Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

You wrote this "No, the existence of so many counter-examples for every example cited on any side of this discussion means that there is more than one pathway that potentially will not lead to failure. This is an entirely different thing that saying there are multiple ways that will lead to success."

I wrote this "The existence of so many counter-examples of success for every example of success cited on any side of this discussion means that there is more than one path to success. It's almost certainly not an either-or topic."

I *am* saying that I think there are many path to success (and I am pretty sure that I am right).

I will also say that I'm pretty certain that the multi-dimensional mechanisms involved in making FRC a success are weak and chaotic enough to make building a useful model of the sort you are implying, nearly impossible; and to make building one through a CD thread nearly impossible^2. YMMV.

In addition, IMO, this thread has dragged on far enough. I have been part of the problem the last few days. If there is anything new to say, someone say it. I for one am trying to close my sub-topics.

Blake

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Fun Fact: There was an era when there was no Super Bowl and multiple professional football champions.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I know. I also know that the superbowl basically a beast unto itself when comes to American cultural phenomena.

I don't think anyone here trying to build a model; we're just trying to debate mechanisms. Those are what make pathways.

Agreed. I hereby commit going cold turkey. I have no idea if this is the correct approach and have never tried it before. To anyone who continues, feel free to mentally envision all my witty retorts. :p

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I continue posting in these threads because I find it interesting to try and understand what motivates us, and then because when I think I might have figured out something, someone finds a hole in my theory, so I reconsider it. I think (hope) after this I'm done though. I think I've said most of this before anyway.

---

FRC is interesting because among the students they try to attract are those who wouldn't otherwise be interested in STEM, but are drawn in because of the sports twist, and those who are already interested in STEM, and are looking for a competition. Not only that, but many students stay as mentors, some of whom are kept in because of the competition.

For the program as a whole, the split does not and will not matter. For the program as a whole, getting two winning alliances does not and will not matter. For the program as a whole, losing specific teams does not and will not matter. FRC as a program can and will go on, regardless of whether it has the same feel to it. (Note about losing teams: I don't think this will actually happen, but even if it did, it wouldn't have an impact on the entire program)

For many/most students, the split, getting two winning alliances, and losing specific teams will not change their experience in FRC either as a STEM program or as a competition. For many/most teams, the split, getting two winning alliances, and losing specific teams will not change what they do. Even for many/most mentors, the split, getting two winning alliances, and losing specific teams will not affect their opinions on the program.

I don't know. Maybe it really doesn't matter that much. Maybe I just don't get it. The more I think about it, the more confused I get. All I know is that to me, even when I wasn't there, it mattered.

We didn't make it to champs in 2014, so I followed the matches through webcasts. Following it as 400 teams was narrowed down to 16, then to 8; tracking the blurry robots cross the screen; holding my breath as the scores climbed and climbed; watching as 254, 469, 2848, and 74 broke the Curie Curse and won--there was a magic to it. Something that made me determined that someday I would understand how they did that. So much has happened since then. I've spent hours sorting through match and OPR data, following robot reveals, and watching webcasts. We made it to champs this year, and I watched Einstein in person. But so much began at champs last year, the one year my team wasn't there.

That's why I'm so torn on this. Because I felt the magic even just through webcasts. Because I watched it to see the final matches, but got so much more. I don't know if I would have paid attention if there were two champs, or if it was a final set of matches played after champs--maybe I would have. I've always associated champs with my obsession with FRC, and with one of the main goals of many mentors and top teams. But maybe in two years I'll look back on this and realize it wasn't nearly as important as I thought. Maybe the mentors who stay on do it for completely different reasons. Maybe top teams are motivated for completely different reasons. But until then I'll remember it as one of the moments that have inspired and pushed me more than almost anything else.

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gblake, to respond to your question about drama:

There are indisputably many, many people who participate in countless activities knowing they will not be winning a trophy. But are they really not winning or competing in their own way? I honestly don't know. I will bring up three very different activities I've been part of:

1. When I help at the kids class at Aikido, the children there definitely do care about their rank. Testing days are not competitions, but they are a way for students to show what they know and to impress their parents and friends. There was a transition a while ago where testing stopped for quite some time, and there was a noticeable difference in how they practiced.

2. I used to do sewing/quilting through 4-H, and at the end of each year, everyone had the option to compete in two different ways. Participants who made clothing could take part in a competition where you basically present what you made to judges and answer questions about it. Everyone can also enter their projects into the county fair for it to be displayed and judged. It wasn't a huge deal for me (I also really disliked presenting), but for some kids, these competitions were a large part of the motivation to finish a difficult project.

3. I geocache on and off (or more accurately, I log my finds on and off), but my dad is really into it. There theoretically shouldn't be a competition--you find a box, sign your name on a piece of paper, and log your find online. But it has definitely become one to some people. From having streaks of finding at least one cache a day to certain caches where you get points for solving puzzles to get the coordinates and are ranked against other members, geocaching pulled it's most obsessed members in with the competition it offered--something it's predecessor, letterboxing, never had.

