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Hallry 13-06-2014 13:35
[FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Posted on the FRC Blog, 6/13/14: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...idays-06132014

Quote:


Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014

Blog Date: Friday, June 13, 2014 - 13:18

Today’s good question comes from Jay O’Donnell, from FRC Team 1058, PVC Pirates, out of Londonderry, New Hampshire, USA:

Question:
Hey Frank,

I was part of the New England District this past year and I have to say overall it was a very positive experience. However, the one thing I did not like was the timing between when teams were announced for NE champs and the event, and the timing between teams being invited to world championships and the actual event. I know that there were teams invited to NE Champs the afternoon before load-in night, and teams invited to world champs less than a week before the event. My question is does FIRST have anything in mind to improve this situation so that teams don't find out they can go to one of these great competitions the day of the event?

Thanks
Answer:

Jay, thanks for the question. At FIRST HQ, we don’t like these short periods between notifications to teams that they have earned a slot at Championships and the events themselves either. It stresses teams, raises their costs in many cases, and can cause some teams to have to say ‘no’ to a slot they’ve earned. It makes things harder for us here, also. We need to scramble to make sure the teams are properly registered, and for the FIRST Championship, we need to make sure the robots arrive at the event on time.

From a Championship prep standpoint, it would be great if Districts could have all their District events in Weeks 1-4, take one week off from competitions, then have their Championship in Week 6. However, there are many challenges with this. As an example, for the 2014 season, Michigan needed to run 15 District events to ensure there were enough spots for every team to get in their two plays. You could imagine the difficulties just with resource availability if Michigan were to try to run 4 events simultaneously for most of their competition weeks. Also, the shorter District schedule would mean less flexibility for teams with respect to event choice. I haven’t met a team yet that could participate in two events hundreds of miles apart simultaneously with a single robot. Not even Simbotics could do that. (Well, OK, maybe, I haven’t asked them…)

Districts, for the most part, set their own schedules. We keep track of their plans here at HQ, and provide feedback if we identify any challenges from our perspective. I understand that several Districts, recognizing the stress Week 7 District Championships put on teams, had considered moving their Championships to Week 6 for 2015. However, there are some holidays that fall during Week 6 of 2015 that have raised concerns regarding the desirability of that week, and for larger districts, with the number of events they must squeeze in, it may not be practical at all. The District schedules have not been finalized, though. I would suggest District teams share their feedback on schedules with the Districts directly. This is a great way to have your voices heard.

With respect to late notifications to teams - you had mentioned teams getting notified the afternoon before load-in night – with our current schedules this is driven primarily by offer declines earlier in the process. Offer declines affect both teams going to District Championships and teams going to the FIRST Championship. As an example, for the FIRST Championship Waitlist, we go down the list team by team in the order in which a team joined the list (based both on date and time) to make offers to attend the Championship for the number of slots we are sure we have available.* Generally, teams are given 24 hours to make their decision. In the event a team declines an offer, we immediately offer the spot to the next team in line who has not yet been offered a slot, and keep making offers in this way until we find a team who accepts. Offer dates will vary because of this – we only offer the number of slots we are sure we have available, and a team declining an offer does make a slot available for the next team in line, but we may need to repeat this process several times to fill all openings, which can take several days.

We have considered different ways to extend the season to help ease this overall problem, but they have their own challenges.

Of course, we’re open to suggestions on how to make this better. Please let us know what you think!

Frank

*There are some very unusual individual team cases in which this ‘first come, first served’ process is not followed, but this is rare, and there were no exceptions to this approach in 2014.

cgmv123 13-06-2014 13:58
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
The current season calendar is basically locked-in at this point. Kickoff can't be any earlier without taking place during most schools' winter breaks. Stop Build can't be any earlier without kickoff being any earlier. You need 7 weeks of competition to fit all the events in and Championship can't be any later because of AP testing. At least there's still that week off between the end of the "regular season" and Championship.

Taylor 13-06-2014 14:16
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
5-week build season.

XaulZan11 13-06-2014 14:26
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1389764)
5-week build season.
Or, 5 weeks to build and then eliminate bag day.

AllenGregoryIV 13-06-2014 14:29
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1389764)
5-week build season.
If we get rid of the bag, we can move week one up to the same week as what is currently the last two days of build season. This would work especially well for districts that don't have any teams that need to ship their robot to the event.

