Re: Future First Championship News
 

That is exactly why they are doing this. To benefit more teams in FRC, not a select few.

Is a regional win today worth less today because there are more regional competitions and more teams winning them? Is a district win today worth less because there are more districts?

Is a championship win 10 years ago worth more or less because a larger percentage of teams qualified? Can you even tell me who won the championship event 10 years ago?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

In 2017 where do you go to see the top teams under one arena?

That IS the experience, not a series of bowl like competitions. This is to showcase what students did... worldwide and see the best go head to head. That is inspiring for students and prevents the step-child feeling of one of the "championships"...we already have that, I realize Michigan is better than San Diego (and teams can choose to travel to take a hard or easy road) but at CMP its a fairly even playing field of 600 and the real cream rises regardless of region or country. With North/South that cream rising will never occur and there will not be one event to showcase the best teams..a divided and unequal FIRST.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Other than FIRST's founding year, when have you ever seen all the top teams in one arena?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

If you read what I wrote, that's not at all what my problem was with two championships...

*Most (Championships 2014)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

So now we think FIRST is a big corrupt organization that doesn't care about us and is being driven by a small business and the hotel industries of Detroit, St. Louis, and, Huston? And we think NI, Lockheed, Qualcomm, Raytheon, NASA, DARPA, Novelis, Honeywell, etc etc etc would all still be supporting it given that?

And if it's not about the wait list and other non-regional winning teams who is "weaken the competition level" referring to?

Look at the distribution of teams and available location and it pretty much has to be north/south. FRC is more NE/SE heavy if you split it east west you'll more likely end up unbalanced in numbers or distance.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Yes

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Not corrupt, but misguided to their mission statement...over expansion too quickly, is never a good thing. That should be common sense. They just expanded by 50% now they want 100%...why?

Those sponsors could pull funding or divert... nothing is guaranteed at all. There are other options.

Championships should be hard to attend..that inspires. Otherwise we end up with mobile KOP platform bots in champs, and what does that teach and/or what message does that send to the next generation? You can skate in life?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

How? So having more competitors makes it easier? How does having a new regional event in another state make winning the one in your state less of an achievement? How does having more teams play two regionals make the competition easier?

Why is being prepared for more growth misguided?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'll take a wild guess that the six champions (plus alternates) will all have a good shot at receiving invitations to IFI. No guarantees, but a good chance.

Teams don't have wait, like baby birds with their mouths open, for FIRST to tell them what to do; teams can just do it.

Blake

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Again, where does one go in 2017 to view (Nearly all) of the very best teams in the world under one arena? Does the entry fee go down for skating in to one of 800-1200 spots?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

The point here is that Championships isn't the place to deal with this growth. (which by the way isn't even one of the reasons they gave us for expanding champs)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Re: Future First Championship News
 

That is the fundamental reason they're expanding champs.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/2017-first-championship-announcement

Remember playing in the pits in 2011? That will be the norm in these new cities. Playing in the pits is not inspiring...

The walking distance between the convention center and dome in Detroit is 18 minutes. So matches in the dome are out of the question. Part of the experience for me is watching teams play in a professional stadium. Nearly every single person involved with FIRST would never step foot on a football field with thousands cheering them on. This is a big let down for me and my team.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Not according to the graphic everyone's been bandying about:

That shows Michigan funneling into a Super Regional. Along with a number of "District Event Candidate" regions. I'm pretty sure the whole idea was very much to funnel DCMPs into SRs into WCMP. Which makes a nice flow chart, but is definitely going to be stressful on the teams involved.

In other news, as a long time attendee of Lone Star and someone moderately familiar with the GRB, I'm not worried about the quality of the event there. GRB has 600,000 sq ft on level 1 alone, with a 35' ceiling height. 2011 pit fields and 400 pits were crammed into 340,000 sq ft. That's not even counting the 220,000 sq ft on the level 3. LSR has to sprawl to take up 100,000 sq ft of that. I'm pretty sure there's going to be enough room for nice fields and pits on level 1.

Re: Future First Championshplit News
 

In FIRST, a huge number of people have the philosophy of "in order to level the playing field, raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling". This is why people who suggest that FIRST make rules about limiting resources (because a powerhouse team has a good robot) get a lot of flak and a negative reputation in the community.

A lot of this discussion about people disliking the Championshplit probably stems from the fact that FIRST has lowered the ceiling, and the floor. I suspect that a lot of the backlash is from the ceiling being lowered.

Personally, I thought at first that 8 divisions would be a silly idea, but as I think about it more, while it would lower the ceiling for a division win, the expansion would allow more teams to see the best, learn from them, become more competitive, and it would (theoretically) get back to a point where a division win then would be just as much as a division win last year. Had the 2015 championships been the model for the future, the lowest a division ceiling could be would be the ceiling this year, and this year is looking pretty good.

Running the Championshplit would lower the ceiling of all major awards to an irreversible low, and the lowering from 8 divisions would only compound the lowered ceiling. The ceiling would be so low that division champions would go from 12 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 in under 5 years. The ceiling being that low would reduce the inspiration to the floor, and the floor would rise much slower than 8 divisions ever would. This is why I dislike this idea.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I think BrennanB was totally spot on. And not just that, why is FLL and FTC still a side child? I really am in favor of them getting vastly more qualification spots. Though teams may still be inspired be and their best to win their FLL region competition, I'm sure they would love a chance to compete with the best of the best at worlds. I'm not too familiar with FTC so I can't speak on their experience in competition but I'm sure both programs would love and deserve to have way more spots at worlds. And if people want a current solution to both problems right now, I'll bring up what I brought up before. Make one venue FTC/FLL champs and one venue for FRC champs. Imagine how many more teams could qualify through FLL and FTC by doing this and how many more matches all their teams would get with drastically increased space for more fields. Everyone's talking about FRC like it's the only program that inspires people but its not. We take up so much space that FLL and FTC had to be booted from the dome just so we can still have them around. They deserve their own championships where they are not the side childs especially since they have to be victorious over way more teams than an FRC team. Getting to worlds is much much harder for those teams but seem to think FRC is the immediate problem.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

One practical problem that I see should be so obvious to anyone that has tried to put on a very large event or to anyone that has ever tried to keep any two complex endeavors identical.

Over time, these two "Championships" will not be the same experience. Eventually one "Championship" will be regarded as "Better" that the other. There will be "Haves" and "Have Nots". Teams will start to invent reasons why they should be allowed to attend the "better" Championship and FIRST will allow this to happen for special circumstances.

If you consider all of the factors involved such as competitiveness, chemistry of attending teams, weather, flight costs, logistics, food, quality of the volunteer base, sponsorships, sponsor activities, special events, celebrity appearances, local sightseeing, etc., there is no way the experience will be the same.

I will not venture to guess which will be the better Championship and its not an appropriate discussion to have here. However the fact remains that one Championship will eventually be perceived as better than the other. Its just in the nature of things.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

The growth will show up at championships as the number of teams and subsequently regional/districts increases and more total teams will thus qualify for worlds.

The district model has limits to how many tiers can be reasonably added and then this or similar would become necessary for the championships anyway. What this year has shown is that FIRST may be able to have two 600 team events which means a while before there are enough districts to necessitate tearing.

