I disagree with this, I am mostly happy with the rules in place, but I do not think that a rookie team has worked any LESS hard in the season than a veteran team. True, that veteran team has more experience, and more work behind them, but who's to say that a rookie team did not work just as hard, if not HARDER as a veteran team the first year they compete?

What I am trying to say is, for example if in 2003 a veteran team decided that because they had corporate sponsorship they could slack off, not apply for the Chairman's Award and just simply slide into the Championship competition based on their merit from last year, but a rookie team that struggled all year to find sponsorship, had a completely student built robot, no engineering help, and still managed to do fairly well in the competition against these veteran teams, does this mean then, that the rookies STILL haven't put enough work in?

Championships should be based on a year-to-year basis. Yes, the first 6 teams should be grandfathered to the competition, and yes, I think it is fair to let veteran teams be merit accepted to the competition, but it feels like the rookies and last years rookies are being overlooked.

People seem to think that because they don't have the experience, they deserve less notice and less eligibility, and I think that is unfair.

Re: Its a start!
 

Those are the FIRST awards that really matter and are the ones you should strive for. Yes the "smaller" awards like Motorola Quality award, Spirit, and others mean something but in the overall scheme of things its these two awards that mean something. For the past two years, I don't think any team that won championship actually also won the Chairman's Award too. You could have the worst season ever and still win Chairmans because you are deemed the best representative of FIRST ideas and values, a model for other teams. Just read the criteria for all the awards and you'll find that Chairmans and Engineering Inspiration are the top two.

Its nothing to be biased about. Just look through the competition listing of teams particpating and look at all the gaps inbetween team numbers, especially the lower digits. They deserve to go. Its hard to keep on coming up with the money to keep on going, especially with today's economy.

But for tha past two years, its been a quick fix to the problem of Championship elgibility. This is a result of their two years of going through the engineering design process. Is it perfect? Maybe not. But like was the 2 v. 2 perfect in 2000, not really the best method, but they fixed it for the 2002 and last year. But believe me, if FIRST had it their way, we'd all would be allowed to go but there simply isn't a venue big enough for all of us. Just look at the 2002 Championships..... we pretty much maxed out that Disney parking lot!

See this week's QotW (and please, please answer!) :)

In the past, FIRST had said that the Engineering Inspiration Award was second only to the Chairman's Award -- yet it didn't qualify a team to attend the Championship. Similarly, FIRST also said that building an amazing, competitive robot was comparably less important, but those awards qualified for Championship attendance.

So -- which had a greater impact? FIRST's actions -- letting technically notable teams attend the event; or FIRST's words -- telling those teams that they should be striving for something better -- the Engineering Inspiration and Chairman's Award?

My feeling is that their actions have far greater impact upon teams than their words ever will. The changes effected that make different awards eligible for Championship attendance are a loud action that suggest, to me, that FIRST is reminding teams of that which is most important.

I don't believe teams should have any reason to think of a technical award as being something less valuable than the Engineering Inspiration Award, for example, but it's clear that FIRST does.

i feel that rookie teams should get a greater shot at going to nationals!
either creating an 8th tier or making like a rookie division at nats!
rookie teams have so much more they have to do than a set team! mabye they should have a rookie chairmans award?

Re: Re: Its a start!
 

[quote]Originally posted by Michael R. Lee
Those are the FIRST awards that really matter and are the ones you should strive for. Yes the "smaller" awards like Motorola Quality award


People are entitled to their own points of view of course, but i believe that this weeks UFH said it best

“Do NOT forget that this is a competition. Of course it is much more, BUT it is competition that brings out the best in people. The desire and drive to be the best is what motivates people to work hard, come up with new inventions, figure out better ways of doing things, and discover new things. It is the desire to be the best that forces people to think, “this might not be good enough, I need to work harder, research more, learn more, achieve more.” A good competitive spirit drives people to exceed their own expectations, which is where real inspiration comes from – this is when students say, ‘Hey, I can do anything if I have the drive to do it. Just look at what we just did for proof.’” - Chris Hibner


I for one would rather win a Regional Motorola Quality award, and sit out nationals then go by winning a Engineering Inspiration award..and know that teams like Wildstang and Beatty (who isn't qualified for this year) missed their chance to go and compete to be the best.

As an activity i looked up how many of the bots in last years Divisional winning alliances wouldn't be at nats with the new qualifications and its kind of scary.

Chris Team 229

Proud participant in the FIRST Robotics COMPETITION

The Tier 1 Lottery is going to be an interesting one, Hopefully details come on this soon. Cause its my bet that a bunch of the 293 teams from last year's championship want to go back.

Re: Re: Re: Its a start!
 