Bob Steele 13-06-2014 14:32
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
How about Bag day being the Thursday before Week 1 competition.
Move Week 1 up a week. Teams playing Week 1 don't have to bag until the end of the competition.

Personally I would rather deal with things the way they are and try to move all of the regional championships to week 6

I understand how difficult this would be for a district like Michigan.
Holding more than 2 events on one weekend is tough on everyone, especially the volunteers.

************It seems that Allen beat me to the punch with this idea... see above

BrendanB 13-06-2014 14:34
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
I don't think there is much change they can make.

Teams need to be prepared for a long season and have their accept/decline answer ready. Keep tabs on travel options long before DCMP invites or WCMP invites have been sent out especially if you are on the edge. Worst case you pass your information or reservations along to another team.

DampRobot 13-06-2014 14:54
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by XaulZan11 (Post 1389766)
Or, 5 weeks to build and then eliminate bag day.
I'd like this a lot more. Eliminate practice robots, reduce mentor burnout, and probably make teams more competitive. Oh yeah, and all the district scheduling stuff too.

MrTechCenter 13-06-2014 14:58
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
We got into Championships off of the waitlist and found out the Wednesday before the week of Championships. We're from California so we had to have our robot shipped THE VERY NEXT DAY after we accepted our invitation. We built a crate in less than 4 hours and it was in St. Louis the Friday before Championships (it arrived 14 hours after it left us). We knew we were high up on the waitlist, so we booked hotel rooms ahead of time at a hotel that had a 100% cancellation policy (we ended up booking another hotel after we got in because we found a nicer and cheaper one). Flights, however, we're not as great. You can't cancel flights unless you pay a lot more up front, you can only get airline credit for a year if you cancel which would not have helped us if we booked earlier and didn't get in and had to cancel. The result instead was our team having to drive two hours to San Francisco for a flight that left at 6am. And half of our team had to go on a separate flight on a different airline. And it was the same split-situation on the way back. Also, we had to leave from here a day later and leave from St. Louis a day later than we wanted because flights were totally booked for the days we wanted.

A simple solution for the Championship waitlist (especially with the increased capacity in 2015): If FIRST really gives out waitlist slots based on who signed up first, just tell teams ahead of time where they are on the waitlist so that teams that are higher up can make arrangements beforehand instead of scrambling at the last minute.

Samwaldo 13-06-2014 15:43
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
We were one of those teams that found out the day of the NE Districts Champs. We found out 9:30am, had to be their by 4ish, and it was a 3hr drive.

We understood that we wouldnt be told until days before, but the day of!!! The worst part is that we found out the team infront of us dropped out the night before, but the NE commitee was off working on other things for the next days events so we couldnt get the official invite untol the next day.

Luckily we knew we only needed 7 teams to drop, so we had made all plans but it was a pain for us and the hotel. I cant even count the ammount of hotel calls and cancelation extentions we got. Finding out that morning was not fun at all! (The event was)

MAR taking week 6 off was the smartest thing ever! Also this year they made the 5 bubble teams confirm a yes or no before invitation. 8 or 9 dropped in NE. They should make the next 10 confirm to hopefully help speed up the process.

Although its a long and horrible process sometimes, i wanted ever spot filled by a team because everyone deserved one! Unfortunatly a team dropped so last minute that their was no time to fill the spot. A perfect reason why they work so hard to fill this spot is that everyone can win. 1153 made it in, the day of NE Champs, and destroyed with their robot, evemtually making it to champs.

Even though the processes and work is hard, I still want to give a giant thank you to all those that helped districts run well (especially NE! I wish we did districts sooner)

BrendanB 13-06-2014 15:54
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
I would be neat if we could get some type of "live" website where teams can accept, decline, and new invites can be sent out automatically. Teams can see where they fall in relation to the current invite and can plan accordingly. Main team contacts can log in to change their team status.

This could drastically cut down on the time it takes to "fill" an event while giving teams the proper heads up to start preparing for their trip.

Brandon Holley 13-06-2014 16:14
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
I think a good intermediate solution is along the lines of what Brendan is saying.

Create a system (thats far less manual than we currently have) to calculate and live update rankings for the districts.