Perhaps they calculated that the tiers would eventually be more expensive and doing this first allows for the program growth to bring more funding over time to help pay for that? There are too many things we don't know about how hard FIRST is to run and we shouldn't throw them under the bus for it

Re: Future First Championshplit News
 

So back in 2003 when 291 of about 746 teams (39%!) made it to Champs, we must've been doing a terrible job of inspiring people at that competition. I mean, we were because it was the most poorly thought out layout for Champs EVER, and HQ's poor planning gave Houston a bad rep that has apparently lasted to this day... But I don't the the size of the event relative to the field of teams had anything to do with it. Heck, I'm pretty sure way back in the dawn of time, over 50% of the teams that competed ended up at Nationals. I don't really think that made Nationals any worse or less inspiring.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I say, "One Championship to rule them all."


Sorry... just had to do that... geek spasm... lol

--Michael Blake

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Hi Kevin,

I know what the 2011 graphic says. However, that is not only model under discussion here. The post I replied to was referring to the 4-tier plan as if it was the only one in this thread (or considered at all), and presented serious objections that have been discussed several times already. She opens with saying that she hasn't followed the discussion closely, so I was pointing out the previously discussed common alternative that addressed her objections. I may have misjudged the balance of opinions between the two models. This is an unknown, but if you think so, I apologize.

Thanks for the GRB info, as well. I feel better about the whole fields in the pits issue.

I'm not sure why you're conflating any arbitrary "preliminary plan" with this particular announcement. Yes, FIRST has a sustainability and scalability problem. That does not necessitate this "hard sell" as you call it, and I don't understand why HQ would think a hard sell is wise based on history.

Asserting the inevitability of this thread in response to a legitimately transparent process is a serious claim to base on a single, non-transparent data point. It's a particularly serious one considering it's against precedent in the community, and no one's complaining sustainability isn't a challenge. Consider the 2011 vision. Backlash? Oh yeah. But nothing like this. Because it wasn't signed contracts with zero input. FIRST spent years at Worlds and in its online presence explaining goals, addressing concerns, being transparent about the process. Was it perfect? No. But was it this? Hah.

This announcement demonstrates a basic lack of willingness to engage that stands contrary to past successes. Consider again the unified Districts and District Point system discussion. Ongoing, for years. Responsive to issues like interdistrict play, slot distribution, consistency, on and on. Wild cards. Even in cases without direct results, HQ at least engaged the objections beforehand and explained themselves. When they didn't, they felt it. They're feeling it now. Look even at the previous bids for the Worlds city. This? I really don't understand your conflation of this with, well...anything. Anything good, at least. (See FVC/FTC)

While I am not personally one of the people that's particularly upset about the two winning alliances aspect, the root change is not that there are two "sole victors" or 8 robots instead of 4. The central objection isn't that two is larger than one. The objection is that the process by which those two alliances develop is entirely different, and to some people, highly objectionable. I see their point.

I would very much appreciate it if you ceased putting words in my mouth. I did not indicate that I trust VEX just as much as FRC--or not, for that matter. I said that my trust is FRC is diminished by tactics like this, and can diminish to the point where I prefer my loyalty to VEX (or anything) over that of FRC. It's not just about the substance of this change; part of the value of FIRST is the trust placed in it. I understand your argument that this move does not affect the value you see in FRC. I understood that the first time you said it. I would appreciate if you did not straw-man me simply because my definition of an organization's value and the derivative thereof differs from your own.

You trust HQ that this is the best move, and you can support it. Good on you, I honestly hope you get the value you want from it, and I suspect you will. I don't understand why this puts you in a position to say that I'm wrong simply because I do not.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

The only way a four-tier system works is if the final tier (where the Super Regional/FIRST "Championship" winners play the last couple matches) is kept to a very small number of teams. It would be cool to send the last 4 alliances to one central location (on FIRST's dime, and on a weekend to avoid missing work/school) to do a polished, professionally-produced, live televised 2 hour "Superbowl"...

Get Al Michaels and Dave Verbrugge to do match commentary. Get Grant Imahara and Erin Andrews to do sideline interviews. Use the lead time to do in-depth exposes on the teams and students involved. Invite VIPs and give them the red carpet treatment in a more intimate, less overwhelming venue than a football stadium with thousands of teams. Have simultaneous live viewing parties around the world hosted by FRC teams, ala kickoff.

I think it could be pretty cool if done right. I'd still prefer to see a District Event -> Super Regional -> World Championship format, but this would make the best of the changes that have seemingly already been finalized.

(Oh, and let teams sign up for a first-come, first-served list for swapping "Championships" if they desire)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Hard to square the "they're not being transparent" calls on this thread with the availability of presentations like this one, dating back nearly three years, that show clear efforts to present plans and gather feedback.

Attachment 18818

Oh, and what about this blog entry? Here's a task force, a majority of whom are out in the field, looking at champs eligibility.

http://community.usfirst.org/robotic...nd-Eligibility

Hmmm. Could it be that the field/community feedback was "we don't want a lower percentage of teams eligible for champs?", instead pushing for an increase in capacity?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I completely agree that a small championship with larger "showcase" events earlier in the year is probably ultimately the best approach to satisfy need to have both a conclusive championship matchup and a spectacle the scale of the current format championship, especially since the consistently extreme quality level at this final tier would be perfect for mass exposure. I feel as though you would have to make it a little larger though, just enough to allow it to play out as a traditional event with quals/alliance selection/elims (although I could also see a number of in-between options, with performance from previous events somehow weighing into the rankings, allowing for shorter quals matches and potentially a longer form elimination tournament).

This would prevent a problem which would arise in any setup where you carry alliances across tournaments: What if a team, for whatever reason, has to decline the invitation? It would also allow an alliance selection for the championship of the world to occur in a single division format. This has been impossible with the current champs setup for a very, very long time, but it may do a great deal to help determine the "true" best robots. I can think of numerous examples of "what if?" alliances which were never able to happen due to division lines. By making picking a free for all among teams who achieve an elite level of performance (probably some autobids+district point rankings at the north and south events), you can create some mind boggling alliance pairings.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

This is a great concept.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Yes, and then they release something completely different without any notice, and present it as a done deal.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Exactly. Did anyone outside of HQ know anything about this? We've gotten definitive "no"s from a number of WFAs, HOFs, Chiefs...nothing. I'm not even sure upset is the right word for me about that. I'm just...baffled. We'd really been building up the examples of transparency there for a while.

I would PPV to watch Jared's red carpet superbowl.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

A response on FRC Blog

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...Were-Listening

Re: Future First Championship News
 

One possible solution for evening out the competitiveness of the two events is to rotate geographic regions attending each event. For example it could be four regions:

- NE US + Canada
- SE US w/Texas
- Upper Midwest
- West + Rest of World

The middle 2 regions may never meet each other, but the other 2 could alternate sites each year.