Which divisional winners did you find that didn't qualify? I only found 2. Most of the teams qualified because of winning regionals, and 4 won regional chairmans.

OK, the Tier system has been clarifed to me by Thelma at FIRST Team Support. There are not a certain number of spots per tier, as I and some others had been assuming. There are XX Spots for all the Tier teams that don' qualify other ways. So those XX spots are open to Tier 6 first, then to Tier 5, and so on down the line. So if all the XX spots are taken by Tier 6 teams, there are no more open spots. This makes more sense now...Hopefully to you all as well.

Ricky

Thanks for taking the time to clear that up with FIRST.

"at some point in the next six weeks you are going to start feeling like you are involved in a robot building contest. Then you are in serious trouble" -Dean Kamen at last years kickoff meeting.

The competition between teams is only for the purpose of completing the engineering design cycle - it gives teams a chance to see how they have done, compaired to other teams with the same limitations, goals and objectives.

The 'contest' between teams is only the foundation on which we take the students through an engineering design cycle - it makes it more interesting, but its not what FIRST is all about

when you think you are here to compete against other teams, thats when bad things start happening:

-adults yelling at students on the playfield after a bad performance in a match

- students off in a corner at a regional, in tears

- adults getting angry with each other over disagreements about the robot or team

- students making comments to other teams like, "your robot is a pile of junk!"

- adults or students quitting the team in the middle of the season.

Ive seen all these things happen over the last several years.

The competition is a friendly / gentalmens sort of sport - never taken seriously - with the understanding that it is only a forum to put our machines to the test, and see how well we did against what WE set out to do

not to see which team can build the best robot.

If you have to build the best robot to be inspired then we end up with one winning inspired team, and 999 losers.

That is not the spirit of FIRST.

Those kinds of things are related more on match performance than robot performance. Thats why technology awards should count for something because they're dependent on good engineering, not good match performance.
Your robot could be broken most of the time and you could never win a match, but you can still win an award for your great idea. I mean look at some of the award winners this year. Many of them didn't do too well at the competition. In some cases the mechanism they won for didn't even work most of the time.

Winning a regional, however, does require really good match performance. Getting knocked out in the elimination rounds and thus losing the opportunity to qualify could very easily anger the adult mentor or make a student cry.

I am glad that this point was brought up.

I see Sarah's point as a reason why FIRST is removing the auto-qualification for teams who win technical awards.

It is true that some teams in the past won technical awards for innovations on their robots which did not work during many matches. While this innovation deserves some recognition, the design is only worth ballast if it does not work on the playing field.

Why should a team qualify for the Championships if they get a technical award for something that does not work? I definitely think that a team should not win an award for something that doesn't work.

However, if this team uses this somewhat-functioning innovation to promote engineering and inspire students to be engineers, then they may have a darn good Engineering Inspiration award entry.

Non-functioning innovations should not get awards. Inspiring students with these innovations (even if they don't work too well) should get awards. Teams should use the innovation to inspire, not as a ticket to go to Atlanta. The more I think of this, the more I applaud FIRST for making a decisive move in this direction.

Andy B.

My point was that technical awards take pressure off the teams to do really well and work perfectly 24/7 while still applauding good engineering. I agree that teams shouldn't get recognition for something if it doesn't work at all, but its possible that a team could have a great design that works but doesn't get used because of other independent problems.

I understand your point about Engineering Inspiration, but in some cases the influence of such a great design might not be enough to win the award due to heavy competition. Some regionals have a lot of teams that all benefit FIRST immensely. For example, the National Chairmans award winning teams from the past two years both won the J&J Mid-Atlantic regional chairman's award prior to that. A small team with a great design isn't going to be able to compete for Chairman's or Engineering Inspiration. The design, however, would be enough to win a technology award.

Perhaps the best solution would be to create an "ultimate" design award that would qualify a team for the Championship. That way you still have the benefits of having technology award wining teams qualify, while also not putting too much emphasis on good design.

Rookie teams and second year teams
 

You won't see many comments from me here or anywhere else.
We were very disappointed when we found out that rookies and second year teams are being put at the bottom of the list ...

We were told:

The teams that have not attended for a long time have first dibs for Championship registration. Rookie teams are in the last tier, and one-year teams are next to last. Teams in these tiers will do well to fundraise for the year they will have a chance to register. We are sorry that we can't make all teams happy all of the time, but this method seems to be the fairest to all.
Thelma

The problem I have with this approach is that up until two years ago all teams had the option to come to ANY National Final that they wished to come to...It has only been the last two years in which teams were limited. (Correct me if I am wrong...)