For example, this year in NE, there was only one week 6 event with something like 36 teams competing. With 54 NE CMP slots available, statistically there were MANY teams that were locked into NECMP at the end of week 5. All of these statistical locks should have been offered a bid as soon as they were locked in. While many of these teams knew this and started planning ahead of time, teams on the bubble heading into their week 6 event could start looking at the feasibility of qualifying and come up with a plan for making it or not.

-Brando

Samwaldo 13-06-2014 22:21
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrendanB (Post 1389778)
I would be neat if we could get some type of "live" website where teams can accept, decline, and new invites can be sent out automatically. Teams can see where they fall in relation to the current invite and can plan accordingly. Main team contacts can log in to change their team status.

This could drastically cut down on the time it takes to "fill" an event while giving teams the proper heads up to start preparing for their trip.
LIKE

Thad House 13-06-2014 23:12
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
I know that in the PNW they actually sent invitations out to the top 40 teams after week 5, because those teams were mathematically guaranteed a spot, with only one week 6 event taking place.

The main timing problems for us come between the DCMP and Worlds. Since we are way out on the other corner of the country, driving to worlds is not an option. The only chance we get is flying, and by that time tickets are very expensive. For us moving the state championship earlier would help a little, but even a week does not equal much different costs in airfare, so I don't know what else we could do out here to reduce those costs.

Jacob Bendicksen 13-06-2014 23:31
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad House (Post 1389799)
I know that in the PNW they actually sent invitations out to the top 40 teams after week 5, because those teams were mathematically guaranteed a spot, with only one week 6 event taking place.

The main timing problems for us come between the DCMP and Worlds. Since we are way out on the other corner of the country, driving to worlds is not an option. The only chance we get is flying, and by that time tickets are very expensive. For us moving the state championship earlier would help a little, but even a week does not equal much different costs in airfare, so I don't know what else we could do out here to reduce those costs.
I heard something about PDX tickets being too troublesome to reserve for FIRSTWA/ORFIRST - that's why the only reserved tickets available were out of Seattle. I think for the district model to really work, they'd need to reserve tickets for everyone - buying tickets on that kind of short notice (or alternatively driving obscenely early up to Seattle) isn't realistic for a lot of teams.

EricH 13-06-2014 23:41
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
A proposal, for use by Districts when going to Championship:

Let the district area buy airfare for their team allotment, or partial airfare rather, as well as hotel rooms. Let's assume 10 "standard" teams worth. (For this purpose, 1 "standard" team is defined as 16 students and 2-4 teachers/mentors/chaperones, or 20 seats and 5-6 hotel rooms. YMMV, and this should be determined by the district area.) Because the district area can buy earlier, and is buying a larger amount of seats and hotel rooms, the costs would presumably be somewhat cheaper due to both timing and volume. The teams then reimburse the district area and pay for any extra rooms/seats.

Now, there are going to be some problems. For example, not all the district teams will have the same convenience level at any given airport. For another, apportioning the rooms to the teams may be a very "interesting" process. OTOH, if the district areas are creative in how they handle this sort of thing, it can be a huge benefit.

Of course, for the DCMPs, it's a hair easier. Just gotta reserve a bunch of block hotel rooms near the venue for longer-traveling teams, no flights needed, and again, have the teams reimburse the district and pay for any extras.

Link07 14-06-2014 01:08
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Pretty thankful that MAR has mitigated this problem greatly by hosting no Week 6 district. Even with the planned addition of a new district event next year, we tend to stay away from Easter weekend (Week 6) anyway. We saw a lower number of DCMP declines this year as compared to 2013, partially for this reason.

Nemo 14-06-2014 08:54
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH (Post 1389807)
A proposal, for use by Districts when going to Championship:

Let the district area buy airfare for their team allotment, or partial airfare rather, as well as hotel rooms.
That's a cool idea. Is there a way to buy tickets without locking in the passenger names, though? I know that airlines are completely unwilling to transfer tickets from one person to another.

John Retkowski 14-06-2014 09:14
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
It seems to me like the simplest thing is to just move world championships back a week. Why would you try to changed every event around instead of just one? Of course I have no idea what the situation is with scheduling for St. Louis. Or there may just be something else I'm overlooking entirely.

dodar 14-06-2014 09:17
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Retkowski (Post 1389831)
It seems to me like the simplest thing is to just move world championships back a week. Why would you try to changed every event around instead of just one? Of course I have no idea what the situation is with scheduling for St. Louis. Or there may just be something else I'm overlooking entirely.
I believe the week after Worlds is AP Testing week.