Other regional alignmnets might choose to split it down the Detroit-St. Louis-Houston axis and rotate among all 4 regions.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Except still super flawed because the alliances would all be formed geographically and as such would probably be less competitive (and not as compelling for TV) than a situation where district champs are expanded and retitled as "super regionals" that then feed one central championship event with fewer teams.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Allowing teams to shuffle between events (with provisions to preserve total numbers and always let local teams attend the nearer event if they want) would break down the barriers at zero cost to FIRST.

I think our collective competitive juices could help keep the events more or less balanced. For every team that thinks "I want to be on an alliance with 1114!", there is one that thinks "I want to go to the other event and meet them in the Superbowl". Plus there are still 'random' divisions at each event.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Then you invite the 4 winners, and the HoF finalist, and the top 25 remaining teams from each zone for a double division, 120 team IRI style event.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

You know what you'd have at that point?

The (slightly modified) original plan of super regionals feeding into CMP.

Would anyone have been pissed off if they announced that DCMPs would be expanded to form super regionals and then those super regionals would feed the CMP you're talking about? Probably not.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

A little league world series format would be interesting, it would really help with regional influence, would a TV Viewer rather say go 1114! Or go Team Ontario! If a Superbowl, TV style event happens, and the Championship acts as a qualifier for it you really need to design the event contestants for a TV audience. The community still has the ability to do IRI type stuff on their own.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Given the responses to this proposal so far, doesn't it seem like most of the teams want to congregate at a single location?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I really would like to see an actual champion alliance that results. As it is with championships, we're (somewhat) randomly placed into divisions already, so if we were in Galileo and 254 was in Newton and 1114 in Curie (sorry to keep picking on these two teams), we were never going to play against each other anyway. I think what could happen is we have division champions, but we have Einstein a couple weeks later in another location where all the division winners come play tournament style. I don't like the idea, but it's the only way I think we could fairly crown a victor with separate championship events. I don't like it for two reasons, yet another place to get hotels/need leave for work/etc. And the other is nobody leaves either championship event with any resolution. However, some good could come out of it. It could leave a couple of weeks to hype up the competition. Having just an Einstein field with 8 alliances would be short enough to actually provide a TV special if they found a station that would air it. You also invite representatives of teams that won "Einstein"-level awards and award them live on TV.

Again, this has a lot of flaws, and I would 100% prefer a larger event. However, if it HAS to be split into 2 separate events, winners of both events should play each other at some point.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

This is probably my second biggest issue with the whole concept, playing all your matches in a Convention Center just cheapens the whole experience. FIRST is trying to sell this to us by saying that getting more teams to Championship(s) will increase the number of students that you can inspire, but if you are vastly cheapening the experience by playing in the convention center it will a be much less inspiring experience. I'm so disappointed...

Welcome to the FIRST Robotics Expo.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'm not sure that geographically-determined alliances are less compelling for TV. Think about "up close and personal" at the Olympics (as incredibly annoying as those are to specific sport fans). TV LOVES storylines, particularly for sports/events that viewers are less familiar with. The Super Bowl doesn't need them, but the networks use it for badminton at the Olympics.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I strongly urge that many of you who are concerned about this organize yourselves to make a set of coherent alternative proposals to present at the town meeting. Given the likelihood that the locations are contractually locked in, keep those sites in your proposal structures.

I also suggest that you start a new thread to organize this presentation, and select specific presenters. Also prepare presentation materials, and even budget and manpower estimates. The more professional and complete, the more seriously it will be taken.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

It is quite a different experience playing in a stadium and watching from those seats than it is playing in a convention center sitting on bleachers. I drove in division finals in 2009 and coming out and playing in a stadium was a crazy experience

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I was involved with FRC for three years and am now a first year mentor. My team was started in 2013 and up until this year, my team has never qualified for worlds. In 2013, I was named a Dean's List finalists and traveled to worlds with my mom and two of my mentors. The experience of walking around the pits and meeting teams from all over the world inspired me to do everything I could to get my team there one day to experience the energy and atmosphere that is unique to the world championships. When I returned home from St. Louis, I was beyond excited to get a start preparing the team for the future year's competition, but was disappointed when my team was not as enthusiastic as I was. Going into the 2014 season, my team went through some major challenges including losing our work space and being kept from our shop for over a week due to snow. Almost half of our team were seniors and most of them had "seniority" and barely showed up. Our team turned into a small group of dedicated students who spend every waking hour working on robotics. To keep us motivated, we would often live stream other regionals while we worked, in particular waterloo. I remember seeing how excited the other kids on my team were to see teams such as 254 and 1114 compete, and I remember how excited I was when I was able to tell them that I had met students from the teams at worlds and gotten to see their past robots in person. Fast forward to this year. I am now in college but have come back to mentor my team, particularly in outreach with the goal of winning EI or RCA. Most of the students I was working with on the team had never watched a chairmans video or heard of any of the big teams, so I gave them the assignment of watching the HoF chairmans videos from the past several years. Just this task alone got them inspired to work their butts off when they realized that for the past 13 years, our team has been doing the same things as some of these teams and our team could actually win an award. And they did. My kids won the EI award at the Peachtree regional and were invited to worlds for the first time in our team's history. I have never seen my team so excited because all of their work paid off and they earned a spot at worlds instead of just piggybacking off of another team or getting a wildcard spot. Since finding out that they are going to worlds, all they can talk about is how excited they are to meet the big teams and possibly get to play with them. I know for a fact that one of the guys on the team will full on fangirl if he gets the chance to meet 254, and quite honestly, nothing makes me more proud. I know that the experience of getting to be at worlds with all of the teams that they look up to will help my team be inspired to continue doing well and push themselves. My fear with the spilt of worlds into two championships is many more teams will be able to qualify for worlds without earning it, and will be less inspired to work harder next year if they know that they can just slide by and still make it. Also, every team has those couple of teams that they idolize, and getting to meet them is basically like meeting a celebrity. If there are two championships, teams may never get to meet their idols and compete with them which makes them less motivated to get to worlds in the future. I'm sorry for how long this post is but FIRST really did shape me into who I am today and I want future students to be able to get the experience that I got out of it!

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Connor,
Emphasis mine and really? Who are we talking about? The people who are FIRST employees who deal with the administrative logistics of FIRST or the volunteers in terms of coaches/mentors/field volunteers? Please explain. I only ask because somewhere else in this thread one poster got irritated with another because they felt like they were being told to just 'sit down and accept this...' Are you really saying that anyone who happens to be reserving judgment or may even like this idea should quit FIRST?

popnbrown
Emphasis mine and definitely agreed!!

Kevin
Ditto. LSR is our home event and has been very well run over the course of our 8 years there. I have no doubt that GRB and Houston teams would give a heck of a Texas welcome to everyone!

LeelandS
To be honest I skimmed some of them because now it's up to 43 but me too. I completely understand that everyone has been caught off-guard and wanted to vent but please remember that our students are reading this too...prime example below...

AndrewPospeshil
Out of the mouths of babes…

As far as districts go, remember that not everyone is there yet, not everyone is sold on the idea yet, and we are being pushed to have them in place by 2017. This means that 2017 will be a double-whammy year for many teams (move from regionals to districts and the championship split). Personally speaking, if you have that many concerns step up and volunteer to be on a committee to help steer things.

I also know that several things were said to me recently by different parties that I will leave here with you.

