Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Allen... what you guys have done and are doing in the Houston area is to be admired and imitated... I don't know where you get the energy... ;-)

My take, at the most basic-level, and I can be full of crap and totally wrong... is that what's missing is enough legit game play opportunities for 200+ teams (min. needed for District?) to play in elims at least semi-regularly. And there needs to be a real sustained effort where Tier-1 and Tier-2 teams mentor and shepherd Tier-4 teams and Rookies into Tier-3 performance so they have that plausible chance to be a 2nd pick.

I believe, that making the elims at in-season competitions and substantial off-season competitions changes the "chemistry" of teams and creates an atmosphere of interest, excitement, expectations, passion, dedication... that then leads to teams' adults/students acting proactively acquiring the things they need to sustain a capable team.

Just my opinion from a barely Tier-2 garage-team still waiting for our powder-coated metal... yep.

--Michael Blake

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

IS IT okay to quote myself?!! LOL

Anyway, I want to ADD that I'm a BIG FAN of off-season competitions that are limited to 32 teams and have 4 team alliances in the elims... this way everyone plays because the alliances are required to use all robots within the first two matches of each bracket as they ascend through the brackets.

--Michael Blake

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Jess and others,

Do we have any information on the Texas team that are no longer in existence as they pertain to the rookie team criteria? During the team’s rookie year, were they rookies according to criteria 1 or 2-6? Once the criteria is established we can help assist new rookie teams especially those like us that started as a criteria 1 team. We didn’t have a single person involved with our team that had ever heard of FIRST.
Mr. B.

2015 Rookie Team Criteria

The formation of new FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams is critical to FIRST Founder Dean Kamen's vision of changing the culture, and creating the spirit of Gracious Professionalism® that is open and friendly to new participants. We recognize the commitment teams and mentors must make to get a first year team "off the ground" and for this reason FIRST grants qualifying first-year teams "Rookie" team status, which comes with specific incentives and recognition including:
1. Rookie All-Star Award - to recognize outstanding achievement by a first year team;
2. Rookie Grants - to help first year teams get financially off the ground. Some examples of past Rookie grants are NASA, SRT-Nypro, and Community Foundation of Texas. As FIRST continues to grow and teams expand in existing FIRST areas, it is important for us to have guidelines for qualifying as a "Rookie" team.

For the 2015 season, these guidelines are:
1. A new team that starts in a school/organization/alliance that has never run an FRC team before would be considered a Rookie (note: most teams are formed within a single school, but some comprise two or more schools, or are organizations such as Scouts, Boys & Girls Clubs, home schools, etc.).
2. A returning team that has not been in a competition for three years would be considered a Rookie; that is, going into the 2015 season, the team cannot have competed in seasons 2014, 2013 or 2012. Teams, whose last competition season was 2011 or earlier, can return during the 2015 season as a Rookie with a 2015 Rookie team number, OR, they can continue as a veteran with their original team number. Teams that choose to register as a veteran are not eligible for the above listed Rookie incentives and recognition.
3. Where multiple schools were combined into a single team, and that team now wants to separate into different teams, or any single team wants to separate into different teams, the new teams do not qualify as Rookies unless the requirements set forth above in 2 are met. These teams will need to register as a "New" team in the Team Information Management System (TIMS) by following the Create/Re-establish a Team link, and follow all steps accordingly. See 2015 Team Combines and Separations for additional details.
4. Where multiple existing teams want to combine into one team, the new team does not qualify as a Rookie unless the requirements set forth above in 2 are met. The team will need to register as a "New" team in TIMS by following the Create/Re-establish a Team link, and follow all steps accordingly. See 2015 Team Combines and Separations for additional details.
5. If a mentor, or teacher, from an existing team leaves and starts a team at a new school, that team does qualify as a Rookie team.
6. If individual students who have been involved in a team leave that school and start a team in their new school that team also is generally considered a Rookie providing it meets condition 1, and does not involve sufficient students to be considered a version of condition 3. As a maximum, the number of students in the new team that have competed in prior teams must not exceed 5.

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Jess... this is only a gut-guess, but if further analysis is applied to the LOST teams I would bet you would find a substantial pattern of not making the elims (packing their pit early and sitting in the stands) in competitions; and substantial absences from off-season competitions.

--Michael Blake

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Start them off with easier and cheaper programs like FLL and FTC, get them interested in STEM, and in 5 ~ 10 years try a smaller "stimulus" program to get dedicated teams started. Quick fixes aren't going to fix anything! ;)

That's what I said!

Thanks for the data! There are lots of ways to spin it, but I agree with Michael. Saying that numbers are "moving in the right direction" is very inaccurate. How about that elephant... :rolleyes:

Talk to any of the older teams and ask for scouting data! I'm sure you'll find more than enough information to back up this argument!

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

I agree to some extent, but even the teams that move up from VEX or FTC often don't make it and many of them aren't even willing to risk the transition. 5 - 10 years is a long time and we can't push districts back that long.

In my opinion we have to find a way to get districts started with the number of teams we have. If it means some teams are going to 4 or 5 district events to make that work, then so be it. Once we get events a little bit closer to teams and we get more matches and elimination matches for the $, we'll be in a much better position to get the VEX and FTC teams to move up to a varsity level program.