In all three cases, the competitions meant nothing to anyone outside the small group of participants (especially for the first two). In many ways it's the same with FRC--I don't think there are any teams that are famous with non-FRC participants outside of their school. But they have their own audience, their own competitions, and attract their own types of people. FRC has been attracting people not only interested in STEM, but many who are motivated by the competition (or at least I think). Not only that, but they keep many as mentors because of the competition. They will undoubtedly still be attracting students and mentors.

We may never truly know what the effects really are, what experiences are gained or lost, what motivations are changed, what it means in the long run. I do truly believe that the competition a part of FRC that has defined it for a long time. Maybe leaving that isn't that bad. I just know that without it back in 2014, I would have seen things very differently.

/end of my post in split champs threads, and long posts in general, at least for a long time

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

As a student (i know my profile says Alumni, but 2015 is my last year, I graduate in a month), champs has always been the goal for me. I want to win. That's all. I know that FIRST is about learning and whatnot - but we learn during build season, and during reflection of events. In game 2 or game 3 of the finals at a competition - you aren't learning anything. You're doing your goddamn best to win. Don't tell me you aren't - everyone is.

My team went to champs once, for rookie all star, back in 2009. We haven't qualified since (not even waitlist). Everyone wants it, and we try our best to make it. We've made it to playoffs every year since 2012, and came in second place multiple times. So close, yet far away from qualifying. We know what we've done wrong every year, and we learn from it.

By near doubling the capacity of championships, I feel like qualifying will no longer be a special occurrence. I think a lot of people take that for granted - there are teams that go every year or near every year, and it's just another year of FIRST for them. For others, it's the end goal.

You might say doubling the capacity of Champs makes it so these teams can qualify and reach their goal - but to me, it would feel unearned and given to us. Now, winning a competition to qualify would feel like we did earn it - but there must be new ways to qualify come the split.

I mean, either way, I'd be psyched to go. I'm not denying that. But it would definitely feel like I never earned it 'properly.'

It's like having two valedictorians in your class. The second in the class feels great, no doubt, but he/she knows that it's odd being considered a valedictorian despite not being the top of the class.

Just my 2 cents. (I should note I speak on behalf of myself, not my team...)

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

(Siri's response was much better than mine, so I withdraw my comment.)

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

Yep, I lived through it. The AFL wasn't a real threat to the NFL until about 1964. The leagues started negotiating a merged championship in 1966--not too long after that, and the first Super Bowl was in 1967. (I watched the Ice Bowl on TV.) Professional football VERY quickly figured out that a split championship was a big problem.

Baseball figured it out when it merged the World Series in 1903 when the older National League felt sufficiently threatened by the American League.

Notably, high schools have been moving toward singular national championships in many sports as well, which was discussed in another thread.

Convergence, not divergence, of championships has long been a trend. Most splits occur solely because there's a group that wants to enter the sport in some manner but leaves because of a dispute.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I disagree fundamentally because I've lived through a another fundamental change that the governing body dismissed as inconsequential. In my case it is track & field. The sport made a sudden and swift transformation to professionalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (I was involved both as an athlete and a volunteer.) Tennis had made a rather successful transformation in the late 1960s (and I don't know enough about that process to say why) and I think that the IAAF (T&F governing agency) thought that it would end up in the same place with little effort. The IAAF just let the events transform on their own with little (no?) guidance from above. Instead chaos has ruled. Individual athletes only look out for themselves and head to head competition among the very top has disappeared outside of the Olympics and World Championships. A loss in other events is too big of a risk. As a result spectator interest in the sport has plummeted. When Usain Bolt retires (probably after 2016) the sport will lose it's one recognized draw unless some one else spectacular emerges by the Olympics. The sport is on the brink of irrelevancy despite its core role in the Olympics.

I also watched the mismanagement of development of market economies in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Again, entities that could have more directly managed the transition and considered the actual incentives could have helped create a thriving market place. Instead we have Vladimir Putin.

So if I see that an action may be an existential threat to the health of FIRST, which I believe has the potential to be the most transformative change in STEM education, I will act on it. I'm not willing to leave decisions uncontested by a headquarters that I'm not sure is either in touch with the community or demonstrated a good understanding of incentives and motivations. So I'm willing to put a fair amount of energy into trying to influence the community and them (as well as meet with legislators about getting funding for FIRST programs.)

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I'm not seeing the counterexamples where sports aren't moving toward merged championships. Transformation of the BCS to this year's format is current prime example number 1. Why would FIRST want to run counter to repeated lessons?

