am sometimes involved in discussions relating to this topic, and am willing to do my best "Frank Merrick impression" to provide Frank-like transparency.

Canada has been a pretty successful place for FRC as far as growth is concerned.

In 2013, the province of Ontario was subject to a teacher action, which should have dramatically reduced the number of FRC teams in Canada. Most teachers were unable to supervise any extracurricular activities that year. Amazingly, despite losing several teams (including 188 - the first ever Canadian team), the number of FRC teams in Canada essentially stayed the same thanks to strong growth.

In 2014, something equally amazing happened. Nearly every team we lost due to the teacher action returned. In addition to this, ~60 rookie teams were added this past season.

FRC in Canada is growing... fast. And last year was exceptionally fast!

Now, the last thing we would want to do is "limit" the growth of FRC in Canada, however we also need to ensure we adequately support each and every team in the program. Those two goals aren't mutually exclusive of course, but there are very real concerns to do them both successfully.

One major item is ensuring we have enough plays for all our teams. Despite adding two new regional events, and increasing the size of GTRE we barely had enough plays to support our Canadian teams in 2013. GTRW was downsized, due to the move away from the Hershey Centre, but thankfully we were able to find another venue at the last minute and still had a large net gain in the number of available plays last year. Truthfully, had GTRW not occurred, we would have been hard pressed to find a spot at a regional for all our teams...

Which is a very real problem.

...imagine being a rookie team, and being told there were no spots left at any local competitions. You're probably scraping by financially just to get your team off the ground, and now you have to book buses, hotels, etc just to be able to compete? That would not be pretty. In fact, maybe ugly enough to walk away from the program.

Now the good news is that we've done the math for next year. There's very many ways to look at it, but the short answer is we'll have enough plays for everyone if we grow as expected. This is based on Canada adding one more event and up-sizing GTRW to a larger venue next year - both of which are in the works.

Things begin to get interesting if we have another explosion of teams like we did last year. If that happens, a significant number of teams would need to travel outside of Canada to compete. However, based on the numbers, I don't think that will happen. Last year should have been a rare occurrence, and next year's growth should be closer to the "norm" that we've seen in the past.

Of course, if a growth explosion DOES happen and we don't have enough local plays, there are some contingencies ready to help our Canadian teams find places to play elsewhere.

Regardless of all this, I firmly agree that asking our Rookie teams to submit an application is a good practice. FIRST Robotics Canada offers a robust Rookie Grant program, and has a well-established Rookie / Veteran team mentoring program. Those programs are probably big reasons why Canada has grown at the rate it has, and why we retain an excellent number of our teams every year. The grants draw from a limit pool of money, and could run out if there is higher than expected growth. Veteran teams with the bandwidth to properly mentor rookies are also finite. Both programs are better delivered when we have the information from this application in hand. It's not asking too much, and I think it serves the goal of improving the FRC experience for everyone: rookie and veterans alike.

The moral of the story is:

Yes, let's grow FIRST and make sure we properly support all our teams at the same time.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Just out of curiosity, is there a particular reason for the absence of Canadian teams from British Columbia or the Maritimes?

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

IIRC Andrew you are a former senior mentor so you have definitely seen this more than I have, but one of the biggest challenges in Virginia (besides all the other fun ones not relevant to this) is the task of going back into schools that had teams fold long before I ever entered the program. 422 recently met with a director and department lead for another governor's school in our area (the one that specializes in technology education) that had its team fold nearly a decade ago because there was not enough proper support provided. It's super difficult to go back and re-start a team in what looks like an otherwise ideal circumstance as this, I don't look forward to going back and trying to recover the 20 or so others in the area with bigger challenges than just having a team that folded.

On top of that there are a lot of inadequacies in a lot of areas when it comes to supporting your 4+ year veteran teams. 422 survived through a lot of down years out of spite and stubbornness at the hands of a few brave personalities other teams don't have to survive.

Ontario has been successful at not becoming victims of their own success (if that makes any sense). Hopefully other areas can do the same.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I'd have to agree with both of these. I strongly dislike how FIRST wants to spam rookie teams. They support these teams for a year or two through grants targeted at first or second year teams, and then just throw them in the deep end. Honestly I feel as if I weren't around or had never gotten involved my team would have folded after its second or third season when we lost the NASA grant. FIRST makes it so easy for new teams to form, and then gives them so many crutches, and then just pull them out from under them and FIRST doesn't help them transition or learn how to survive without said crutches.

This may be an issue for another thread, however.

2¢

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Most likely, the lack of a nearby event for them to go to.

For some years, 1346 came to the Toronto regional from BC. I believe they eventually shut down, but when new regionals were created in Washington and Oregon, they stopped coming to Toronto.

Prior to 2012, there was only one team from Alberta: 1482.

In 2012, 4334 was created, and was instrumental in the creation of the Western Canada regional in 2013, which lead to the now 30-odd teams there.

A similar thing happened in Quebec. At first, there was 296, then as the years wore on, a few more Quebec teams popped up, until the Montreal regional was created, and a large influx of Quebec rookies with it.

Everything about FRC is expensive. Even more so if you have to travel more than an hour or two's drive to the nearest regional. Most of Canada's economy is tied up in the major cities, especially Toronto area. The maritimes don't really have a major city with a huge economy (Halifax is the largest, and its about the same size as Oshawa, Ontario, just one of Toronto's many suburbs). Consequently, raising money there would be hard, AND you'd have to spend more than most teams just to GET to your event.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Actually, I was never an FSM. But I've spent the better part of the last several years investigating team growth and sustainability.

Ontario is certainly one of the regions to watch for team growth. It's long been the region I've pointed that we need to emulate for growth as they are sustainable and building, apparently, competitive teams. The core issue is, I have no freaking clue what they are doing up there that's different.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

If I had to guess? I'd say that the huge competitiveness and dominance of 1114 and 2056, has caused the second tier to step up their game so much that Ontario now has a really big base of teams strong enough to win with consistency anywhere else. That means that the rookies have a lot of resources to draw from.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Another big factor is that in Ontario most graduates will go to university in Ontario. This keeps alumni in the same system allowing them to help out teams and volunteer at events they know.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

Southern Ontario is also one of the biggest industrial and financial centers in North America. There's more opportunity to find professional mentors, sponsors and suppliers here than there is in other regions (like, say, Northern Ontario where I grew up). It is crazy expensive to run an FRC team (and travel to distant regionals)!

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I've settled for assuming it's actually being propped up by the Russian mafia to train for a robot-based proxy war with America.

Re: Limiting Rookies in Canada next year?
 

I think a big factor related to this is the FRC alumni that this "really big base of teams" is now producing.

I have seen more young alumni become FRC mentors than I ever have in the past. There are so many familiar former-student-turned-mentor faces at competition.

My dream is to be able to put an alumni mentor on every rookie team.

The difference in having just ONE mentor who has been through FRC before is a huge difference-maker.

I've made a post on this topic in the past here as to why I believe Canada is seeing a lot of success lately:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=45

And I can say that this trend is increasing year after year, as more and more teams produce amazing young alumni mentors.

One thing I've tried to encourage with my young graduates is to NOT come back to your old high-school FRC team right away. Go to a different team, or even better, a young or rookie team. Share your knowledge and experience, and take some ownership of the new team.

It's an extremely rewarding experience, and there are many team success stories up here thanks to alumni who've done exactly this.

And so begin the Robotic Socialist Republic of Canuckistan rumours... the cat is out of the bag. ::rtm::