Libby K 14-06-2014 09:36
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Link07 (Post 1389815)
Pretty thankful that MAR has mitigated this problem greatly by hosting no Week 6 district. Even with the planned addition of a new district event next year, we tend to stay away from Easter weekend (Week 6) anyway. We saw a lower number of DCMP declines this year as compared to 2013, partially for this reason.
I think the move to no Week 6 this year was a great idea on MAR's part. (1923 got an invite on the load-in-day of MARCMP in 2013, this year we had a week+ to plan. Definitely way better.)

However, that doesn't help the second problem of this schedule - Week 7 qualifications to CMP, which arguably is way harder to plan. I like some of the ideas I've seen above about the district reserving plane seats, hotel blocks, etc for teams and then waiting to offer them to teams that need them. It'd be a great help to take something off the plate of teams that are already scrambling.

cgmv123 14-06-2014 11:01
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dodar (Post 1389832)
I believe the week after Worlds is AP Testing week.
There's a week in between Championship and AP Testing, but you don't want students taking an AP test the day after coming back tired from St. Louis.

Madison 14-06-2014 11:10
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemo (Post 1389828)
That's a cool idea. Is there a way to buy tickets without locking in the passenger names, though? I know that airlines are completely unwilling to transfer tickets from one person to another.
The PNW district folks did this for teams here. They bought an assortment of tickets -- about 200, I believe -- on Alaska Airlines many months in advance and made those tickets available to teams that qualified. The airfare wasn't exactly cheap, but it did assure availability.

The overall cost was north of $100,000; the airlines are willing to bend the rules when sufficiently motivated. :)

PayneTrain 14-06-2014 11:46
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Retkowski (Post 1389831)
It seems to me like the simplest thing is to just move world championships back a week. Why would you try to changed every event around instead of just one? Of course I have no idea what the situation is with scheduling for St. Louis. Or there may just be something else I'm overlooking entirely.
Moving it back 1-2 weeks interferes with AP testing, then most high schools graduate between the third week of May and second week of June. The only place to move championship "back" to is the last week of June. That would affect over a dozen offseason events, but holding the last weekend in April will become more untenable as championship bids start going out later and later in the season.

Jscout11 14-06-2014 13:32
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain (Post 1389847)
Moving it back 1-2 weeks interferes with AP testing, then most high schools graduate between the third week of May and second week of June. The only place to move championship "back" to is the last week of June. That would affect over a dozen offseason events, but holding the last weekend in April will become more untenable as championship bids start going out later and later in the season.
I envy places that get out mid-May to mid-June. For us, graduation IS that last week of June. I would also imagine this would interfere with college orientations and the like.

PayneTrain 14-06-2014 14:13
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jscout11 (Post 1389862)
I envy places that get out mid-May to mid-June. For us, graduation IS that last week of June. I would also imagine this would interfere with college orientations and the like.
Do they block in time for snow or ??? 422's high school just graduated yesterday and I seriously thought that was late.

Steven Donow 14-06-2014 14:20
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain (Post 1389865)
Do they block in time for snow or ??? 422's high school just graduated yesterday and I seriously thought that was late.
Not really. Most districts have ~6 snow days built in to the schedule, and you'll either get a day or two back Memorial Day or lose a day somewhete. I've never heard of a school in this area ending before June 20th

Cory 14-06-2014 14:22
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain (Post 1389865)
Do they block in time for snow or ??? 422's high school just graduated yesterday and I seriously thought that was late.
Schools that start after Labor Day often end at the end of June.

EricDrost 14-06-2014 14:25
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain (Post 1389865)
Do they block in time for snow or ??? 422's high school just graduated yesterday and I seriously thought that was late.
I'm 75% sure it's because there was construction being done on the high school over the summer of 2008. We had to start after Labor Day that year and the schedule stuck that way.

Jscout11 14-06-2014 14:59
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain (Post 1389865)
Do they block in time for snow or ??? 422's high school just graduated yesterday and I seriously thought that was late.
Specifically our school blocks in 3 snow days, which are returned as extra days off if not used (like in 2012-2013). While we had probably closer to 7 snow days this year, it only pushed back graduation back 2 or 3 days.

