Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...s-march-4-2016

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Looks like this recommendation is still awaiting FIRST Board of Director approval, two months later?

Bummer that we don't have any more details on the CMP split, over one year after the original half-champs announcement. I won't even know which teams to say goodbye to this week :(

Hoping the FIRST BoD gets their act together.

-Mike

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

This seems like a weirdly detailed piece of planning for the Board to get involved in. Huh.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

What would you do differently if you knew it was the last time you might see someone?
Is it possible to do that even if you might see them again (I would assume most positive responses = yes, most negative responses = no).

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Hey Ike,

I'd take my kids by their pits to ask them questions about their build methods and show them "what if we tried this" or "see how they solved that problem". Many of the top teams in FRC are roles models for me and my kids. I'd want to make the most of those opportunities before half champs.

I'd buy my friends/colleagues a "mentor soda" this week and wish them luck in the future.

So to answer your second question, I guess yes and no.

Probably not great reasons to most, but its valuable to me.

Still holding out hope for 2021.

-Mike

*EDIT* I'll likely be doing lots of this in the coming days regardless. Just would be nice to focus some energies.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

They probably wanted to wait and make the big announcement this weekend at the Championship.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Unlikely as any decision, imo, will prove unpopular. Better to let the last Championship celebration proceed without stirring the pot.

One more example of the difference in degree of difficulty between making a decision and implementing a decision...

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

It seems they are making up for making a quick and rash decision of splitting champs in the 1st place. At least they are semi keeping the population in the loop, granted it takes us asking questions to remind them about it....

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

I would be willing to bet that the split will be geographic--perhaps the Mississippi River will serve as the dividing line? How fitting that that decision is made in St. Louis......;)

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

I will take that bet. The concentration of teams in the NE, Midwest and Great Lakes regions is likely to dictate that even teams in Florida and Georgia will be heading to Houston to join their counterparts from WA, OR and CA.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

After consulting for NGOs for years, I realize how different the FIRST board is in comparison to other NGOs of its size. This is, in comparison, an extremely engaged board. Many sponsor teams and give copious amounts of money to the program. I'm not surprised that they're involved.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Michigan will go to Detroit. Everyone else will go to Houston.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Sounds accurate. Champs in Detroit is really just a Michigan District Championship replay. :D

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

I was under the impression that the impetus for half champs came from the BoD itself, so I assumed they would also want to be involved or in the loop of team distribution.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

I am making the assumption that the spilt will be regionally divided, so it looks like I will be seeing many teams up close for the last time. I imagine this will be my last time seeing teams like 118 and 148, possibly even California teams like 254 and 1678. Still don't know how I feel about the split.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

MSC in Cobo? :yikes: On a serious note, with 800 teams at 2 CMP events, Michigan might need to consider a bigger venue than the DeltaPlex for states.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

#2states?

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

My biggest hope is that they don't intend to do bleacher-style fields in Cobo Hall like they did when the Black Eyed Peas played at Championships. That was an utter failure. It was miserably uncomfortable, there was only about 1/3 the seating that was needed, the sound systems stunk, and the screens were hard to see.

Please let FIRST have learned from that experience.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Rereading this, I better understand the dilemma some areas face. Being near Detroit, I have a pretty good feeling what my FIRST and Championship experience will look like through 2020. Those on the coasts... its a toss up.

I too am holding out for 2021. I still think there is a real possibility to do an offsite Champion of Champions round and have it televised which IMO is the real next step to "Making it Loud". Having helped with production of the MSC specials, I think FIRST could use this years program by Robozone as a template for their future production. IE, some background, some highlights from the two Championship events, and then the second half could be the two teams facing off.
The other format would be show the two FLL winners, then have FTC World Championship followed by FRC World Championship.

****************************
I plan to visit with a bunch of the Texas teams this year as much like the Michigan teams, we pretty well know where we will be in a couple years.

I need to finish my list of teams to see.

IKE

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Is there a different way to have a field in a convention center? The grapevine says that's where FRC will be through division elims, then move to Ford Field for Einstein.

And perhaps one closer to the geographic center of Michigan teams.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

This I think is one of my biggest frustrations with the Split-CMP plan... it is based on the foundational assumption that with split championships more teams will get the "World CMP" level of inspiration with two CMPs. But really, I expect the level of inspiration felt by each team to be much smaller with all the compromises they have to make inherent to the split CMPs and tangentially caused by the split CMPs (less competitive field, only meeting teams from half the country/world, fields in convention center, etc). Honestly, for me those three things were what made CMP so inspiring and exciting as a student... how overwhelmingly competitive the field was, being able to see the very best teams from throughout all of FRC in the pits, and competing in the Georgia Dome, the home of the Olympics (and I mean our team competing in the Georgia Dome, not just the top teams who already felt far-removed from our own). With the split CMP, it won't just be the arena that is cheapened, it'll be all three of those points... That is a recipe for much less inspiration!