As a new team, we have two years of eligibility for the NASA grant but since it is impossible to determine whether our team will be eligible until after the grant must be applied for, we can't "fundraise for the year we are eligible because we will never know when that is... it might be 5-6 years from now...

Here is the logic... OK we work our tails off trying to put together a great robot... who knows... we might even draw a couple of good teams during the competitions to work with...so we win a regional... or get a qualifying award to allow us to go...
THEN we can't go because we haven't fundraised enough...since the finals are another $10,000 we weren't counting on...

I really don't see why this is the "fairest" to all...
Teams from three years plus had eligibility for all of those years and could have chosen to go any of them... for whatever reason they didn't go...now newer teams are being penalized...

FIRST is a difficult proposition for many schools... difficult because finding dedicated teachers is tough... difficult because finding dedicated mentors is also hard... difficult when asked to pay $5000 to enter an event and then pay $4000 for each additional event... talking to inner city schools... wow let's watch the video and see how the little red robot that could qualified for nationals... ooops that wouldn't happen this year now...we changed the rules..... and now to top all of that...

Please come and join FIRST... we know you can't go to the Nationals for four or so years so you won't ever even see Woody or Dean except on videos or the television... or at the remote kickoff... but you can watch the video of everyone else having such a great time... yes you can do that!!

The rich get richer... but come on join the club!!!
send us money


Robert Steele

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels rookie and second year teams are getting a bit shafted.

I love FIRST and I have spent countless hours of my free time putting work in, but this greatly upsets me. How many rookie teams do you think are going to want to return for another season if they have NO chance or a very slim chance at attending the Championship Competition?

Currently there are 783 different teams registerred for a Regional.

There are 210 spots open for pre-qualification. Total, at the championship event there will be no more than 366 teams attending (when you add award winners).

Your chances of attending, if you went last year and don't pre-qualify, are slim. Don't count on it. Less than 50% of the teams will go.

Overall, I think FIRST found the right balance between merit and chance. It's a shame they couldn't increase the attendance numbers further.

Though, they did leave a few questions behind them. Namely, what tier would teams that have never attended a championship fall in? Would a new rookie team fall in the same tier as a 3-year-old team that never went? I don't think this is right. They should add a clause that your tier is based on your number of active years if you have never attended a championship event.

I know it's hard, but as FIRST grows, teams are going to have to accept that the championship event simply cannot continue increasing in size at the same rate. The funding required to make this happen would increase exponentially, because then you need more space, more workers, and make the event time longer (or cut the amount of matches in half, but not many teams want to travel 1,000+ miles to play 4 matches). The Championship event is eventually going to have to follow many of the sports models out there. Does every NFL team make it to the play-offs? No. Some get wild-cards, and some win games and get to the top.

Regional performance affects championship attendance. Makes sense. Throw in a few lottery/wild-cards and welcome to the NFL. Except the NFL doesn't allow attendance to losers. FIRST does.


Either you can make half happy, or nobody happy. Everybody will never be happy.

To say the nationals are a true championship is false because many of the teams will be there simply by being in the right year. The event is an invitational plain and simple. To compare it with the events you mention above is ludicrous.

The goal is to encompass ALL the high schools in the nation yet we restrict the big event to 300 teams. Thats the problem. 400 WOULD be better, 800 would be better still. What's the limit? Who knows. But if nobody ever looks it expand the event it will always be 300.

The travel on short notice IS an issue and MORE will need to make flash arrangements since in the past a number of the top teams have been prequalified from the prior year anyway. Now everybody is thrust unto the last minute trip mode. How you come up with the LESS figure is beyond me.


As for the original teams- I am betting that somewhere in the past someone promised them that they would forever be qualified to compete. I respect the ruling if that is the case. That is the only reason I can see they are permanently grandfathered. Do they deserve to be there? That's your call. But I can think of dozens of more recent teams who have done as much or more for FIRST, haven't won the Chairman's and who will be hurt by this decision.

WC

This is starting to get off topic, but anyway...

I knew that what I said would be somewhat controversial. Just before I clicked send, I actually considered removing that whole thing and saying something completely different, but then I realized that I was being completely hypocritical if I did that.

Ken, I realize that some people go off the deep end and become overly competitive and have a "win-at-all costs" mentality, but that is far, far, far, FAR from what I meant. What I meant is that this competition should still be treated as a competition, with good sportsmanship and gracious professionalism ruling everyone's actions.

My point is that there seems to be a trend in FIRST in which people are saying (I'm paraphrasing here), "who cares about the robots, let's inspire the students." What I'm saying is, it's the robots that inspire the students, not someone saying, "hey you, be inspired now."

