[FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Posted on the FRC Blog, 8/22/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...ding-regionalshttp://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...ding-regionals

Re: FRC Blog: District Teams attending Regionals
 

As a current district and former regional team, I support this.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Agreed. This is a very good stepping-stone decision, and I hope it will relieve some inter-team and geographic strife.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

As usual Frank shows how blessed we are to have him at the helm of FRC!!

Just one in another long line showing his responsiveness to concerns and that thoughtful consideration is truly given before making changes.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Frank, you seem stressed.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

As someone with both district and regional experience, I think this is a reasonable solution.

Also, welcome back, Ryan.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

I like the solution. Definitely makes it more fair to Regional teams without banning district teams from going to regional events.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Correct me if I am wrong but it is still okay for a District team to submit their awards for Woodie Flowers or Dean's List at a Regional? I ask because the pool seems smaller, and would appear to provide better odds.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Seems like a good change. Should stop teams with weak Chairman's programs deliberately presenting outside the district to snag a qualification to champs as in the past few years.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Also, this is already the case for district teams attending out-of-district competitions. I definitely like the added consistency across the board as well; district teams now know that they're only eligible for these awards inside their district, period.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

I disagree that a team that wins Chairman's, regardless of where, has a weak Chairman's program.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Great point, hadn't thought of it that way before. Makes total sense from that perspective.

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I agree, you can have a weak Chairman's and still win. It happens all the time independent of location.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Did anyone else notice that 19% of 24 responding teams is 4.56 teams? 4 teams is 17% (16.7%) and 5 teams is 21% (20.8%).

I suspect that 26 teams responded, making the responses 16, 5, and 5.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Although I agree with the change, I would argue the team that leaves their district to get a chairman's spot at another event is still better deserving of it than the team they would otherwise beat if they did, in fact, beat them for the award.

The reason I agree with the change is it prevents any district from getting more than that district's allocated number of awards spots for each award.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

A spot earned at a regional already counted against the districts' total.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

The only option for Dean's list and Woodie Flower's awards is already district if you are district team.

The old method of a district team taking a judged slot at regional meant there was one less judged slot available to regional teams. Since it also counts against the district slots, the opening becomes a wait list slot? Not really the same as a judged slot if I am explaining this correctly. (Which would be a reason that this is a good move)

You used to have to pick the regional that you presented Chairman's. You only got one chance. Presumably district team had to present at district then. So this is a bit like going back the old method.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

I think this is a great change, although I'm surprised how unanimously CD agrees.
I will say that we've had some district teams come to our Upstate New York Regionals in the past who won our Chairman's and Engineering Inspiration awards who were very deserving, and I hope their home regions appreciate them the same way our judges did.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

It counts against the total delegation yes, but not necessarily a specific award.

For example, if a team from a district goes and wins RCA at a regional, they are not elligible to receive the award at their DCMP - they qualify directly to present at the CMP. The District Championship still awards X number of RCA's for the district. Therefore that district has X+1 teams presenting for CCA at the Championship.

I don't care to debate whether or not that really matters in the long run, but SpaceBiz is correct that prior to this rule, more teams from any given district have presented for RCA than slots awarded to that district.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

I wonder how a "weak" Chairman's program could beat 60 some odd other teams at a Regional? If that logic holds true, a district team that wins the event with their robot is also "weak."

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Not a lot of regionals have 60 teams. No regional has 60 teams presenting chairmans, even if every eligible team at the event submitted. When it comes to a team winning an event you also have to keep in mind that sometimes that out of state team pushed out an in state team from attending that event lowering there chances of going to worlds.
I think the main issue arises when district and out of state teams consistently win chairmans/ EI at a regional. In Florida 25% of qualifying spots went to out of state teams this year. In fact Florida has given only 1 EI award and 2 chairmans awards to an instate team in the last 3 years. While im not saying those teams don't deserve there awards I am saying its understandable why some people would have a problem with it.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Meant weak relative to their district

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Should be called "the MAR rule." While other districts have certainly had teams win cultural awards outside their district (IIRC, 27 won outside the year they won CCA), it's a fairly common occurance in MAR (and especially among the Jersey teams). Especially relative to the size of the district.

On one hand, this will make the DCA competition even harder in MAR.
On the other hand, this is positive news for MAR teams aiming to use district points to reach CMP. No longer will 2 or 3 spots be consumed by teams winning cultural awards at regional events.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Count me in this "some". It is certainly a positive measure, but just as certainly an incomplete measure. Teams which are geographically in a district can come to "my" regional and earn a trip to CMP, but my team is systematically denied a chance to attend a district event as a "practice event". If I were in an area which could realistically go districts, and this was an incentive (e.g. TX, CA, MN), I would at least get the point. Much of the U.S.A, and most of the world outside the U.S.A, is in a place without the depth of development infrastructure (mentors and sponsors, not to mention volunteers) required to support a district model.

