Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I was curious about this.

Using 2016 numbers and accounting for 3114 of 3130 teams (there are 16 hiding somewhere):

North: 1766 teams
South: 1348 teams

That's including the US, Canada, Israel, China, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and a few other smaller countries.

The blog post mentions
So there's your answer.


I wonder how much FIRST looked at team counts before drawing the lines? Or if it was more based on population? Really populous states like Texas, California, and Florida are all in the south, but they're currently lagging behind many northern and eastern states in teams/person.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

Did the same for district points vs. waitlist. It'd be great if there were an official source for that information.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

What is FIRST's stated purpose of the CMP(s)?

If FIRST "doesn't want [it to be about earning your way], how come over 75% of teams will earn there way to a CMP in 2017?

FIRST said somewhere that they want every FRC team to have the opportunity to attend CMP once every four years. What does that matter if CMP is too expensive for lower resource teams to attend? Will FIRST reduce the registration cost ever?

What are the reasons for FRC wait list spots, but no other FIRST or VEX program to my knowledge intentionally preserves this percentage of wait list spots for their culminating events?

Things to think about. I think there are plenty of ways to skin a cat, with or without tons of wait list spots at CMP.

-Mike

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I recommend you sit down and do the math yourself for a few of the districts. For 2016, the simple equation was (<# teams in district>/<# total teams in first>) * 600. For 2017, it's (<# teams in district>/<#teams in region>) * 402 * .9. You can find some of these numbers to help you fill things in have been previously compiled on CD, if you do some searching.

Note that these equations have absolutely nothing to do with the number of district teams in each region, but rather the number of total teams in each region.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I've heard rumors that FTC will be expanding slots (since now there's 2 half-champs) but rather than increase the number of teams qualifying into/out of the super-regionals, they will do a waitlist. Just a rumor though...

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I can't tell if this is a joke, but "back in the day" you could simple just buy your way into CMP. Waitlist wasn't even a thing until like the 2000s.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I think there is, is this what you're talking about?

http://frc-districtrankings.usfirst.org/2016/NE/125

http://frc-districtrankings.usfirst.org/2016/FIM/2405

(examples) At the bottom of the page, in the red "corrections" box?

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

That's actually my point. Indiana had 49 teams in 2016 where NC had 52 teams. Now that means in 2017 14/52 = 26.9% of teams from NC go to worlds where 10/49 = 20.4% of teams in IN get to go to worlds. All I'm saying is it's not the same % of each area going to worlds. I thought that was one of FIRST's points when they allocated spots to worlds.

Chesapeake 26/132 = 19.7%
Indiana = 10/49 = 20.4%
MI = 79/411 = 19.2%
MAR = 24/121 = 19.8%
NC = 14/52 = 26.9%
NE = 35/181 = 19.3%
PNW = 41/158 = 25.9%
PeachTree = 17/65 = 26.2%

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

Yes, but contrary to what you said earlier, that difference is NOT due to the number of districts or district teams feeding into each champs. It's due to a combination of the total number of teams in each region (North has about 200 teams more than South) and probably due to the number of available spots in each region - that number is not going to be the same for both champs, as the number of pre-qualified teams for both are different.

My point is, dig into why the numbers are the way they are, don't just make assumptions about the source of the difference. When you dig into the true root cause of the difference, then you can start looking at useful suggestions for improvements.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

If you look at the 2017 vs 2018 distribution, it looks like the distributions are not quite as drastic long term.

Using 2016 numbers, there were 22 Kansas teams and 73 Missouri teams, which are part of the North Champs in 2017, but will be part of the South Champs in 2018.

Those 95 teams skew the balance. In 2018 the distribution, using Ernst's numbers would be:

North: 1671
South: 1443

I wonder if we can move another logical grouping of 114 teams to balance out the numbers!

P.S. This assumes that team growth is uniform throughout all of FIRSTdom, which Michigan has been ruining for a while now.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

I didn't notice that before, neat find! It should help to sort out the points and waitlist teams (I already noticed a mistake caused by a typo in my first sheet).

Unfortunately it's not comprehensive. Teams like 834 don't have that mark when they did qualify by the waitlist.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

Could it also be your team has turned down a waitlist spot?
I know some teams where every other year they got to champs on waitlist, and last year they even declined the spot because they said it wasn't worth it to waste all that money when they didn't preform well.
While everyone does deserve to go not everyone could afford it. There's a team the competes in upstate NY that can barely afford 1 regional and a robot.
They decline their championship spot every time, even with a successful season. Maybe with the Detroit championship it could become a little easier for them to attend. But it always comes down to cost and if the sponsors or school district could offer help or not.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

What FIRST wants and how FIRST executes plans to satisfy those wants are different discussions. I think it is safe to say that part of FIRST's purpose for CMP is to allow teams to participate regardless of "ability":
I don't think it's a leap to say that FIRST uses waitlist spots, in part, to help make this happen.

While I don't always agree with FIRST's methods, I don't think that FarmerJohn relating the CMP to a little league championship was as accurate as it could have been because of FIRST's position on CMP. And I think going after Sperkowski for looking forward to taking advantage of one of FIRST's mechanisms for attending was a little much. FarmerJohn's expectations about what CMP is don't seem to align with the expectations that FIRST is trying to set.

If people want FIRST to change what CMP is then that is a different discussion than what I was getting at. A good discussion that I think should continue to happen, but not what I was getting at.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

Are you sure that 834 was a waitlist team rather than points? I know that after declines 5624 made it on points (confirmed by their mentor, despite not being listed as such on the leaderboard) and 1989 was qualified at the same time, and 834 qualified shortly after 1989 dropped.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts
 

Last year was the first year we actually attempted to be on the waitlist. In the years past we did not have the needed money to do so. Now we do. Honestly the best thing I think could happen to the waitlist in order to achieve every team at Champs every 4 years is to get rid of the lottery and just go by tokens. I know some people may hate this but I think it aligns with first hq's goals the best.