• “Entry into championships is going to become a more difficult goal to attain.” – It seems to me that the split makes champs easier to get into. The only thing I can guess from this statement combined with 'the announcement' is the eventual implementation of an ultimate champ model that is only attainable via the two championships.
  
• “Dean’s vision is to have FIRST programs in every school.” – In light of this the two championships makes sense. More opportunities to advance to a national level.
  
• “Big changes are coming.” – Wow…this was an understatement.

The other thing I will point out as far as ‘money grabbing’ etc. is that hosting a regional is insanely expensive and time consuming. Rumor has it that of the four Texas regionals two break-even and two lose money (yes I know this is another reason to push for district play in Texas). How many others are there like ours?

And after 43 pages of ‘venting’ Frank still does get it…

Franks Blog

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Folks,

I have a question. What do the many people posting in this thread want to accomplish?

Venting or registering your opinion is interesting, but ... I haven't seen many people write that they plan to do A at B (or tell A to B) in order to accomplish C.

If you want to affect the plans for 2016 (doubtful), the plans for 2017 (maybe), or the plans for 2018 (decent chance), I recommend finding the person or place that accepts inputs/votes/advice from folks like you, and uses those to influence what will happen in 2016/2017/2018.

I suspect that getting virtually bent out of shape (or not) here in a CD thread is not the most effective way to exert your influence. It can be interesting, it can be fun, it can be an outlet, but ... I don't think it is the most effective way to influence FIRST's plans.

I suggest mulling things over for a while, and then investing some time in a method that will be (more) effective.

Blake

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Well, this is a discussion forum, so I'm not entirely sure what else you expect to happen here.
There isn't one.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

That's what we're doing. See http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...Were-Listening--FIRST does listen to CD. I do agree that this thread grew very quickly (and perhaps got a bit out of hand), but the fact that everyone feels so passionately about this subject made FIRST take a look.

There's CD. It's not official, but it does work. I doubt the answer to Q461 would have been changed otherwise, and the same for the follow up blog post about the split champs.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

So I mentioned to a rookie parent that they were splitting champs to Houston and Detroit. He's not from this country and the first thing out of his mouth was "Why wouldn't they do east coast/west coast?"

Really, Houston and Detroit? Last I looked, the US is longer than it is tall. Pretty simple geometry proof can be inferred here.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Trust me, for exerting the sort of influence most folks writing here appear to want to exert, there are better avenues than CD. Finding them (it's not that hard), and learning how to use them, is an exercise left up to the reader.

For those authors who simply want to do some discussing of this particular done-deal. This is a great place to do that.

Blake
PS: CD is also a great place to do many other things - I love it; and I hold its owners/admins in very high regard.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

There are many things wrong with this approach, meanwhile the number of things that are right seem either insignificant or feel nonexistent. It was said that "We would like more teams to have the Championship experience." Well by being in FRC for now five years I define the "Champs experience" by being able to see the amazingly design robots from all across the World. It's been said that "It's about the journey not the destination." -Carolee Dean I always have viewed the Inspiration aspect as the build season, not the competition. If we don't find a winner, you defeat the purpose of a Competition. The name no longer fits the game. FIRST should just change the name to FIRST ROBOTICS LEAGUE (FRL). By not crowning a World Champion the reason OF the World Championship is now brought into question.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Frank specifically noted in the new blog post that they will be looking into how to handle having two winning alliances from the championships.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

That means they dont have one in the plan they are putting forth for the future of Champs. So, as of now, we wouldnt have a single World Champion Alliance.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'm not sure it's that simple. You can't look at the US in terms of land. I think you need to look at it based on team density. If you were to split the US down the middle I would say that the number of teams in the Eastern half of the US is over 80%. (that map is from 2013, so maybe it's different now?)

If anyone has a lot of time on their hands, or knows a way to do it quickly, I would be interested to hear the best 2 cities to minimize driving distance for the majority of teams so that it could be split into two equally populated Super Regionals. I don't know where to draw the line, but I would say Everyone from Illinois over would be considered a "West" team. Maybe East/West is the best way, but I haven't heard anyone actually give a better suggestion when they are complaining that North/South is wrong.
(For the record Detroit is maybe a 10.5 hour bus instead of a 9 hour bus for my team, and neither is as warm and as I'd like)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

So I've been thinking about ways to potentially make the proposed system work. The one that makes the most sense in my mind goes like this:

1. Hold the two Championships and go about the things that Championships do (except maybe changing the name to something like Super Regional).
2. Each Championship will have FOUR divisions.
3. Each division finalist will be invited to a Grand Championships to crown a true Champion. Thus EIGHT alliances from each "Super Regional" (SR) and a total of 64 teams invited.
4. The division winners will advance to Einstein at each SR to determine a Champion of the event.
5. Each of the 16 alliances advancing to the Grand Championships will play 15 matches (One against every other competing alliance) to determine seeding for the Final Tournament. The winners of the two SR will be awarded the top 2 seeds and number 1 will be determined by the 15 matches.
6. Conduct the Tournament as normally run to determine a true Champion.

I believe this could work, but I think it would work best in an EAST/WEST system where the Grand Championships would be held somewhere in the Midwest.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Writer's block on a presentation I'm giving at a conference in late May shifted my attention to this ripple in the FIRST universe which was throwing off strong enough of a signal for me to log in to CD for the first time in years and pitch in some commentary.

I haven't been too terribly involved in FIRST since 2012 when 66 and 470 we're still separated by school district. I pondered volunteering this year, but didn't get past getting an account on VIMS. Before 2012, my years of heavy involvement in FIRST were between 2002 and 2008, my wonderful teenaged life.

So about this shift in championship event scheduling and locating. First of all: yay Detroit! There's a lot to be excited about that city, and this only adds to it.

Second, some questions for you all:

1. Are you networking within and outside of your teams?
2. Are you critically analyzing (AKA: studying) what makes a great team and vice versa?
3. Do you have a working strategy on 1 and an evolving conclusion on 2?

If you're good on these three, relax. Changes in competition structure aren't going to do squat against your bulletproof strategy that works not only in FIRST but also life overall.

We have the internet, so if there are now a couple of Championship events, study the best of the best at your assigned event, and compare with the others you can find online. Thought experiments are fun and a great exercise. It may not compare too terribly to actually being there, but it's certainly better than expending $$$ and limited resources that doing so would require.

Now, given most of you are going to/will be going to university or college (I went to community college before university FWIW), let me rewrite that 3 part strategy in the form of questions:

1. Are you networking within and outside of your College/University, ensuring your network is a diverse set? Scholarships and interships/post-graduation work are hard to get, but your chances will increase greatly if you do this.
2. Are you studying hard, and focusing on what makes a response/answer to things/questions of academic/scientific merit valid (not necessarily 'correct', though it is a goal to aim for)?
3. Do you have a working strategy on 1 and an evolving conclusion on 2?

I believe if you ask yourself these 3 things, as simplistic of a model as it is, you're not going to be in bad shape. Study hard and smart, treat it like you would any job (some of you probably have a word about this, but I'm making a good faith assumption here), and be sure to have some fun in college/university, it helps.