Citrus Dad 16-06-2014 12:06
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemo (Post 1389828)
That's a cool idea. Is there a way to buy tickets without locking in the passenger names, though? I know that airlines are completely unwilling to transfer tickets from one person to another.
Southwest now allows group purchases where you can change the names on the tickets. They're advertising this feature now.

PayneTrain 16-06-2014 21:01
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
I was being half-serious. Most Virginia schools start after Labor Day and end in the middle of June.

Dunngeon 17-06-2014 01:28
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madison (Post 1389844)
The PNW district folks did this for teams here. They bought an assortment of tickets -- about 200, I believe -- on Alaska Airlines many months in advance and made those tickets available to teams that qualified. The airfare wasn't exactly cheap, but it did assure availability.

The overall cost was north of $100,000; the airlines are willing to bend the rules when sufficiently motivated. :)
My teams only problem with the FIRSTWA tickets was that we were able to get tickets significantly cheaper right after the end of the DCMP. Considering we bought a week before, and FIRSTWA bought months in advance, I'm skeptical on just how effective the FIRSTWA tickets were ( from a price standpoint).


/offtopic

For PNW, I would like to see the 3rd play option removed because third play teams just take points out of the system. This was especially obvious at the Week 6 PNW event, where over 60ish points were removed from the event by 3rd play teams. While this didn't have an impact on us, it did have an impact on many of the bubble teams that attended OSU and other events as second event teams. Removing third play would also allow PNW to potentially have less districts, creating space in our scheduling to remove some of the crunch time

/offtopic

Andrew Schreiber 17-06-2014 01:39
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dunngeon (Post 1390141)
For PNW, I would like to see the 3rd play option removed because third play teams just take points out of the system. This was especially obvious at the Week 6 PNW event, where over 60ish points were removed from the event by 3rd play teams. While this didn't have an impact on us, it did have an impact on many of the bubble teams that attended OSU and other events as second event teams. Removing third play would also allow PNW to potentially have less districts, creating space in our scheduling to remove some of the crunch time

/offtopic
[Citation Needed]

Do you have any evidence that teams removing points from the system negatively impacted the teams they were playing at the event with?


Truthfully, I've always seen it as a net gain. Every point that 3rd event teams soak up is a point that isn't going to someone above me. Maybe tomorrow I'll work up some scenarios to see if my gut feeling is right or wrong.

Steven Donow 17-06-2014 01:51
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1390144)
[Citation Needed]

Do you have any evidence that teams removing points from the system negatively impacted the teams they were playing at the event with?


Truthfully, I've always seen it as a net gain. Every point that 3rd event teams soak up is a point that isn't going to someone above me. Maybe tomorrow I'll work up some scenarios to see if my gut feeling is right or wrong.
It's sort of a double-edged sword...in theory, it can negatively effect teams since a majority of 3rd district teams are above average; I would assume if you look at data, 3rd plays negatively effect teams at that event, but have a positive impact on teams that aren't at that event.

Thad House 17-06-2014 01:55
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dunngeon (Post 1390141)

/offtopic

For PNW, I would like to see the 3rd play option removed because third play teams just take points out of the system. This was especially obvious at the Week 6 PNW event, where over 60ish points were removed from the event by 3rd play teams. While this didn't have an impact on us, it did have an impact on many of the bubble teams that attended OSU and other events as second event teams. Removing third play would also allow PNW to potentially have less districts, creating space in our scheduling to remove some of the crunch time

/offtopic
I think the 3rd plays actually help, and only create a disadvantage for the team that is actually playing the 3rd event. If they are above you, it is possible for you to gain more points then them relatively easy. If they are below you, you are ahead and cannot be overtaken.

Andrew Schreiber 17-06-2014 02:14
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Donow (Post 1390145)
It's sort of a double-edged sword...in theory, it can negatively effect teams since a majority of 3rd district teams are above average; I would assume if you look at data, 3rd plays negatively effect teams at that event, but have a positive impact on teams that aren't at that event.
Mathhammer it for me... Assume worst case scenario of 3rd Play Team wins 100% of it's matches.

Kimmeh 17-06-2014 08:59
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1390144)
[Citation Needed]

Do you have any evidence that teams removing points from the system negatively impacted the teams they were playing at the event with?


Truthfully, I've always seen it as a net gain. Every point that 3rd event teams soak up is a point that isn't going to someone above me. Maybe tomorrow I'll work up some scenarios to see if my gut feeling is right or wrong.

