Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...idays-06062014

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

If they do go eight divisions I truly hope they don't go back to pit divisions. I liked the floor space but the the seating was never enough and was getting dangerous as the weekend went on as they looked like they were starting to come apart.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

So simple solution to the problem with getting people fed in time: stagger the lunch times between divisions. With the current setup, the could have Archimedes and Curie eating from 11:30 to 12:30 and Newton and Galileo eating from 12:30 to 1:30. This would work very well on Thursday and Friday but not so much on Saturday.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Possibly. FIRST is going to have to answer the even bigger question of is St. Louis capable of hosting 200 more FRC teams, 300+ more FRC volunteers, xxx more FTC teams/volunteers, xxx more FLL teams/volunteers, and xxx JRFLL teams/volunteers. I'm not talking about venue size (which is its own debate) but hotel, food, etc.

Its not incredibly easy as is but it would be interesting if FIRST had some numbers they could share regarding the St. Louis infrastructure on # of hotel rooms available and booked during the week of champs.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Is the current wait list a "first come first served" system? I don't think I'd like seeing 200 teams go that just hit the button on a computer fast enough. Teams need to earn their way to the championship in my opinion.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

"Between 6 and 8 divisions?"

7 divisions would be... interesting.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

The St. Louis CVC (the agency that owns and operates the Dome and America's Center) says there are over 38,000 hotel rooms in the St. Louis area and that that exceeds the NFL's requirement of 24,500 hotel rooms to host the Super Bowl. (See Page 67)

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Don't further expand the great divide that's all this would be doing in terms of FRC. The number of hotel rooms is irrelevant because you have no data on price ranges which is important because FRC students, adults and staff can only pay so much.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

With more teams headed to Champs, the first, easiest change I'd like to see is an expansion of wildcards.

For every regional event, add exactly six teams to the list who weren't already qualified. That means Hall of Fame teams create automatic wildcards anywhere they go. A team that qualifies via awards and winning at the same competition generates a wildcard. Under this system, it is debatable whether a winning alliance backup robot should get an automatic bid, or if they should instead be #7 on the pecking order. The latter allows for a predictable number of Championship bids to be created.

Here is a possible pecking order for choosing wildcards:
1-6: RCA, EI, RAS, Winners 1-3
7. Winning Alliance Backup Robot?
8. Finalist Alliance Captain
9. Excellence in Engineering Award winner
10. Finalist Alliance 1st pick
11. Quality Award winner
12. Finalist Alliance 2nd pick
13. Industrial Design Award winner
14. Semifinalist Captain from winning bracket
15. Gracious Professionalism award
16. List continues*

*list wouldn't need to be much longer than this for regional events, but it could be longer for district system championship events if they wanted to do anything like that. The points system they use is pretty darned good, though.

This could also kick in if there was no rookie to earn the Rookie All-Star Award. Then the next team on the list qualifies as a wildcard.

I like having the finalist robots and design award robots high on the list since it would tend to send teams with the best robots to the championship.

A system like this would make it seem less impossible to advance from some events. As things are right now, it's incredibly difficult to get into Champs with your robot alone at many (most) regional events if they have two really good teams. In fact, it's even harder if your team has a good enough robot to get picked in the first round. The two good teams pair up and win, and the #16 pick advances along with a rookie team and the two big award winners. Upsets happen, but usually the #1 seed wins those events when two great teams are present.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

75 teams per division?

13 matches per team?

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

And "area" is undefined. Rooms within 30 miles, 60 miles, 100?