Additionally, forms of these three questions are good to continually ask yourself in the workforce, which given I've been in it for 3 years now, I can safely say is quite a frenzy. No real 'winners' out here, just the occasional flash of success which we celebrate after work every time they occur.

Which leads me to my final point:

TL;DR - The commentary here in this thread is great, but our prince/princess is in another castle, or more directly our championship event(s) is(are) on a different field.

My gut feeling is that this will be a more sustainable strategy going forward, given the way competition structures and necessary logistics have evolved over the time I've known FIRST.

That's about it from me. Good luck out there!

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Unfortunately, any idea that requires another event between the two championships (to suppose, determine a single winning alliance) is tough to do. Someone has to pay for the travel, lodging, meals, etc, and if it's the teams, that's not good, some may even decline to go due to costs, then what do you do? Call the whole thing off? Bring in a substitute team?

Not to mention, as it stands, the Detroit Championships will be the weekend before AP exams, which really sucks for all those students getting home on Sunday morning, all exhausted. The finals event would have to be way later, or else they can cause students to miss the exams, among other scheduling conflicts involving missing school in general and for mentors, missing work.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Ah, I forgot to include that FIRST should pay the travel expenses for all teams attending. Another thing, since they want many teams to attend Championships, they could reduce the cost of going to the first Championship from $5000 to $2500 or even be free since the teams that are going to Championships earned their way there and since FIRST is, of course, a non-profit entity. Depending on team size, that money could be used to feed the students.

As for the AP exam conflict, I believe that this Grand Championship would have to be held during the middle of May, or maybe even June to avoid graduation conflicts. Each Super Regional also should be held on the same weekend.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

You're right. I was terribly unclear as to what specific idea I was referencing; a clear, well-worded post was difficult to produce out of the anger and disappointment of the moment. I'm not backing down from what I originally said, so I won't delete my original post. Consider this one though to be my level-headed post that I hope will clarify my intentions for the original. I was referring to those employees willing to sacrifice one of the greatest things about this program with no warning and no input from the community whatsoever. The trust and transparency being developed with the community up until this point was completely betrayed by this surprise decision, and that's an unacceptable way of managing this program.

A drastic change such as this should have been proposed to the FRC community, whose responses to such a proposal should have been used to shape an ideal path forward to accommodate the growth of the program. Even if their current plan is to eventually arrive at a super regional model that sends teams to a single championship, there has to be a better solution than splitting championship as the intermediary stage between now and then. World championship isn't just the event where we compete to determine the FRC champion for the year. It's the experience of getting to meet and interact with all of the greatest teams from around the world. It's about the friendships and camaraderie developed between these teams that transcend state and national boundaries.

The championship is as special as it is because all of these teams have the opportunity to gather in one place to compete with and learn from one another. I'm not interested in a format where only the two winning alliances of the two championships get to meet teams from the other region. I want the FRC season to culminate in one single world championship event, a finale that this program deserves. All of the other high school sports may end at the state level, but FRC is not like all of those other sports. It's better, so we should have a competition structure that reflects that fact. The students involved in those other sports don't get to meet other students from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, China, etc. That is an experience that you can't get with any of those other programs, and I don't understand how we could even consider taking that chance away from everyone.

With this two championships model, it's true that more teams than ever before will be able to meet a select few teams from around the world in a championship environment. But you have to ask yourself, is that really worth dividing this community into two halves that will have almost nothing to do with each other? It's time for people to realize that not every team will be able to compete at a world championship. We may like to be inclusive, but that's simply not realistic. Hopefully someday we will have these super regionals right before a championship that provide the "championship experience" to teams that would otherwise never get the chance, but until then most teams will be left out because most teams aren't of the skill level that a world championship should be at.

Don't get me wrong. Just because I believe champs should be at a high skill level, doesn't mean I'm against rookie all stars, waitlist teams, and Chairman's teams attending world championship out of fear that some of them could "dilute" the competition. I'm not against teams that may not have earned their way there with their robot. I AM against the way they plan to diminish the championship experience in order to "provide inspiration" to an increasingly large number of teams at the expense of those currently earning their way into the championship. There are other methods of inspiration.

tl;dr The world championship is sacred, and should not be touched. Don't ruin the best event of the season.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Some schools get out in june, maybe not a ton, but there are a good few.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I think the comments from others about the FLL competition structure are pretty enlightening. In FLL, pretty much no-one goes to champs, and for the VAST majority of teams, you only see people in your region.

That's pretty much a preview of the future of FRC. The program is going to keep growing, barring a complete collapse of the economy. Champs as currently constituted is pretty much as big as it can get. Eventually, a monolithic Champs won't be able to handle even just the teams that qualify at DCMPs and Regionals. Heck, the 56 regionals this year can qualify up to 336 teams for Champs. It's no surprise they had to bump the capacity. Eventually, FRC would have to slap another qualifying layer in there of super regionals and drastically limit the teams that make it to Champs. And then, for the vast majority of teams, you're only ever seeing people from your region and you're not competing against the best of the best. It really just seems to me like this is mostly just a surprise implementation of Super Regionals. I'm sorry the future has gotten here more suddenly than we all expected, but it did have to happen at some point.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

The comments about FLL were actually intended to prove that there is no good reason we need to expand champs. FLL is doing wonders, could be better, but they are doing fine with a ridiculously small qualification %age. This doesn't need to be the future, and by no means is it inevitable.

The solution is to expand and hype up district champs, and leave world champs alone. Since they have contracts, we move FLL/FTC to one, and FRC to the other, which really sucks, but it's the lesser of all the evils. If they absolutely need to have two FRC events, in an ideal world all the divs come together and have an Einstein "regional" ? You have divisional WFA and CA award winners who compete there as well? I don't like the idea of having two WCA teams, not because teams aren't deserving, but that it cheapens the award win for past teams to some extent.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

It would be a foolish contract indeed, that failed to spell out ways for the parties to terminate it early.

At this stage—years in advance—it might be as simple as forfeiting a down payment. So it might be worthwhile to consider what price you'd put on some other championship arrangement. Would the world be a better place if FIRST forfeited (for example) $50 000 to a venue operator, and arranged the event(s) to your liking?

(And even if it was a foolish contract with no way out, there's always the implicit option to negotiate for an amendment.)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I get how this might benefit teams that don't often get the chance to attend the World Championship event, but how are spectators and potential future participants going to feel about this? By making these events more inclusive we're also diluting the competition, and I can't think of a bigger turnoff for spectators who expect to see the highest level of play. People are inspired by the best teams and the best players. The biggest stages draw the biggest crowds because it is the most exciting. Kids want to become sports players and achieve big things because they watched guys like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Rodger Federer, and Michael Phelps. Making a single championship event where only the best of the best compete is in FIRST's best interests because it will draw the biggest crowds and will convert the most spectators into fans and participants.

I get why they're doing this, but it's completely misguided in my opinion. Almost no one gets to be the best, but that has never stopped any kid from trying.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Man, FIRST is out in full force trying to win over Michigan to go with this bad idea.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

For those not watching the webcast, care to elaborate?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

They've got Dean and Dan Bossi there from FIRST and the Governor hyping up one of the championships being in Detroit.