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Allen... EXACTLY. AGREED.

--Michael

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

While I agree with the statement above, if it is viewed as a necessary thing that a team reach elims to be sustainable, then how much help does the District Model give us?

As it stands, we have 4 regionals, with 24 teams reaching quarterfinals at each. That means that each year, 96 QF bracket slots will be filled. That's not 96 unique teams, but there are 96 opportunities to get into eliminations.

If we expect our district events to be about 40 teams each and we need 280 total slots (that's 2x the total number of 2015 teams per Jess's spreadsheet), then we need 7 events. Let's assume we need 8 in practice to deal with scheduling problems, distances, etc. That then doubles the number of QF slots, but each team is also playing twice.

That strikes me as a net neutral, if not a net negative. The reason I say it could be negative is that by the time we are at week 3 or so and substantial numbers of teams are on their second event, we could be seeing a lot of repeat appearances in the elimination tournament.

I do suppose the restriction that all of the teams are from Texas would add to the likelihood that a given Texas team gets into the elimination tournament. And, while I can see it from the team's perspective that they are getting a second chance to get into elims, at a state-wide statistical level, the opportunities don't really double just because there are twice as many events.

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

The biggest difference is the cap on event size. Instead 55+ teams at every event there are a max of 40 and likely less the first year. The chance of any one team making eliminations goes up when there are fewer teams at events. There will be some stacked districts and some weaker ones where a team that is normally on the bubble for eliminations may be a 1st round pick instead.

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Just got this link in my inbox, as I'm sure many of the people on this thread did, as well:

http://firstintexas.org/uil/

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Don't we already see this though?

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

We absolutely do. I suppose that's a point in favor of the district model. To get a chance at a repeat appearance now, you need to pony up the extra registration fee. Under the district system, you get the chance for the initial registration fee.

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Jeffrey... it's not a perfect solution, but District Model _does_ add more opportunities for teams to make elims simply because there's more competitions for the same $5,000.00... TWO competitions for the price of one Regional is how it has been implemented elsewhere I've been told and I hope Texas is planning same model.

Plus as Allen said there's a much smaller field of teams competing at these qualifiers therefore increasing the likelihood of a team being picked to play.

ONE _perfect_ solution though, would be for Texas off-season competitions be limited to 32 teams with 4 team alliances for elims... and ALL 4 robots must play at least once within the first 2 matches of each ascending bracket.

I truly believe the worst thing that can happen to competition robotics teams struggling to sustain is packing their pit early and going to sit in the stands while others play... _especially_ during off-season.

--Michael Blake

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

Another issue for Tier-4 and Rookie teams is the problems with paying for things that are required during the build period that they didn't know they needed till they started prototyping/building.

It appears most are hampered by the onerous PO (Purchase Order) process.

One of the Rookie teams I'm mentoring this season are _stuck_ in place because the seed monies they received were deposited with their school and they can _only_ get access to those dollars through a PO which takes a week or two.

How do they get things they _immediately_ need when they have to wait days/weeks for a PO? Talk about another experience that can be _degrading_ to a team's success and sustainability...

Perhaps, there should be a central entity, a non-profit, that can take dollars on behalf of teams and then allow these teams to submit for reimbursement _after_ an adult leader charges needed items to their personal credit card?

--Michael Blake

Re: Texas Registration 2015
 

You absolutely nailed it. As the president of a rookie team, I can say that this is easily our biggest problem. Our teacher sponsor has been heroically wrangling with the district for weeks on this. We started a booster club to try to get the money flowing but getting recognized as a nonprofit is taking a while. Luckily we've been able to get open POs at Lowe's and AndyMark since they're "approved vendors", so she puts in for several each week, but it's extremely frustrating (at least to people behind us in line) to stand at the counter and count out $250 worth of screws to squeeze as much onto one PO as possible, and don't even get me started on estimating shipping on the AndyMark orders so we don't go over the limit. We haven't been able to get *anything* from VEX since it's not an approved vendor which is really limiting.

Frankly we had no idea what we needed until we started, and advice from veteran teams can only help so much with that, especially because a lot of it depends on the design and game. At least for me, a complete rookie when it comes to anything electrical/mechanical, these last few weeks have been a series of realizations of "oh, I remember other teams telling me about this" or "wait, I remember reading something about this on Chief Delphi or in the manual".

Although I have to say we're probably in a much better position than other rookie teams - 3847 and 624 have been absolutely amazing in terms of helping us figure out what we need/what would be legal to order before we waste too much time and effort as well as with procuring items from non-approved vendors (the district approval process simply to order takes weeks and comes with a $100 markup). It's amazing what some of our mentors have sitting around in their garages that we've been able to use, and it's not too onerous for a mentor or even me to run out to a store to pick up something and be reimbursed in a few months from the booster club account. But I think it's pretty sad that highlights of my build season include seeing an order on a $1000 PO come up to $999.06 and finding out that we somehow received Spikes in FIRST Choice even though none of us (or at least me) had a clue what they were for until we realized we needed one a few days ago and were starting to work out how we were going to get it in time.