I see a lot of discussion about varying systems being "fair" or "unfair." I think a lot of this is misguided. Think about it -- just what is fair? Can you quantify it in some mathematical equation? Can you possibly control every variable -- or even a fraction of a per cent of them? NO!

No matter how elegant an idea is, someone can say -- and rightly so -- that it is not fair. There might always be circumstances stacked against a particular team or group of teams. As an alternative question, is it fair to those teams that one of these systems could hlep to deny them that help because someone else might not get it equally?

Seriously, I think people need to think about "fairness." It's not a concrete, easily defined, easily quantifiable idea. Its broad and its abstract and it AIN'T EVER GOIN' TO HAPPEN, to put it eloquently.

This has been particularly discouraging. Did no one listen to Dean this year when he said that this game was NOT going to be fair? Personally, I thought that was one of the best statements he made. Some teams WILL have more money. Some teams more resouces. Some better mentors. Some more students. Some more involvment. Some will just be left behind. These things happen; we are not perfect. But the challenge of FIRST is not complaining about these things, but rather trying to overcome them despite your circumstances. Rather than criticize something because it is not fair, try making it better. But remember, life is never, despite our hardest and most sincere efforts, going to be the least bit fair (I'm not trying to be cynical here in case it came off that way).

Think about it. What if there are extra spaces to send teams to nationals? What would be fair? A random lottery. No, for then the teams that deserve to go would be disadvantaged. But how do we figure out those teams? And how do we weigh them against each other? There is no completely fair way. BUT, is it not better to give teams the wonderful opportunity of competing at nationals if it can be done than not doing so. Look, if we want FIRST to be the great thing that it can be, we just might have to risk like Dean did, the slight chance that it's not going to be fair.

That logic is flawed, though.

If you're considering all teams that have extra points and all teams that need points, each team that needs points has an equal chance of receiving them.

If you operate under the assumption that teams are more likely to give their points to local teams, which may be true, then there may be a bias toward teams that are located in more populated areas. But, similarly, it's a lot easier for a team here on Long Island to attend 2, 3, or 4 regionals due to their proximity then it might be for a team in, say, Seattle. For those teams, they must travel much further to attend a second event, let alone 3 or 4.

Besides, I think this might encourage teams to form relationships with one another off the field. This happens a bit already, but encouraging that isn't really a bad thing, in my mind.

I agree that not all teams should be allowed to go. One idea that i;ve been throwing around is that for nats you have to be a current or previous year regional winner, or regional technology awayrd winner (Delphi, Motorola, Xerox, GM). This would make the competition much more fun and intense. The odd/even qualification is very unfair to teams with amazing robots such as 176 this year. Thier robot was great and even brought thier alliance to become finalists at BC4, but since they did not win in the 2002 season or win a regional this year they could not go to nationals. Just some of my thoughts.... Giving away points would be very unfair to teams who do not have a close team, or a 'sister' team. Say team 'A' won two regionals, and team 'B' who has the same sponsor made a robot that worked about twice in competition and seeded last or close to last. Naturally team 'A' would give thier extra points to team 'B' allowing a non-award winning team to go and could possibly prevent a last weekend regional winner from getting a spot for nationals.

Oops! left out regional chairman award and the engineering inspriation award

Hey what about regional chairmans winner??

what about the Egnineering Ispiration award winners... it is FIRST's second highest team award, only second to the chairmans award, shouldnt they qualify for nationals?

~Mike

What I believe should be done, for the teams that attend multiple regionals and build up excess points, is to have the points given to the 2nd place team or runner up, in whatever they may have won their points in. My idea would get complicated tho when deciding which runner up would get the points, and when you're team has earned enough points to indeed go to nationals.

It would be so great if all of the teams were able to attend nationals, but unfortunately, that doesnt appear to be able to happen. Therefore, the only way for a team to get to nationals seems to be the current system of proving themselves worthy. I dont like the point trading system, because that would let teams who have no proven reason to attend to go to nationals. I'm not trying to be mean, but I think that the fairest way of determining which teams attend nationals is by which teams earn it, all by themselves.

I think its a bad idea. Some teams dont exactly have a brother or sister team, but have they have many good friends. If you have 2 friends, one is from across town and the other is a team that you always work together with at regionals helping them out and they help you out, that need 2 points each to qualify for the championships, while you have 2 extra who do you give it to?

You could:

A. Give both to one team
B. Give both to the other team
C. Give One to Each team (that would do nothing at all)
D. Dont give any points


So with that scenario, you have 2 teams that are on the verge of qualifying, and your team is put in a tough situation. No matter what, at least one team is going to be mad because you can't please them both. The sharing system would cause way too much trouble, and should just be avoided all together. If you can't qualify the most reasonable and fair thing to do is say you are SOL like it is right now.