*I've gotta say, it feels super weird to say, "one of the championships."*

Re: Future First Championship News
 

The eventual dual "Championships" being hosted in states with significant state government influence in FIRST affairs is certainly interesting.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'd wonder if it were the other way around? I might not have read your comment correctly, but it seems to suggest that Texas/Michigan governments are exerting undue influence over FIRST's decisions.

FIRST has successfully made ground with both state governments (Michigan more so than Texas... but growing in Texas), and perhaps they are able to secure additional state funding or preferential contracts on the the event locations. With the inability to satisfy the FIRST growth model in St. Louis*, the loss of leverage on pricing that occurs when you have an incumbent location, and the discussions around the future of the Rams... I could see a situation where financially and logistically, the move makes sense.

* - This isn't saying I agree with the model (or don't), just that the model FIRST is putting out shows growth to the 800+ FRC team mark attending championships in the next 2-3 years.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

There is no "correct" way to read my comment, as I merely noted a parallel between physical championship locations and strong governmental support of FIRST within those states.

I draw no further conclusions from this reality.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

In that case... neither do I :) And I also note the parallel, and I don't think it is over-reaching to say that that strong government support could have been an influencing factor in FIRST decision, and strong government support might have led to secondary benefits for FIRST in their location selections.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

My guess is that the two cities have been trying to get the championship for a while and figured they had a good chance being centrally located. More eastern and western cities didn't think they had a chance because of their location. When FIRST started brainstorming cities, Detroit and Houston came up because they had probably already made a decent offer assuming that they had a good chance of getting it. Meanwhile cities in the east and west didn't know it would be split, so they didn't bother trying to bring it to them.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Where is the Webcast?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Amen...and double-amen.
I am getting tired of hearing how this was inevitable. Championship does not have to become larger. Championship is special (in part) because it is difficult to attain. If growth is making it so too many teams are qualifying, then raise the standards. This change is huge - much bigger, in my opinion, than mandating districts. That is where the focus should be...and if there are still too many teams, then reduce the number each of those districts send.

District Events -> District Championship -> Single FRC Championship...and for the remaining cases where districts are not viable Regional -> Regional Championships -> Single FRC Championship.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Having a Championship in Detroit is the thing that makes the most sense out of all of this. Michigan has 347 teams already. Ontario has 175. Ohio has 75. Indiana has 61. That's a very sizable portion of FIRST within a few hour drive. With or without the explosion of teams in Michigan in the last couple years progressing into future years, the Great Lakes region is already incredibly dense for FRC.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

A few thoughts on this:

My team last went to Championships in 2012, my first year, and I can tell you guys: yes, it is an experience, and an amazing one at that. FIRST recognizes that, and I think teams like mine do as well. I'm inclined to think that those who object strongly to having two championships are associated with teams that are invited very frequently if not routinely, and don't appreciate how much it means to teams for whom attending the championship is an incredible achievement. I honestly don't understand why so many people are angry at letting more teams go, especially since the number of teams in the world has increased so much. If they stick to one championship, the percentage of teams that attends will get less and less every year, meaning every team that isn't a consistent powerhouse will have less and less hope of attending.

Our team of course is excited about the Detroit Championships, since Detroit is about an hour away from where we work. But given the massively disproportionate size of FiM, it makes a lot of sense. It would be interesting to see a map of North America where the sizes of states/provinces were proportional to the number of FRC teams they contained; I suspect it would make the choice of Houston and Detroit seem very reasonable.

It's a bit weird to think about having two world champion alliances, but think: right now there isn't a single world champion. There's three. In a couple years there will be six. Perhaps that could be considered diluting the honor, but as a member of a team that is happy just to attend the championships, I'm not going to respect a champion team less for being one of a group of 0.2% of teams instead of 0.1%.

I was excited when I heard the news at MSC this weekend, and honestly I was surprised to see such a backlash. I also don't expect it to have any effect; any organization that reversed massive decisions because of some angry responses online wouldn't have survived nearly as long as FIRST has.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I don't think people are unhappy that FIRST is "letting more teams go". I think most of us would love an 800 team championship event.
But can you really call it a championship event if it's splitting FRC in half?
Now the Detroit Event will be the championships of the North, and the Houston Event will be the championships of the south. I won't be able to see 254 or 148 or 118 or 971 or 1678 or 233 or any of the teams at the other championship ever again.
Most of what makes Championships inspiring is being able to see teams from all over the world you can't see otherwise.

Instead of taking away what makes championships what it is, make DCMP's and regionals more inspiring. MSC is an incredible event because it has all the best teams from all over Michigan and awesome production values.
NECMP is exciting because it has the best of New England concentrated at one place, but it could use the production value of MSC.

Work on getting everyone to districts and making their district championships awesome. Worlds is what it is because of the teams that get to go there. Worlds should be a goal to achieve, not a giveaway.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Additionally, Ontario is expecting to move to districts in the next 1-2 years, and will undoubtedly result in further growth here.

I'm excited for FIRST Championship Detroit to be within a 5-6 hours drive for me. I'm VERY not excited that it will only be half of the championship.

For the Toronto-region teams (which is the overwhelming majority of ON teams), MI/OH/IN and to a lesser extent PA/Western NY teams, a Detroit Championship DOES have real cost savings.

It should be downright terrifying to HQ that this announcement had many long term, well respected mentors from HOF teams ready to jump ship to another program at the drop of a hat, even if it meant building a new program themselves. It took only a couple pages into this thread for someone to suggest that its time for a vex pro competition to finally offer an alternative competition to FRC in a similar style.

Its easy to say (correctly) that a championshplit will enable more teams to get there and by extension get (most of) the inspiration that going to championship gives. HOWEVER, that's only true if it doesn't come at the expense of disillusioning the elites. They're the ones who MAKE that championship level so inspiring. If they jump ship because they want to actually compete to be the best in the world, then the inspiration evaporates in a really big hurry.

Most of those super-elite teams (the 1114s, 254s, 118s and 148s of FRC) build their season with the goal of WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP. Its the goal that drives them to the level of excellence they achieve, and its that excellence that makes them so inspiring to the other teams they play with. By splitting the championship, you cheapen that goal and make it less attractive for them to achieve, and their performance may suffer, and ultimately make them less inspiring.

Improving the DCMP/Super-Regional level of play to be more inspiring is the better way to reach greater numbers of teams -- even if it means a smaller grand championship with only the winners and finalists of the DCMP/SR level.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Going from a 400 team format to 800 teams brings in 2,000,000 more money in registration fees alone. Every extra team that "earns" a spot to Champs via wait list or wildcard, means more $$$ for FIRST.
I can see HQ not wanting 1 venue's constraints getting in the way of that if true.
Even if we all could make the DCMPs and regionals more inspiring, that won't be the trade off to limiting Champs.
As much as I personally agree with what you are saying about keeping Champs a much harder, more prestigious event to get into, the growth of FIRST and other factors have led to this already made decision.
Like you I am disappointed that as currently planned, we won't get to see 1/2 of the teams that we all looked forward to seeing in years past.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I just imagined right now, how different this season would have been had these and other elite teams did not compete this season or years past.
The intangible inspiration provided by these teams can't be measured in dollars and cents, vs everythjng else we have to deal with in terms of affording to participate.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

People keep pointing to this, but WHO are these mentors? Yes, I see a lot of talk here, a lot of people upset, but I see ALSO a lack of comment from many more well-respected mentors and members from HOF teams.