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Exactly. I'm pretty sure the Four Seasons downtown is quite empty during Championships.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

The downtown hotels are insanely expensive. It's much cheaper staying by the airport. And with Battlecry going to Memorial Day Weekend it enables me to drive to St. Louis again and if I have a car I can stay further outside of the greater St. Louis area and possibly find even less expensive places to stay.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

On top of rooms being not sensible for an FRC team based on price, a 1 BR King does not hold nearly as much value to an FRC team as a 1BR 2 Queen/Double. There are currently a LOT of rooms close to the venue for the 2015 event that an FRC team wouldn't grab because you can't put more students in it.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

+1

Frank said the goal was inspiration and recognition. I don't know about the inspiration part, but the more competitive the robots, the better job champs does to gain recognition. I think people would rather watch 233 (who didn't make it to champs this year despite having an awesome robot) than a box of rocks on wheels. Also, being able to get in completely based on luck kind of cheapens the experience, at least to me.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Frank,

Yes I am just addressing you directly on CD because we all know you read posts here (one word -corndogs).

I would sincerely appreciate you and your team at headquarters sharing the options that are real contenders with the FIRST community before making final decisions. That way we can weigh in on the pros and cons of those options before they are set in stone. Of course we will all have differing opinions, but I think if we at least have a voice in the thought process it would go miles in our understanding and acceptance of those decisions.

Thanks

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Emphasis mine:
While more competitive robots make for a more exciting competition, teams that struggle to build Championship-Caliber robots are left out of, well, Championships (not saying this is always a bad thing).

To me, if there is a team out there that has never been to Champs, I feel bad for those students, because the most inspiring part about Champs is had simply by being there. These students can become inspired just by seeing all these great teams and often this experience goes down as being the highlight for many students.

The Championship experience was one of the greatest moments for me in high school, we attended two of the three years I was on the team, and we didn't qualify either year. I don't think the experience would have been all that much more exciting because we qualified, or had an amazing robot that just had bad luck at qualifying. One of those years we were the "box of rocks on wheels" but it made no difference to me.

Being the "box of rocks on wheels" that year was an inspiration to our team, seeing amazing designs by other teams was inspiring, and the year after we made a great robot and were finalists at one of our events.

The Championship experience was so meaningful to me that I didn't miss a Championship until this year, when college-y things kept me from attending.

I know the number of teams that get in off a wait list right now is small compared to those qualifying, and while I can't even begin to speculate what that number will look like with an extra 100-200 teams attending Champs, but in my opinion, if an open wait list allows teams and students this opportunity they may never have, I say we should keep it.

Perhaps the wait list could even be biased towards teams who have never been to Championships, or haven't attended in four years (outside the span of a normal high school student).

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

I could really argue both sides of the weight list.

Last year my team went to the Championship for the first time ever, and we were off the wait list! We actually had a decent robot, and ended up finishing 55th in Curie.

Anyway, that was an amazing experience! We could see the teams we've always admired, enjoy a huge competition, and (being on the drive team) play in front of more people than ever before. It was incredible.

This year we did not attend the Championship. But I feel we were pretty deserving to go. We were finalists in one of our regionals, and had a Dean's List finalist who traveled to St. Louis on her own (plus two Spirit Awards if that counts for anything). We had a great year and wanted to continue it in St. Louis, but couldn't. One of our alliance partners in Virginia, team 1418, were finalists at BOTH of their regionals. They definitely deserved to go, and I feel we should have shot as well.

So a hybrid system would be best in my eyes. Have 10-15 purely wait list teams per division, then make up the rest of the new teams through Finalists and other major award winners.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

A simple way to fix the wait list would be to use points like in a district. This would allow a team like 233 that's great, but didn't happen to win, to go over another box of bricks team that has a good internet connection. I wouldn't do it, but it would be possible to add a bonus to your points if your team hasn't gone in the last 4 years.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Often the teams that get inspired the most by champs are the ones that don't earn their way in.

A team with a strong program that can build a robot that wins a competition, or win The Chairman's award can get a little from champs, but it's the teams without those strong programs that will be inspired and take home the most. I have seen teams get in on the waitlist, and come back the next year with a completely revamped program and a much better robot than they had ever fielded before.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

I think having some wait-list teams is definitely good (see Jon Stratis' post, which I quoted). 33% of the teams though? Yeah, I think that's too many.