I think this doesn't apply in the same fashion when you're a team right on the cusp, point wise. The more teams that are on their 3rd event and rank above you are positions that you could have potentially taken.*


*This is where we start to get into a bunch of what-ifs anyways. What-if that team wasn't here? Would we still have won match XX? Would we still have lost match YY? Etc.

Pault 17-06-2014 11:43
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
One benefit of 3rd event teams that isn't related to points is that they empower the district planning committee to put events in more isolated, small pockets of teams. Essentially, because 3rd event teams get last pick in where they get to go, they are forced to attend events that need more teams. Often times, this is a place like Maine or Escanaba, where there are a handful of isolated teams, but not quite enough to fill an event. So, if it wasn't for the 3rd event teams, it wouldn't be possible for these areas to hold an event; eventually the area would just die out because teams can't afford to travel far for 2 events. Instead, the areas are allowed to grow until they are self-sustainable.

Mr V 18-06-2014 00:03
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Libby K (Post 1389834)
I think the move to no Week 6 this year was a great idea on MAR's part. (1923 got an invite on the load-in-day of MARCMP in 2013, this year we had a week+ to plan. Definitely way better.)

However, that doesn't help the second problem of this schedule - Week 7 qualifications to CMP, which arguably is way harder to plan. I like some of the ideas I've seen above about the district reserving plane seats, hotel blocks, etc for teams and then waiting to offer them to teams that need them. It'd be a great help to take something off the plate of teams that are already scrambling.
The PNW district is currently planning (not set in stone yet) on making our DCMP week 6 to help with the problem of figuring out CMP arrangements on such short notice. We have discussed going to having district events weeks 1-4 and DCMP week 6, as Frank mentioned in his blog, to make it easier on arrangements for both DCMP and CMP. That would require a 3rd field and all the other items to put on an event so for now the top priority is to increase the time between DCMP and CMP since planning and arranging air travel is more difficult than going across the state or to the next state for DCMP.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Madison (Post 1389844)
The PNW district folks did this for teams here. They bought an assortment of tickets -- about 200, I believe -- on Alaska Airlines many months in advance and made those tickets available to teams that qualified. The airfare wasn't exactly cheap, but it did assure availability.

The overall cost was north of $100,000; the airlines are willing to bend the rules when sufficiently motivated. :)
And that was a huge risk for Washington FIRST Robotics, had things gone south it could have meant the end of WFR. However since it has been proven as a workable system and all of the tickets were taken the current plan is to try to increase the number of tickets put on hold for teams for next season.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dunngeon (Post 1390141)
My teams only problem with the FIRSTWA tickets was that we were able to get tickets significantly cheaper right after the end of the DCMP. Considering we bought a week before, and FIRSTWA bought months in advance, I'm skeptical on just how effective the FIRSTWA tickets were ( from a price standpoint).


/offtopic

For PNW, I would like to see the 3rd play option removed because third play teams just take points out of the system. This was especially obvious at the Week 6 PNW event, where over 60ish points were removed from the event by 3rd play teams. While this didn't have an impact on us, it did have an impact on many of the bubble teams that attended OSU and other events as second event teams. Removing third play would also allow PNW to potentially have less districts, creating space in our scheduling to remove some of the crunch time

/offtopic
Note the FIRST WA tickets were from Seattle and mostly direct flights, I found that they were cheaper than what I payed well after those flights were booked but before the competition season began. For the teams that looked into flights from Seattle immediately after DCMP I heard that they were paying near twice what the FIRST WA secured tickets were. Teams that weren't able to get tickets until Tue or Wed were paying 3 or near 4 times as much for the rest of their tickets.

Currently it looks like there will be only 9 district events next season and none of them will be week 6. This season the dates were set when the thought was that ID would be part of the district and with greater expected growth. So depending on the exact growth rates and if the N ID teams are allowed to and decide to join there will likely be fewer 3rd plays available but they won't be eliminated completely.

Having too small of events gives teams competing at those events an advantage so it is a trade off. We actually saw a few teams that had figured it out and dropped a full or near full event to go to an event that had few teams. At one point we had an event with only 23 teams registered and then for awhile 25 teams. Before teams were locked in it did get up to 28 teams.

