Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

Not to be terribly brash, but I think Andrew and Gregor are interested in YOUR opinion, not your team's.

The question is a Yes/No, I don't see a need to bounce around it.

Edit:
Andrew Sniped me a bit.

I will say this for districts... It does give teams that may not have the experience, tech resources, or $$ to be competitive. From my one year in regional experience which was our rookie year the regionals were overly dominated by teams that way outclassed most of the other teams. Districts still has the top notch teams from the area but it seems to be a bit more level of a playing field.
As a mentor there is not much that is more disheartening to see the defeated look in your students eyes before they even play their first match. Again districts makes it so the lower tier teams can be picked for elims or maybe even captain an alliance which both can be very inspiring!
One thing that concerns me regardless of regional or district model is sustainability. At some point costs to register are going to jump up, and when you figure in the current budget shortfalls most states are facing programs are going to be cut, and I fear for the teams that are super dependent on their school system for funding.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

As a newcomer to FRC, I see value everywhere in the experience I saw at the Wisconsin Regional this year. I was inspired enough to become a parent mentor for next season.

YMMV

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

Again, it depends on the year. Last year, for example, our robot performed horribly on the field. Every match we went out to left our students depressed and angry. I spent a ton of time and energy that year working to keep their spirits up, keep them motivated, and keep them working towards improvements. Every match was a huge emotional drain on everyone, and I know it wasn't inspiring for the students.

Other years are different. We go out there , do what we designed to do, and the students come back happy seeing the robot do what it's supposed to do.

Personally, I try to get my team inspired with the engineering we do, not with the on-field performance. It's difficult, and it's hard. But on-field performance is just so dependent on so many variables that it's something you don't want to rely on. So from an inspiration standpoint, I honestly don't care how many matches we get.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

This is very true and can be evidenced by certain states. Ones that have taken advantage of the FTC competition structure to improve team quality have seen improvements in merit qualifications to world champs. Meanwhile, those same states that stay in the regional systems send a lower percentage of FRC teams to worlds.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

The difference in qualifications to Champs is that regionals get a specific number of teams per regional, while districts get a % of spots at Champs. The result is that district areas have a pretty equivalent ratio representation at champs, while some regional areas are worse. It's not a question of competitiveness. From what I saw posted on here, the new Iowa regional was highly competitive, with high scores, higher % of breaches and captures... but they still only sent the same number of teams as every other regional.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

Lets say I'm Coaching a youth sportsball team.

I have the opportunity to choose between two tournaments on the same weekend.

Option 1: $5000 Registration Fee. My sportsball team gets to see the field for 8 games. The Kids are excited because there will be 60 teams from the state at this event, but only 8 plays?

Option 2: $5000 Registration Fee. My sportsball team gets on the field 12(!!!) times for the weekend! My kids are so excited, but there were only 30 other teams at this tournament. BUT, the team also received an invitation to compete in sportsball the next weekend, for no extra charge, for another 12 matches, against 30 teams AGAIN!


So.... Which do you choose?

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

As a team who earned their first robot-merit spot in 14 years yesterday, I am acutely aware of this fact.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

My god man... can you reasonably say that 8 matches gives you a better return on your investment (time/money) than 9 would?

I get that it's not about the robot, I get that it sucks to go out there and lose. I get those extenuating circumstances. But holy crap, I don't think I've ever seen anyone ever try to say "well, we only had to play 8 matches".

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

I'm new at this, but I don't think my team has a choice. We only seem to have option 1 so I think your analogy is off a bit.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

That depends on how you measure return on investment.

I understand that you measure it only on the number of times the five people with drivers badges get to play qualifications matches.

Do you understand that other people may have different metrics?

For example, the metric I most care about is the promotion of STEM to the general community.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

The analogy is a bit of a stretch, yes.

However, it just illustrates the idea that I've never met a competitor that wouldn't want to compete more if they had the opportunity to.

8 match play regionals really put teams at a disadvantage to teams that are able to attend, say.... Waterloo where there are 13(!!!) qualification matches, or district teams where they get 24(!!!!!!!!!) matches for the same price.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

But this is the question. Option 1 is regionals. Option 2 is districts.

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

What an interesting analogy, obviously teams want the second option, but you have to remember that this isolates some teams in some states, like New York, we are all over the place!

Re: Are 8 play regional reasonable?
 

And the metric I care about is inspiring the $@#$@#$@#$@# students. As an alumni, know what's inspiring? Pointing and saying "we did that"

I get you can have other metrics but I really don't understand how there is a metric that benefits from only having 8 matches.