That said, even if FIRST did nothing to change the way that teams qualify to CMP, there would not be 200 teams from the wait-list in 2015. I'm sure there will be a few more regionals next year, so maybe about 24-42 more teams will qualify through more regionals. Also, the # of slots each district earns will basically be [Teams at CMP] * [Teams in District] / [Teams in FRC], so if the teams at CMP increase by 50% (and the ratio of teams in all the districts to the teams in FRC is similar), then there will be about 50 more teams qualifying from the districts.

So there will in all likelihood be about 90 -125 teams from the wait-list at CMP next year. Depending on your FIRST-philosophy, this may be too high or too low... I happen to think it's somewhat high (I think about 10% of the teams at CMP should be from the wait-list).

I like the concept of expanding the wild-card system... Including the technical judged awards in the ranking does concern me though, given how difficult the judges' job is. Teams with underwhelming technical robots rarely get the tech awards, but we've all seen some pretty surprising tech award choices! I like a smaller expansion of the Wild Card that only sees the invitations extend to the Finalists' (but a Finalist could get a Wild Card slot from a HoF team, a Chairmans' winner, EI, or RAS, not just from the Regional Winners'). Also, I think a single team winning Chairman's (or EI) and winning the regional at the same event should open up a Wild Card slot.

The regional system does make it very difficult for the teams in a region with two (or more) elite teams. In my mind the real solution is the district system though... it does so much better at getting the top teams into CMP!

Yeah, this is a non-trivial issue... It's not unreasonable to expect 40-55% more people in St. Louis for the FIRST championship... with how difficult it already was getting travel and lodging, this isn't just a "it'll work itself out" consideration.

Attending the FIRST Championship is usually an infectiously exciting experience... regardless of whether or not the slot was earned.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Here's my proposal for a system/way to change the wildcard system: 6 teams from every regional win-in at that regional (this is ignoring districts which would remain the same system).

This would allow any team that qualifies for Champs to generate a wildcard slot, including HoF teams. Even as a further expansion, if a team wins Chairmans at an event, let that create a wild card slot post-awards ceremony. Allow wildcard slots to pass down to a pecking order something like this:
1. Finalist captain
2. Finalist first pick
3. Semifinalist defeated by the winner captain
4. Semifinalist defeated by the winner first pick
5. Finalist second pick
6. Semifinalist defeated by finalist captain

And for geographic distribution, maybe even go as far as increasing this order so that if a team declines to go to championship, this generates a wildcard slot that gets passed down from teams at the regional they received their championship slot at. Obviously this order wouldn't go as far as allowing a team in dead last at an event to 'win' a slot (at some point the order above would end and that slot would become a waitlist spot) so that most teams at Champs would have some sort of merit being there.

Number of teams at Championships? 6*no. of events+District slots+"legacy" slots+X amount of waitlist teams to even out number of teams.

Does anyone have data/a post written up with data about wildcard slots this year (ie, who generated them, how many were generated, etc...).

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

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

This also highlights teams that would have gotten a wildcard if the rules were changed so that any double qualification (e.g. RCA+Win) at the same regional generates a wildcard.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Without a match between the two semifinalist alliances, the distinction is less than clear, but I'd argue that the semifinalist captain that lost to the finalist "deserves" to go to CMP more than the captain that lost to the winner. They were seeded higher (or beat higher seeded teams) to make it to the semi-finals vs the #2 alliance, whereas the alliance that plays the winning alliance is usually the #4 alliance.

On the other hand, I do agree about the finalist second pick being lower ranked. Usually (no, not always), the captain of the #3 (or #6) alliance is a better team than the third pick of the finalist alliance..

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

The wait list is not established by order to sign up. It's purely subjective by some unpublished criteria that is internally determined by FIRST.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

One thing that a lot of people don't mention much is how big of a disadvantage it is to go to an early regional in the current CMP qualification system. If Week 1 is the only event you can attend then you arbitrarily lose out on the possibility of getting a wildcard slot, even if you lose to teams that do generate wildcards later.