I'm still a little surprised FIRST HQ made such a huge, binding, and team-impacting decision without the slightest bit of input from the FIRST community... FIRST HQ (Frank Merrick, specifically, but also all of FIRST HQ to a lesser extent) have really impressed me over the last several years with their team-oriented decisions and the visibility they've allowed... in stark contrast to the 2011 CMP field arrangement debacle where FIRST HQ insisted that somehow all the fields wouldn't fit in the EJD until they mysteriously managed to fit all the fields in 2012.

I would MUCH prefer if FIRST HQ tried to instead make the quality of the DCMPs even higher (provide resources to make them even grander and have some of the 'extras' that the CMP has like conferences, quality sponsor booths, etc.) and then just allowed "only" 600 or so teams come to CMP. Make 450 or so based on merit and the other 150 or so drawn from the waitlist (with preference given to teams that haven't visited in the past 2+ years). Yes, not every student on a team for 4 years would get to go to CMP... but honestly, the number of teams that have the resources to go to CMP is FAR smaller than the number of teams in FIRST. Many teams struggle to have the organization and money to attend a regional or two districts! Perhaps more energy should be focused on that problem and less on the "problem" of only 600 FRC teams going to CMP?

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Yup. When you volunteer for MSC, they automatically assign you as a volunteer for the Detroit ChampionSplit.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

They haven't learned... just visit FTC at the Union Station, especially during eliminations.

I personally wish FIRST would put FTC back in the same venue as FRC. The only time FTC teams had to visit FRC, without missing FTC matches, was during their inspections and unpacking...

I use to enjoy competing on the FTC fields, and during our wait time, watch the FRC fields. Cant do that anymore.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

So this just hit me... I haven't paid too much attention to the details of the ChampionSplit, but with the team numbers from Michigan, and the dual ChampionSplit(?), and MSC(102)...

So with the ChampionSplit numbers for Detroit, is it feasible that Michigan can be sending more than 102 teams to the Detroit ChampionSplit?

If so that would mean it will be harder to qualify for MSC, than Detroit ChampionSplit, or said another way, All the teams that qualify for MSC, will qualify ChampionSplit?

Anyone know how mane teams will participate at each ChampionSplit?
Based on this years team distribution, how many Michigan teams would there be?

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Michigan gets a percent of the spots at the championship equivalent to the percent of FRC teams that Michigan has, rounded up to the next whole spot, at whatever time the district allotment size is calculated.

Michigan received 76 slots this year, which is 12.67% of the 600 spots. If they get the same percentage next year, that is 101.33 spots of the anticipated 800, since we do not know exactly where between 75.01 and 76.00 Michigan fell, this means that it will be 101 or 102 spots if Michigan keeps the same percent of the number of FRC teams. How these 100+ spots are divided between the two championships (each of which are anticipated to have 400 spots) is, as of yet, unknown.

As I understand it, at least one reason that MSC became larger was so that not all teams at MSC would qualify for the Championship. It is possible the folks at FIM will grow MSC again, but currently that is speculative.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Honestly, FIRST should just let the teams choose which Championship they attend. Most will obviously go to the one that is easier (closer) to get to. It would be different if both Championships were on the same weekend, but they are on separate weekends. What if teams absolutely cannot make it to the first Champs, but can make it to the second. There's a lot of things that FIRST likely hasn't thought of with this split. Many have been mentioned in this thread.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

My guess is that it will be a percentage of the 400 teams that FIRST plans to send to Detroit not of the 800 total. So I see less FIM teams advancing to Champs..

Though this is all speculation as it seems not even FIRST knows why they are doing yet.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

The problem with this is that a lot of the good teams could just all decide to go to the same event devaluing the event they decided not to go to. I don't like having two championships but I definitely don't want one to be considered the "real" championships.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

So, either Michigan teams will have to go across the country instead of across the state OR ~25% of teams at the Detroit Championship will be from Michigan...

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Or one of the assumptions in my post is wrong (MI gets same percentage of spots next year, 800 teams total, 400 per event).

The first one could change if the growth in Michigan is not 12.67% of the FRC total growth or the rules for district allotment are changed. I feel I have heard the other two from an official source, but I am uncertain and did not go digging for documentation.

To think of it, Michigan does have 3 HOF teams and could theoretically (but very unlikely) have another 9 teams become pre-qualified for next year if the rules to pre-qualify are not changed.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

The only thing I heard about 2017 or later Championships was Dean's comments at the Showcase dinner, which gave no answer to the question. Has anyone heard anything more about how the teams will be divided between the two venues?

Please note, before anyone starts to quote Dean's words to me, I am not perturbed by the changes that will be coming the the championship, I just want to know how the logistics are going to work out.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

IIRC Don Bossi said on the FIRSTChampsLive stream that more information would be coming next week.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Could somebody give a rundown of what he said? A couple of sentences would be fine, I am just curious.

Re: Frank Answers Fridays - 2017- Championships
 

Just to back this up, I talked with someone in the Executive Advisory Board who confirmed that details would come either this week or next.