I keep seeing people pointing out how upset SO many people are, but there's just as many, if not more, people who are NOT commenting and instead are waiting for more information.

It's important that people make their opinions known if it makes themselves feel better, but it's just as important to NOT exaggerate or make it seem like ALL OF FIRST is upset about this.

Not that I'm a HOF mentor, or WFFAA, or even "well-respected" by many, but I'm not worried about this development at all. Having gone through the transition to districts TWICE (once in Michigan and now once in Indiana), what I see more than anything is that once change happens, FRC teams are adaptable, despite analyzing and agonizing about it when it first is announced.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I was referring to Jared and Cory of 254 specifically, whose posts can be read earlier in this thread, as well as the others that have been implied through reading this thread.

While I'm quite certain that some degree of their posts was simply them being inflammatory to get a reaction, a change that has any HOF mentors even questioning their involvement and whether FIRST's goals continue to align with their own needs a serious looking at.

Yes, the HOF/Otherwise Super-elites are a minority, and so its easy to say that this change really only upsets a minority of teams that want to compete at the highest level. They account for less than 100 of the ~3000 teams in FIRST. However, they disproportionately account for a large portion of the inspiration. Without them, I think the program ultimately would not survive, and so decisions which cause them to question their involvement are scary indeed. Those teams mentor other teams and make the FIRST program better. Consequently, I believe that those teams should be involved in decisions like this, and their input heavily considered.

To use my own region as an example? 1114 is directly responsible for 50+ VRC teams, several FLL teams, as well as the creation or growth of several premier FRC teams, 1503,1680,2056,2166,3683,4039,4476 and more I can't think of right now can all credit 1114 with some part of their existence or competitiveness.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

My point is that 2, or even 3-4, HOF mentors do not speak for MANY or all of them, much less a high percentage of inspirational people in FIRST. Please beware of hyperbole. It creates false alarm and a hive mentality, something that ChiefDelphi usually already has an abundance of.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

In a program designed to change the culture, create exciting new innovations, and challenge status quo standards of thinking and leadership, change is a good thing - not a threat to everything held dear. Granted, change is hard but, it does create opportunities for identifying strengths and weaknesses within the structures and frameworks involved.

My firm belief has always been that there is more room for achieving excellence and for more recognition of excellence achieved. As it is, we are setting limits when there is opportunity to lift them, raising the bar and strengthening the challenge. FIRSTers never shy away from agonizing analysis (love it, Carolyn Grace), discomfort, new ways of growing the programs, and having fun. Never. This is 2015. What new challenges will we be facing in 2020, I wonder.

As an opinion, I also think the way this announcement came about, and the timing of it, has been a strategic part of HQ's plan for rolling this change out. Strategic is the key word. It gives everyone ample time to work through the stages of acceptance/rejection in time for productive discussions in STL across all of the programs impacted.

Jane

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I like how you use accusing me of hyperbole to conveniently skirt the very next thing I say, where I suggest that this announcement making ANY mentors of that caliber question their involvement is scary.

I agree with you that one or two mentors does not a widespread opinion make.

Further, I agree that they are far from a high percentage of the inspirational people in FIRST.

Certainly, there are inspirational people at every step of the FIRST programs, however, the super-elite teams, and the mentors that make them tick (people like Jared and Cory), account for a disproportionate share of the inspiration, both directly through their own personal actions, and indirectly through the actions of their teams and the teams that they mentor, and therefore their opinions should be considered to have more weight when it comes to future ways the program will inspire. If they're not fully on-board, its a potentially massive problem that can jeopardize the very thing that getting more teams to CMP tries to achieve.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I didn't ignore it. My apologies for making you feel like I did. I was pointing out the hyperbole in your original post of You, yourself, said that you were referring to two people in this thread, "as well as others." Two people, plus some others, does not equal "many" people. That was the hyperbole.

I agree that WFA/WFAA and mentors from HOF teams should have their opinions treated with respect and with an air of authority, to a reason. But I've been around FIRST long enough (13+ years), and know enough of them personally, to understand that their opinions rarely line up together.

Not all of them have publicly given their opinions on this subject. Some I've talked to in person and though personal chats. Others, who I personally don't know, haven't publicly expressed their opinion.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Because most of them (dare I say none of them) jump to hasty conclusions. It will likely take them the entirety of the next 2 years to decide whether or not they want to stay with FRC with the recent changes, but the fact that many of them are even considering it is a huge failure for FIRST. If FIRST wants to really have a successful program they shouldn't have all of the largest contributors to their program have half a foot out the door, they should be thrilled to be involved without having so much doubt in FIRST HQ's choices. Of course there will be controversial decisions made by FIRST, but they shouldn't be so controversial that large amounts of veteran mentors and teams are considering leaving over it.

Champs stops becoming meaningful when a third of all teams qualify for it. Why isn't your team just as excited to make regional finals as to make it to CMP? Those will soon become similarly exclusive events. If you claim it's because you get to see other successful teams, well, you won't see most of them anymore because they'll be competing halfway across the country. I'm curious if you happen to discuss finances with the business side of your team, because I'm having trouble seeing why you would be so thrilled to drop $10,000 to go to CMP instead of $1000 to go to district champs and see teams at the same level of competition as you would see in a division at CMP. Is watching einstein live (with only half as many of the teams you're there to see) worth another $9000 in expenses every year? If I were you I would much prefer to go to district champs, not to mention the fact that I would get to play 4x as many matches in the district system instead of at regionals for a lower price.

Personally, I don't care much, but here's the reasoning as I understand it, that most other people don't like it: The word champion loses a lot validity when you no longer crown a champion. Now that you have multiple champions can any of them really say "we are world champions"? Why stop at 2? Why not split the country into quarters and have 4 regional champions? Under your logic is that any less reputable, or garnering of respect than 2 champions?

The difference is that most of the people involved in FIRST aren't internet trolls. That's just my opinion though.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'd like to make a really crazy suggestion here. What if, maybe, somehow, in some way, against all odds, this all works out for the better?

What if, maybe, increasing the percentage of teams going to champs is a GOOD thing?

What if, maybe, giving mid-tier teams, who aren't world famous, a chance to see and interact with elite teams, even if its just one, helps inspire them?

What if, maybe, those teams learn something from this interaction with even one elite team?

What if, maybe, those mid-tier teams act on this new knowledge and start to vastly improve?

What if, maybe, they become successful, and gain sponsors and support?

What if, maybe, they become the "new elites?"

And finally, what if, maybe, they become the new source of inspiration in FIRST?

Is such a thing even possible? Am I crazy for thinking that this WON'T "water down" championships? That the disparaging and disappointing remarks by some are short-sighted? That the "alarming" (trying to be polite) phone call to some low-level FIRST staffer just trying to help teams get to this year's championship was not necessary? Is it possible that this might actually help fulfill FIRST's mission (which, BTW, makes no mention of "robots" or "competition")?