Thad House 18-06-2014 00:08
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr V (Post 1390294)
And that was a huge risk for Washington FIRST Robotics, had things gone south it could have meant the end of WFR. However since it has been proven as a workable system and all of the tickets were taken the current plan is to try to increase the number of tickets put on hold for teams for next season.

Note the FIRST WA tickets were from Seattle and mostly direct flights, I found that they were cheaper than what I payed well after those flights were booked but before the competition season began. For the teams that looked into flights from Seattle immediately after DCMP I heard that they were paying near twice what the FIRST WA secured tickets were. Teams that weren't able to get tickets until Tue or Wed were paying 3 or near 4 times as much for the rest of their tickets.
My only suggestion is to try and avoid Saturday night tickets flying back. We had a few people who actually missed us playing in division eliminations because we had a few of those tickets. Plus anybody who is on a flight that night misses Einstein, which was one of the best parts of champs this year.

Mr V 18-06-2014 00:22
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad House (Post 1390296)
My only suggestion is to try and avoid Saturday night tickets flying back. We had a few people who actually missed us playing in division eliminations because we had a few of those tickets. Plus anybody who is on a flight that night misses Einstein, which was one of the best parts of champs this year.
That was definitely noted for this year. I will be sure to make sure that is kept in mind when holding flights for next season. Some of it is driven by the fact that it is all done on Alaska and their flight availability and the desire to avoid having people have to wait until Mon to return.

cgodzyk 18-06-2014 13:47
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Donow (Post 1390145)
It's sort of a double-edged sword...in theory, it can negatively effect teams since a majority of 3rd district teams are above average; I would assume if you look at data, 3rd plays negatively effect teams at that event, but have a positive impact on teams that aren't at that event.
I took this thought and started playing around with 2014 data from New England. I took all the events that had teams who played more than 2 events (Hartford, Northeastern, and Pine Tree) and summed their points. I then divided the total points per event by the number of teams at the event see below:

Code:
       
event  2+ event team points        Total teams        2+ event teams        Avg Points lost
Hartford              279          39              6                8.454545455
Northeastern              75            40              1                1.923076923
Pine Tree              262            38              5                7.939393939
I took a look at the bubble teams from the New England rankings (Teams ranked below 54, I do realize that some of these teams did make it to NE Champs, but I wanted to see if this would have allowed them to make it without teams declining spots.) What I found was that 4 teams that previously did not make the cut, were now in the top 54 in New England with the added points lost.
Code:
event          Teams effected
Hartford            1
Northeastern        1
Pine Tree          2
From this, I think your statement that 3rd plays negatively effect teams at that event, but positively impact teams not at that event stands. Based on the 4 teams that were negatively effected, as well as the teams that were able to get those better rankings because of the missed points

Andrew Schreiber 18-06-2014 14:29
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgodzyk (Post 1390359)
I took this thought and started playing around with 2014 data from New England. I took all the events that had teams who played more than 2 events (Hartford, Northeastern, and Pine Tree) and summed their points. I then divided the total points per event by the number of teams at the event see below:

Code:
       
event  2+ event team points        Total teams        2+ event teams        Avg Points lost
Hartford              279          39              6                8.454545455
Northeastern              75            40              1                1.923076923
Pine Tree              262            38              5                7.939393939
I took a look at the bubble teams from the New England rankings (Teams ranked below 54, I do realize that some of these teams did make it to NE Champs, but I wanted to see if this would have allowed them to make it without teams declining spots.) What I found was that 4 teams that previously did not make the cut, were now in the top 54 in New England with the added points lost.
Code:
event          Teams effected
Hartford            1
Northeastern        1
Pine Tree          2
From this, I think your statement that 3rd plays negatively effect teams at that event, but positively impact teams not at that event stands. Based on the 4 teams that were negatively effected, as well as the teams that were able to get those better rankings because of the missed points
Except this isn't a valid assumption. Would those bubble teams have earned those points had those 2+ event teams not been there? Ie, did they directly play against these teams?

How do you handle the fact that 155 won the event and earned a whopping 0 points. And, thanks to their prior events not being very good, did not qualify for DCMP at all?

Pault 18-06-2014 15:28
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
The problem is that the teams who "lost" points to 3+ event teams didn't actually deserve those points. Those teams, if it was not for the 3+ event teams, would have had an unfair advantage because they would be attending a smaller event. The 3+ event teams may be removing points from the system, but really those are the excess points that were created by having extra slots for teams. Ideally, all of those slots would be filled up by 3+ event teams.