When some team wins in Weeks 1 and 6, the runner up Week 1 should have just as much of a shot as the runner up when the wildcard slot is actually generated in Week 6. Only one of them can get it, but it shouldn't be based on when they competed. It should be based on something that matters.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Every time I read more into the Expanded Championship, I feel so sorry for the people that are organizing this event. Its going to be alot of work!!! I would like to thank those that are helping to inspire 50% more kids!

My one and only year I attended championships was in 2011, my freshmen year. I've never been the same! I was hooked on FIRST from that day. I soon began working my way up the team until this year when I became Captain and led our team through our best season ever. I credit this towards the inspiration I gained at Championships. Thank you to those who have taken on this challenging task of expanding Champs

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Absolutely right. This has always bothered me about the current Wildcard system.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

With 200 more teams at Champs they are going to have to change the location of the Einstein field. The field is currently oriented at the end of the floor, which minimizes the available seating. My understanding is that it is placed on the end so that sponsors can view the matches from the luxury boxes.

While I am all for treating our sponsors extremely well, we are at an impasse with available seating. If they do not orient the field to face the long side of the stadium, there will be hundreds of students that travel to St. Louis and do not get to watch the Einstein matches directly.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

I could see setting up each regional to generate more championship slots by expanding the 4 team alliances to regionals and districts.

This year was somewhat of an experimental year for 4 team alliances at Championships and from what I have heard it was well received by everyone. If FIRST decided to expand this to regionals, that would guarantee one more slot per regional (which is a nontrivial number of slots).

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

It was well received because at Championships the 32nd robot picked is better than the 24th pick at most other events.
The fields at many regionals can be very weak and this could easily lead to a lower level of play at Champs...especially when you see a 5th or 6th seed win and their 3rd pick was chosen on the basis of, "this robot can drive".

Do it for District Championships, maybe. But definitely not regionals or districts.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Several regionals have less than 36 teams, and many, many more do not have 36 functional, contributing robots. I do not think 4 team alliances can be blanket implemented at regionals. This would only increase the number of low-performing teams at the Championship with no increase in high-performing teams.

I think the most obvious thing to do would be to expand wild cards to be given / passed through any team that is currently registered for the Championship. For example, if 2791 made it to the finals of FLR this year, the wild card would be eaten by hall of fame team 341 instead of passed to the first pick. These edge cases can be accommodated with a larger Championship.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

One item I haven't seen discussed here (which is understandable, as there's only a few of us still around) is legacy teams.

This season, we qualified for the Championship in three ways. We won TVR, FLR, but we also had pre-qualified and pre-registered as a legacy team along with the HoF teams.

One way that comes to help give out more wildcards during Week 1 and earlier events (as the probability for receiving a wildcard slot increases with each week) would be to generate wildcards for HoF teams and legacy teams, as some others have mentioned. While this wouldn't have generated any extra wild cards for 2014 Week 1 events, it would have generated a few Week 2 and 3.

However, I think that most of these issues will vanish as regionals give way to districts (whether or not the model makes sense for the area in question -- but that's a topic for another time) with proportional championship slots.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship
 

Proposal on Championship qualification, given an extra 200 slots to fill:

HOF and Legacy teams, previous year's champions, previous year's EI and RAS all prequalify. (30 teams)

Districts get an expanded number based on percentage (as-is now, no need to tweak formula). Probably about 150-200 total teams.

Each regional gets 6 teams in addition to prequalifiers. To do this, the Wild Card is tweaked as follows:
--ANY prequalification, at any event by the winner of a qualifying award results in a WC slot becoming available. (Win the event and win RCA, one wild card team goes to CMP.)
--WC slots are awarded first to the Finalist alliance by order of selection, then to Rookie Inspiration and Highest Rookie Seed. Any remainder after that become Wait List slots.
Result is 300 teams attending, give or take a dozen.

Wait list teams are given points during the season, based on finish, awards, and time since last Championship appearance (this last being something like 10 points+1 point/year>4 years). Roughly 100 teams get in via waitlist this way, decreasing as more districts take slots (but those slots also give more teams chances to go).