Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

I really think this is a big step in the right direction.

I've never publicly stated this, but my current "dream" situation is:

- for all districts to agree upon a common points system for qualification to their DCMPs, and the CMP
- district teams can then compete at any district event outside their "home" district and still earn points towards qualification
- points from your 2 best competitions count towards your DCMP/CMP points
- teams are free to declare which district they want to be a part of (i.e. a Calgary team could declare to be a part of PNW, instead of a Canadian District.) This means they would be earning points to qualify for the PNW DCMP they declared for, not matter where they actually compete.

The big downside is the possibility of teams trying to compete in weaker districts events to make qualifying for DCMP/CMP easier. This was a weakness of the Regional model too, but I'm not sure it was ever that big of an issue. Several Canadian teams (including 610) have competed in plenty of US regionals in an attempt to qualify for CMP "more easily", and we never felt unwelcome. Would teams declare for a Canadian district, and compete in two non-Canadian district events? Maybe. Would the rest of the teams in Canada be angry if that happened? Maybe. Have you always been able to "buy an easier route to CMP?" Maybe.

There's a lot of upside too.

We like being able to travel under the Regional model. Normally we do one local event, and travel to another. We would be able to do this again. I would love to have MI, NY, OH, PA, etc, etc teams come to Canada like they used to. With the lower district registration fees, this becomes a reality again - maybe even more so than under the Regional model!

You might say we can already travel under the current district model, but it would require teams to compete at least 5 times: 1st local district, 2nd local district, 3rd outside district, DCMP, CMP. We are a team that is attempting to manage teacher/mentor/student burnout very carefully, and 5 competitions in a single season is not possible for us - I know this is the case for a lot of other Canadian teams.

From a growth standpoint for FRC, there are also a lot of benefits:

If you want to start a district event, you no longer really care what district you are a part of, or whether team is "local" or "outside". You run your event, award points to all the teams, and that's it. You probably want to ensure your local teams get spots before outside ones first, however.

If you want to create a NEW district, all you need to do is create a DCMP, declare how many teams will compete at it, and how many qualification spots for CMP it will produce. The onus then is on teams to declare whether that will be their "home" DCMP and earn points to qualify for it. They will put a lot of thought into it, and figure it out accordingly.

Already, the physical boundaries of the current district model has a few of us asking some tough questions. In Canada, where should our West Coast teams go? Should Ontario and Quebec be in the same district? Or not? A less geographically-bound system, seems very appealing to me, and would allow for even greater growth down the road.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

This is awesome! But I do have to say that 2013 was the year of Ontario's teacher action, which caused a 1-year hiatus for a significant number of FRC teams. The return of almost all of these teams in 2014 inflated our growth numbers for this period.

I am curious to see what our growth numbers will look like under a District model!

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

On the flip side of the coin, it is actually important that these spots are filled and the points "eaten" to keep things fair. Each event has a certain number of points to give, regardless of how many teams attend. So, if an event has lower attendance, the average number of points awarded to each team will be higher (at a 28 team event a moving robot will likely get you into eliminations, at a 40 team event you probably won't). Thus, a less competitive team could attend DCMP over a more qualified team by attending events with fewer attendees.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Thats like saying the winner of GTR-W is of lesser standing than the winner of Orlando. I get what you are saying with team capabilities vs event size, but teams choose the events they compete at; so that is their choice.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

No, that's not what he's saying. For the winners, it doesn't matter. It matters for the 'fringe' teams; ie. at a 28 team event, of the worst 10 teams, 6 of them will end up on alliances, therefore getting points. At a forty team event, the ten worst teams won't be on alliances*.



*for debates sake let's just assume that alliance selections lead to the top 24 teams being picked.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Filler teams at events (teams that don't earn points) are the same concept as surrogate matches at an event with an odd number of teams. It would break the system if a match was played with less teams than every other match, so instead a few teams fill in as surrogates and don't earn any ranking points from that match. The same is true of filler teams at events, except that they are surrogate teams for the event rather than just for a single match. The "lost points" never existed in the first place.

Edit: Oops, replied to the wrong post. Was replying to the idea that 3rd event teams are undesirable.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Not cynical, just practical. FIRST is running not-for-profit business. Like any other business, they have to cover costs and obviously strive to avoid losing revenue. Registration is a major component of their annual income. They have to balance their financial goals against their other program goals like growth and expansion. It is one thing to say "everyone should switch to Districts", but it is an entirely different matter to come up with a plan to do so which has a solid business plan associated. Assessing the before and after revenue is obviously part of this business planning, and not doing things which are a big financial loss is just good business on FIRST's part. As regions figure out how to plan these migrations properly, then they can work with FIRST to do so.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

In 2013, Bedford comprised mostly of 3rd event teams. Those teams took away a lot of points. We did the analysis going in. 3 teams were on the bubble for making it to states. I think 1/3 made it. Am important thing to remember about the two that didn't make it, had they, then two that did qualify would not.
This new set up will spread "3rd" event point grabs throughout the season instead of concentrating them in week 5&6. It will also help fill week 1 which is sometimes hard to fill.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Thanks for the note. I forgot that it's always the 3rd event the team attends that doesn't count, so the 3rd plays will be concentrated in later weeks. This along with a statistical bias towards certain events in a particular week can result in the situation at Bedford 2013.

But as far as I can tell, teams still use the first two in-district events that they compete at for points, not the first two in-district events they register for. So while registering for an out-of-district event in Week 1 won't earn them any points, registering for an additional in-district event in Week 1 will (regardless of when they registered for it). In this sense, teams at extra in-district events are getting "3rd plays," while teams at extra out-of-district events are getting "additional events." Is this correct?

If so, then "the Bedford problem" (wow that sounds really bad...) is only partially alleviated by this.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

It's correct, but simply the same thing as what was previously the case, only with varying terminology. It was always that, regardless of registration, the first two in-district events that you competed in were for points.

The best way to view OOD play is as a 'third-district', only chronology of your events doesn't matter.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Yep, that's what I thought. Some people were talking as if ALL additional district event registrations are now "additional plays," so that only the first two you register for will be counted for points, regardless of chronology.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

The level of my involvement with the push to organize districts for Illinois (and Ohio) along with Indiana wasn't high enough for me to speak with complete confidence, so don't take what I'm about to say as truly authoritative. My understanding is that Chicago has a lot of say in how Illinois is run, and there are a lot of Chicago teams that won't (or even can't) leave the city in order to compete. That is problematic for districts in a couple of ways.

I'm still rooting for IL-IN-OH (and perhaps KY) to join forces to make a large pool of district events. They all have the same state bird, making the "Cardinal" name obvious for the region.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Is this any different than a team inside the district attending their 3rd competition? Several teams here in New England went to their third event, won, and received no points for it. 155 sadly made a huge comeback at Pine Tree but since it was their third event they received no points and no invite to the district championship.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

The unfortunate thing about that issue is that it works both ways: additional plays lead to points that could have helped other teams being removed, but at the same time (and this is just speculation, I've never done the actual math to see if its true) it likely will also raise the cutoff for DCMP by some amount.

Re: [FRC Blog] Inter-District Play for 2015
 

Put two district events in Chicago, different venues, at least one off weekend in between.

If one of these teams qualifies for world champs, do they decline since it's not in Chicago? If they do, I assume that would similarly decline an invitation to the district championship. If not, then maybe they would have the option of accepting an invitation to the District Champs even if it were outside the city.