Edit: On the other hand, our team has been positively influenced by teams visiting from both "potential" district areas, as well as "actual" district areas. No matter how things are played, there will be a border between the two models until/unless everywhere that people live (both on and off earth) is in a district. Even then, things will not be even.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

+10000

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

A Strawman addition for 2018*: District teams that win a regional's CMP slot automatically generate another wildcard. So if the Finalist AC gets the regional's last wildcard slot and they're a District team, their Finalist 1st Pick now also gets a wildcard. Same if a District team is the Winning AC and already generating a wildcard (e.g. they're an HOF); they now generate 2 wildcards.

Outcomes: more wildcards, fewer waitlists. Potentially affects strategy (though these things always do regardless). Doesn't address a broader geographical concern, as out-of-region regional teams would not generate an extra wildcard. More, presumably...

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

I definitely see this as the "MAR Rule"

I personally feel that MAR and FIRST should actually ask these Jersey and other MAR teams why they travel outside of their area for culture awards. Much of what I've heard isn't always "Oh it is easier to win in X regional." What I've heard is that teams feel unfairly judged at their home events a lot of times. There is a lot of politics and bias in MAR, and I believe this is something MAR should discuss and address.

Additionally, I generally found it more impressive if a team could show judges in an area they aren't from that they have a large impact on FIRST. On the other hand, I believe it also makes it much easier for the team traveling to get away with stating and presenting things within Chairman's that aren't "fact checked" or are exaggerated. And yes, I'm stating teams traveling to other areas may exploit the fact that the regional's judges and other teams cannot really vouch for what they claim to have done. (this topic can be a whole other thread entirely btw, I totally feel many teams BS what they write into their awards presentations and essays)

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Perception is hard to break. I've seen it a few times where teams say "X event is biased against out-of-state teams". It lead us to create this a few years ago:

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=129949

I can't seem to access that document now for whatever reason but it was a comparison of in-state vs out-of-state awards given out at the regional events. It contained some interesting data. Would be good to see someone write a TBA version of that to automatically pull that data together.

EDIT: Would also be cool to see something correlating distance from home and awards somehow.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

When discussing while traveling teams may find significant success outside of their region, I don't think "novelty" should be ignored. I don't mean novelty in that they are simply from a different region, but rather that their cultural impacts have not been shared with judges in the past. Judges are often repeat volunteers, especially those put in the position to judge Chairman's. They've likely heard the local teams' efforts in prior seasons, while the traveling team's may be new to them. It's not the same list of exploits that they've heard in years past.

Of course, many other explanations are also possible.

I do not think blaming "politics and bias" is a particularly fair cry here. Especially considering every team that has won a cultural award outside of MAR has won a major cultural award inside of MAR at least once since 2011 (granted, MAR didn't become a district until 2012).

It's important not to forget that MAR is an incredibly veteran district, with 50% of teams numbering under 2000. There are numerous well established teams with significant time to build a culture changing program in the region (thus why the region has been able to find so much success in terms of culture changing awards not only at regional events, but also at the Championship event). But further still, many teams that have roots and team structures that were created in the regional system. For some teams, travel events are a part of team structure, and being able to advertise travel is part of how they recruit students.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

This is true for us in Hawaii and many of our team members don't care to compete there.
Certain judges forget that each year you have a different mix of students, where many new students are experiencing FRC for the 1st time. They deserve to be heard during interviews they practiced for just as much as every other team competing at an event. They don't want to be told NO interview is necessary because we know about your team already.
A different game challenge annually can affect those who have done FRC multiple seasons with different learning experiences which are worth sharing.

We continue to compete at our home event because of the great no. of other Hawaii teams we get to play with, since most Hawaii teams only do that 1 event due to cost.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

Absolutely agreed. And when you have the same pool of repeat judges and volunteers, biases and perceptions don't go away year by year, even though your students do. That can be a good or a bad thing, and may or may not have any real measurable effect, but it makes a lot of teams feel as if they have capped out at their home event, and that they will never do any better there. It's always the same judges, the same teams winning the same awards, you always lose to the same teams, etc etc.

We are a great team and I feel like we could be absolute rockstars stealing the show in a place where nobody there has ever met us before, but there are certain events at which we experience what I've described above. We've even experienced it from the side of being the team that won the same awards time and again, instead of the different awards we were actually going for. I can't complain about winning a award, but it made us feel that we were not seen as a team in the running for those particular awards because we were the team for the other thing, year after year. When it comes to awards, there is a subtle "danger" and risk of being too good at certain things I suppose, in diverting attention away from other positive aspects of your program.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

That would actually work pretty well. The district team is taking a slot from its district anyway so there in no net change in championship slots. It keeps the slot in the regional rather than have it become a wait list slot.

Re: [FRC Blog] District Teams attending Regionals
 

"Weak" in MAR can be quite strong in many Regionals. It is relative.
Indeed, yes. The travel is always valuable, but MAR has politics, and some teams never seem to get a break. I won't mention any numbers (but no team I was associated with), but some very accomplished teams have gotten bad raps for winning cultural awards they entirely deserved, with "favoritism" and even "cheating" bandied about. Feeling like that, no wonder they try elsewhere, where they feel more anonymous.

I am reminded of the old adage about judging before walking on another's shoes.