Citrus Dad 18-06-2014 16:27
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgmv123 (Post 1389763)
The current season calendar is basically locked-in at this point. Kickoff can't be any earlier without taking place during most schools' winter breaks. Stop Build can't be any earlier without kickoff being any earlier. You need 7 weeks of competition to fit all the events in and Championship can't be any later because of AP testing. At least there's still that week off between the end of the "regular season" and Championship.
Thinking outside the box: Get the College Board to set up a testing site at Champs, maybe the Tue or Wed before competition or the Monday after. Allow qualified team members to transfer their test site to St. Louis when they qualify for Worlds. That would remove the back end scheduling constraint.

It seems that FIRST and the College Board should have exactly the same overall incentives here and given the high % of FIRST participants taking the AP (and the SAT), that the College Board should be more than willing to work with FIRST toward a solution.

Other spring sports (e.g., baseball, track, etc.) are able to work with the AP testing schedule. We should be able to do the same.

cxcad 18-06-2014 16:55
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad (Post 1390385)
Thinking outside the box: Get the College Board to set up a testing site at Champs, maybe the Tue or Wed before competition or the Monday after. Allow qualified team members to transfer their test site to St. Louis when they qualify for Worlds. That would remove the back end scheduling constraint.

It seems that FIRST and the College Board should have exactly the same overall incentives here and given the high % of FIRST participants taking the AP (and the SAT), that the College Board should be more than willing to work with FIRST toward a solution.

Other spring sports (e.g., baseball, track, etc.) are able to work with the AP testing schedule. We should be able to do the same.
what about champs after aps? Then there will be much less stress for everyone..

BrendanB 18-06-2014 16:57
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad (Post 1390385)
Thinking outside the box: Get the College Board to set up a testing site at Champs, maybe the Tue or Wed before competition or the Monday after. Allow qualified team members to transfer their test site to St. Louis when they qualify for Worlds. That would remove the back end scheduling constraint.

It seems that FIRST and the College Board should have exactly the same overall incentives here and given the high % of FIRST participants taking the AP (and the SAT), that the College Board should be more than willing to work with FIRST toward a solution.

Other spring sports (e.g., baseball, track, etc.) are able to work with the AP testing schedule. We should be able to do the same.
I'm not sure testing at/during Champs is the best idea for the students. I know I would have a very hard time focusing on my exams.

Pault 18-06-2014 17:29
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cxcad (Post 1390391)
what about champs after aps? Then there will be much less stress for everyone..
Once APs are over your into the 3rd week of May, and starting to push into graduations (my school had graduation 2 days after APs ended). Which would really suck if some seniors couldn't attend champs because of that. And after graduation season is over your looking at final exams for non-seniors, and then a lot of teams aren't allowed by their school to have field trips over the summer.

FIRST really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Its best option to expand the overall season* would be to have build season in the fall, then take a break over the holidays before starting events. But that obviously has plenty of drawbacks as well. My personal opinion is that we should wait things out a bit longer to see if any solutions come up, then if not then get rid of bag-and-tag and push week 1 up by 1-2 weeks.

*build and competition season

T^2 18-06-2014 17:49
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by cxcad (Post 1390391)
what about champs after aps? Then there will be much less stress for everyone..
Some schools hold finals immediately after AP testing (which makes a lot of sense, if you think about it...). Some schools have them two weeks after, or three, or four. If you have champs after APs, how will you satisfy everyone?

Foster 18-06-2014 18:11
Re: [FRC Blog] Frank Answers Fridays: June 13, 2014
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1389867)
Schools that start after Labor Day often end at the end of June.
Just wanted to plus this post. Schools openings are earlier and earlier for some reason, but the result on the other end is Graduations well before Memorial day. But at the current pace of moving forward one day per year means that the FIRST season will occur over "summer break" starting in 2050. :rolleyes:

I was a regular attendee at school board meetings where I was told that parents wanted the earlier end date. So I would do a "show of hands - who didn't understand that a 1 June school end date would mean a 25 August start date" and get a room full of parent to stick their hands up.

For what it's worth, VEX has a 25 day gap between the last world event qualifier and the championship. That solved a lot of travel problems.


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