Edit: You talk about elimination favoritism from the qualification process, but the problem with this sharing idea is that it is favoritism to your buddy team anyway.
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Oh and yes Mike, I believe that Engineering Inspiration award deserves to be an auto-qualifier award. FIRST even says its the 2nd highest award that they give out at the regional. Why shouldn't it be an auto qualifier? Beats me.

Some one said something about that there would be hard feelings to teams who gave points away to one team and not another, that is a lesson in life that people must learn, you don't always get what you want and what you need, Yes it is a hard lesson to learn but it is something will happen in life to basically everyone.

Also someone mentioned some teams don't have friends to give the points away to, I think that if they just gave the points away to a team that would be a way to start making friends. or they could just keep them.


I think it is a good idea if it is handled the right way. It should be a teams decision to give and even accept the points




just my 2 cents.

LA Team Forum Discussion
 

The topic of Nationals (I prefer this word and will continue to use it over the word "Championship") and who should go was brought up at the LA Team Forum.

1. The fact that the Engineering Inspiration Award did not bring an automatic bid to Nationals was brought up. This should be rectified for the coming year.

2. Two possibilities that would work together came up:

(1) Winners of any award at their *home* competition would get an automatic bid to Nationals. My one concern here is that teams that travel to another regional might take away the possibility of a team winning an award and a chance to go. On the other hand, you can't tell a team that they are ineligible to win an award simply because they are not at their home regional. This is a bit of a catch-22 and I've yet to figure out a possible solution in my own mind.

(2) The teams that have not been to Nationals over the greatest amount of time would have a priority deadline for registration. Then the next bracket of teams would get to register for any available spots, and so on. (Think of it like registering for college. Incoming freshmen and graduating seniors have priority.) The benefit to this is that the teams that haven't been in over NN number of years would know that they would be eligible and can start trying to raise the money early. This would also alleviate the difficulties surrounding the even/odd structure since FIRST is growing at such a rapid rate.

3. The possibility of allowing award winners to carry their bids to Nationals to the following year was discussed. This idea was raised since, as it was already mentioned, it is very difficult to raise the amount of money required to attend Nationals in a matter of weeks.

Again, these are just the ideas that were brought up at the LA Team Forum. It does *not* mean that they will be the rule.

indieFan

In the current system, however, I doubt enough teams would qualify to go to nationals, especially with many teams having way more points than necessary. In the near future they will have to get rid of the odd/even system because too many teams will qualify, but the current system won’t let enough teams qualify. Personally I think George’s system is the best. It judges based on merit, but its restrictions aren’t too strict. If this doesn’t work out, giving away points could be the next best thing. I trust that teams in that situation would at least make an attempt to choose based on merit. For example, Team A has extra points, some of which they gain by winning a regional. In the qualifying rounds they beat a team they’re really impressed with, so they give their points to that team. Not everyone would do it quite that systematically, but I’m sure most people wouldn’t want give away their hard earned points to a team they think is undeserving.

Well Rob Colatutto I guess you forgot that FIRST is not about winning... Everyone works really hard to get a good robot and just because your robot can win doesn't mean you should be going to nationals... Its true the competition would be more intense but thats not the point in FIRST... I guess you forgot that...

FIRST is still about winning more than it ever was. Do you design your robot to win every year or to play nice and give everyone a chance to beat you in competition? Like John has said, look at the robots that win, they are great engineered robots with amazing designs. Most of them do win technology awards for these designs. FIRST is as much about winning as it is about getting the experiance. Competing against other companies or workers to have your design win is a real world problem that many people will encounter after they get out of college (or even beofre that).
Just my thoughts on the topic..

How ever... if you are on a losing alliance then you should not be angry that you lost, but rather build on the experiance.

On the topic of qualifying for next years Championship, does anyone know if the odd/even rule will still be around? Was it mentioned at any of the team forums.

We do build our robot to win but winning is a very small part of FIRST to us... We won a technology award and our robot was not good at all...

Guys,
We've had this debate/discussion many times before.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...928#post102928

There is no right answer.
I just want everyone to realize that NO ONE IS RIGHT.

We all have our different opinions on how things should be run.

We all have different opinions on the "meaning of FIRST" and whether winning is important or not.

There is no right answer. These are all just opinions. Keep that in mind.

As for qualifications...
FIRST is doing their best to accomodate everyone as best they can. We should all just trust in them to deliver a positive solution, or..... politely post our own ideas. Remember: there is NO RIGHT SOLUTION.

John