As for opaque organizational decisions, that they happen doesn't mean that we should stand still for them. The FIFA bribery indictments released yesterday are again current prime example number 1 of trying to change that.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I believe we are now beating a dead horse, but this thread has some of the best and most varied and educated discussion yet on the topic of two championships. As far as TV, we need the airtime to be recognized as a sport, think about it, all other sports get some, so why shouldn't we, and asking networks to provide airtime for two championships would be harder than for one, but more importantly I think that the student perspective MUST be considered, the students are the target of this program, are they not. As mentioned earlier in this thread, being able to say, "my team competed with the best in the WORLD in St. Louis this past weekend and we did well enough to bring home a trophy" catches people's attention, even doing so much as saying, we qualified to compete with the best in the world goes a long way toward gaining support and encouraging other people to become involved. I want to make a comparison here, FIRST, I think we can agree is somewhat on par with high school baseball as far as recognition, we get some, locally, but not on a large scale. Big tech companies like IBM, Tesla, NASA, and others are like the Major League. The direction they seem to be going with two championships seems like a step towards T-Ball, everyone gets a medal, but no one really knows who most of those kids are and writing that you played T-Ball probably won't get you far ahead of Joe Shmoe on a major league team. FIRST needs to be moving towards more of a minor league feel with televised games and spectators who attend because they want to watch the action, not because their child is there. I want to see how this thing plays out for them, is it, by some phenomenon, a huge success, or will it be a massive failure or somewhere in between. Is there any one good answer to the looming question of how we incorporate more teams while not losing the spirit of FIRST, no, there are many good answers, but the fact that this is a challenge we must face is promising, it means that more teams are getting involved, more teams mean more people, more people means more noise, more noise means more recognition, and more recognition means more inspiration. It is good to be out growing our venues and to be pushed to find new ways to do things. As EricH said, there is more than 6 weeks to go, so if we can put together a robot to compete in this event in six weeks then surely we can devise some kind of a solution to the problem at hand.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I'd like to offer my (rambling) historical perspective, as someone who was a student in the early 2000's. As you all know, there used to be no qualifications for championship, you just had to attend a regional to go. Everyone was welcome to compete. our team had only ever won one regional, and usually ranked in the middle of the pack at any given competition. I remember running (walking, actually) to small parts to get spare gears for the winch my teammate and I built our rookie year. I remember winning and losing. I remember seeing a few of the top teams' robots. I also remember playing frisbee and hacky sack, and water balloon ambushing our mentors at the hotel, among other things. I remember all the fun things we did together as friends and teammates vividly.

I had just graduated when FIRST switched to qualifying/using a lottery for champs. I remember feeling a little disappointed at the time because I knew not every student on my old team would get to experience FIRST the same way I did, and even if they did go to championship, they wouldn't get to see all the teams in FIRST. But I also understood why the change had to be made. And, I understood that the best parts of FIRST don't happen at the competition.

There's no question that going to regionals and Nationals was fun, but the truly impactful part of FIRST happened for me in the off-season, when my mentors offered me a summer job doing CAD for their business. I had a "REAL JOB," I thought. I worked in AN OFFICE! I had to be A PROFESSIONAL! I learned more about real life and what's expected of a worker than I could ever begin to imagine. And I had not only FIRST, but a professional job to put on my college resume and scholarship applications. I can't begin to see where I'd be today if I hadn't met my mentors in FIRST. (I also competed in BEST, which was great. It was tons of fun building robots in our friend's garage, but there were no mentors involved in that program.)

When I volunteer at regionals now, I see kids just the same way I was when I was in their shoes, and it makes me smile. They still joke around, they still cheer, and struggle, and dance, and have a good time. I still hear amazing stories from proud mentors about how their students are the best. How much of that will change with duel Championships? Who am I to say? But as long as the fundamentals are intact that gave me the access to opportunity that I had, then I think things will be fine.... for whatever that's worth.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I offer an example simply for the archive of this thread of how having a singular championship appears to have motivated students beyond what we might expect if multiple "championships" were the case. This article in the Atlantic Wire discusses how the frenzy around the Spelling Bee has grown, and students are now spelling words that I have no clue about what they mean. Without the motivation of a final single championship I seriously doubt that any students would dig so deep into the subject. They are pushed to excel by the competitiveness with other students.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

I'll break my silence. I don't think that inspiring near-ludicrous spelling-bee sorts of "excelling" is necessary for doing well at accomplishing FIRST's mission. Coherent arguments can be made for saying that it helps. Coherent arguments can be made that it hinders. I personally think that sort of extremism should be noticed, but not be held up as the model to emulate.

YMMV

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

It's not a model necessarily, but it does illustrate the importance of motivational forces, and that concerns from changing those forces may have significant consequences. In other words, saying "things are unlikely to change" are really unlikely to be true.

Re: ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective
 

One more for the archives: An article from the Atlantic Wire discussing how competitive high school athletes excel in the job market.

I've observed that FRC provides much of the same competitive team experience as athletics, and that the students on FRC teams are probably not likely candidates for varsity athletic teams. (Sorry, that may be a harsh judgement on my part, be as it may.) So FRC provides a competitive team experience that many (most?) of these students would never have otherwise. This study shows that these students may be gaining an experience outside of STEM, and directly related to the competitive team aspect, that benefits them in their career.

Note this last important passage: " This earnings advantage doesn’t appear to exist for any other extracurricular activity."