Re: Future First Championship News
 

It's possible that I wake up tomorrow and start shooting lightning from my hands and ride a unicorn to work. The idea that I think that would actually happen to me would probably cause a lot of people more experienced in biology and zoology who think otherwise to be very concerned for me and my mental faculties.

I'm not publicly advocating for holding one championships, two championships, or 422 championships, but there are people who have been in FIRST twice as long as I have that think this could not be a net benefit for teams.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

What can I say? You gotta dream big.:D

Fair enough. For the record, I've been a part of FIRST since '99, when they first went to alliances. Our teacher and 3 veterans quit because it "watered down" the competition. I think things turned out fine. I don't know how this will turn out, just like anyone else. Just consider nothing has to be a failure until you make it so.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I agree with you and don't understand why people are making those arguments. The greatest part of champs isn't purely the competition. As you said, things like alliances and divisions already bring down the level of play.

What makes champs great isn't the robots, it's the people. It's Karthik's presentation, it's talking to 254's students about their robot, it's a strategy discussion with Kyle Hughes, it's seeing old friends, it's meeting all of the passionate and dedicated students and mentors from all the teams you've seen on livestreams for the past few months.

And this decision will take that greatness and cut out it's heart. Champs brings everybody together, this will split it in two.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

My thoughts on this:

We can't do anything about it for the next few years so live with it for now.

For those of us who have gone to Champs we know how awesome and inspiring it is. If FIRST is going to live up to its name and inspire kids and the public about STEM then it needs to reach a lot of people. This makes it so the maximum number of people can go to these events. And with the size to which FIRST has grown it is hard to get a decent percentage of teams into one event. So FIRST's intentions were good in making this move.

Now I know this makes it so that the winners are not completely the champions of the world, but all that needs to be done is have IRI or some off-season event have those alliances come and play each other for the unofficial-official championship.

Lastly, when the time comes to restructure again there are many routes to chose from. IMHO moving to an all districts/state championship format would be the best. Seeing how successful the current districts and state championships are this would be a great option. Also this would be more like other sports with more levels of play (district event, district championship, Nationals). From what the webcast showed the MSC event is similar to Champs in the atmosphere created at the event, so instead of one you get two events with festivities of Champs if you are lucky enough to go to both.

Have a great day. :)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Thanks Antonio. The people of FIRST (especially the students) are what have kept me involved all these years. I know that makes this difficult, but Einstein said "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." This is a chance for new friends to be made and new role models to rise up. I don't think that's too bad.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

After thinking about it for a while, and taking with some people (some of them highly respected people in FIRST), I'm starting to think that it won't be as bad as we think. As someone pointed out below, when FIRST moved to alliances, many thought that it "diluted" or "watered down" the competition. And it didn't. I remember these discussions about switching to districts. Many people thought it would be awful. And it wasn't. It happens every year with the game discussions, and for the most part, it usually turns out okay.

I do have problems with the locations and venues they chose for this, and I understand that it may be impossible to have a 800-team championship. This could have been handled much better, and better solutions could have been made. But as far as the discussions about not having a "real" winner and all the boos and hisses about this, I can't help but think: FIRST isn't about the robot, is it? It's not inspiring to have one winner. It's inspiring to see these other teams, even if through a webcast or a revea video. It's the EXPERIENCE of champs itself.

Who knows, maybe this is a hybrid between when they can get districts everywhere. Maybe after districts are everywhere they can reevaluate the one champ model, but maybe they will outgrow the championship for a few years, and this is their TEMPORARY solution. We don't know.

But there is nothing we can do about it now but offer suggestions to improve their decision. There is nothing we can do but wait it out and see what happens. We all go through acceptance processes. I was right there on the bandwagon, too. But I've seen this thread move from 100% negative to showing some positive voices through the cracks. In time, this may be the new norm, just like districts, alliances (even regionals were new at one point), and we will learn to deal.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

It is. Just not at the cost of splitting champs.

It probably will. Just there is a higher chance of being inspired at a single championships.

They can, will, and have done this at regionals and District champs, nothing unique about champs other than more elites in one place which two championships doesn't do.

They will, just probably to a lesser extent. Many teams have shown that this is the case, and have fantastic seasons.

They will, they have before.

Every team is an inspiration in FIRST. They will just become a larger one.

The problem is NOT that:

- More teams are qualifying
- The venues are closer (to some teams)
- It dilutes quality of the event

The problem is:

- You are making an event where the entire world meets in one place non-existient or exclusive to semi-championship winners
- You making the best event in the world more meh.
- You split the community in half. Which is never a good thing
- You might devalue HOF teams by adding two a year.
- It removes some of the most inspirational teams from your event.

Good things are:

- Provides another avenue for average teams to be elite.
- Closer to some teams.

Everyone is focused on the wrong problems here. Nothing is worth splitting the community for. We simply can't do that. Having two championships isolates north from south.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Something to think about: I would guess at least 90% of FIRST participants don't know who Karthik and Kyle Hughes are, don't know anything about team 254, have no old friends in FRC outside of their area, and don't watch any livestreams. This is certainly true of everyone on my team, which includes many people who are very dedicated to FRC--that is, to building our robot and participating in our competitions. And it's true of the teams that will be able to go to championships now when they wouldn't have before, that is, the teams that this change is intended to help. After a visit to championships, even if it only covers half the country, a student might be inspired to start watching livestreams of events in other regions, or to look out for 254's robot. If they never go, they will probably only ever have a vague awareness of FRC teams out of their region.

Not to be impolite, but many people seem to think that because most people on an internet forum agree with them, their opinion is held unanimously by all FRC teams, and FIRST must reckon with it. It's important to keep in mind that this change is specifically targeted at teams whose voices are unlikely to be heard in this discussion.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Feel free to come out next year. I've heard the weather is nicer here ;)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'd like to see what HoF teams think about this move. HoF induction has gotten pretty cutthroat in the last 3-4 years and it's definitely not going to be any easier to pick one team over the other as years go on and more teams pile up more RCA/DCCA wins.

Re: Future First Championship News
 

I'm actually thinking that this is more correct. My hunch is that these aren't going to replace the Championship for long, but eventually they'll replace the DCMPs in whole or in part and there will be a Championship again.

Think about it this way: How many district systems are currently in play? (5) How many areas are seriously thinking about going district? (I've heard of at least 2-3 more; other areas have grave concerns about some aspects of the idea and may take some "convincing".) How much of FRC do those district systems cover currently? (About 28%, so give-or-take a third) But it's taken 7 long years from the announcement and all the flack at that time to get to those 5 district systems covering a third of the competition. I'm guessing that in about 10 years, we'll see a Championship again, could be sooner if Districts take off all over the place. (And, I remember hearing a way long time back that FIRST did want those smaller events all over the place rather than the larger events. This is back when alliances were still a new idea, as I recall. Definitely before autonomous was a thing.)

Re: Future First Championship News
 

Yeah, there are plenty of deserving teams out there. One could argue it's like an alliance winning championships, but then again, alliances you work closely together. And yeah I don't come from a HOF team, but as a non-HOFer that's just my gut feeling.

Well temporary good/bad isn't really acceptable either?