When students (and people in general) feel driven to be their best, they learn more and are inspired more. I'll give you two students: student A who does barely enough to do the minimum necessary to pass a class, and student B who is driven to have the best grade in the class, and I'll guarantee you that student B will come out of that class with a MUCH better grasp of the subject matter. (Notice here that I didn't imply that student B cheated or was brutal to other students to get the highest grade - I just stated that he is driven to work hard.)

I feel that too many people are advocating that it's okay to do the least possible squeak into the robot competition. I want to stand up and say that I disagree with that. Teams that TRY to win and TRY to do their best end up having students that learn more, learn the value of hard work, and are inspired by the process. Allowing a team to do the bare minimum is a disservice to the students on that team.

Obviously there are teams that probably don't have the resources to win this competition. But that doesn't mean they should give up and say, "oh well, why bother - we're never going to win." They should still say, "hey, if we work hard and do our best, we can be competitive. We don't have to win it all to have success, but if we're competitive, we will have succeeded. And if we are competitive, you never know what might happen." That is what I meant.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Its a start!
 

Team 111 did not win a regional, chairman's or inspiration award.

Raul

I agree. If you were a new team last year or this year, you didn't get a "free chance" to go. I think that the even teams from last year and the rookies from year should be moved into the first or second tier. Obviously my opinion is biased, but I think it's sort of strange to give these teams who have had 5+ years to go (and apparently for whatever the reason haven't...) more priority.

I went to nat's my first year in FIRST with team 442. We didn't earn our way, but we did get there by the even/odd rule. I thought that was the most amazing experience being my first year in the competition. It made me thirst for it. I wanted to go back the next year. Badly. More than you will ever imagine. I think if we gave the rookie teams who could afford it this same opprotunity, then it would make them work harder in the following years to earn their way to nat's.

Think if you were a new rookie team who had a hard time convincing your school to start and join a team. Perhaps you do badly at a regional and that's the end of things. Even though I don't feel that the competition is the main focus of FIRST, many people do. I'm sure a lot of team members wouldn't return the following year because they were discouraged or for whatever the reason just decide not to re-join.

This may even turn out to be a non-issue. Many of these teams will qualify by winning awards and the like, but who knows?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Its a start!
 

Well, you DID win the Nationals. lol :p

Rookie teams dont have NO chance. Rookie all star is a qualifier.

Yes, I would really like to go to championships. It would be great if the students could have the experience of championships the first year. But I also think we have to earn our way there, just like all the other teams.

I agree that it is not a true championship, for that to happen the ideas of West Coast/East Coast regional champions moving on to a semi-final championship, then onto a culminating championship. But restricting it to that would cause a huge riot that I don't wanna be around for.

Expanding the event would be nice, but it would cause an increase in entry fees, no doubt.....Its been said time and time before, FIRST has a logistical nightmare with the championship, and they would have to re-think their plans before making it that big.

Last year we followed Chatsworth's lead and offered to include rookie members to another regional (not the So Cal regional they'd be going to as rookies). Since they weren't part of our school, they had to have a parent accompany them. We paid for a rookie/parent, a talented jrhi/parent, a talented elementary/parent. They all had to be "behaving" kids and willing to work as part of our team. It was a great experience all around.

Don't think we'll be able spend that money on them this year, but we'll take those from teams or other schools we invite to Phoenix and nationals if they want to pay for themselves and a parent, and again agree to behave and work as part of our team.

Since when is FIRST about the championships ( and i say that like i would the super bowl, or world series) If a rookie team starts in the program for the single purpose to goto The Championships, then In my honest opinion, they are here for the wrong reason.

Sure the championships serve a purpose, and sure its a great learning experience, but a rookie team from the mid west attending a east or west coast regional could be more beneficial, and not as overwhelming, our team, team 25 started in FIRST in 1997, not to goto The Championships, not to win, but to build a robot, thats what this program is in the end, build the robot, don't worry where you compete. in 2000 we got to nationals by accident, and won,

we are all allowed our opinion and i am not here to try and change people's opinion.

Championship is one of the REWARDS of the FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST isn't even about robots. FIRST is about changing the culture. FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The robot is one of the vehicles or tools used to drive across the message of FIRST. Yes some of us obsess over our robots, even I'm guilty of it. But if you want to know why I'm doing engineering, its cause of working on that robot when I was a student on 180 (in particular Lexy and Fluffy :) ). I found that it was fun and exciting (well not tapping holes, sanding, etc...:D ) but you know what I thought I could do this. Its never been about the robots, they come to life for a season and pretty much are useless for the next. But its through the robots that FIRST hopes to get students interested in Math, Science, and Engineering. Just read the Chairman's Award criteria and maybe you'll understand why.

to be honest, mike, i forgot about that. Yes, championships IS a reward, and yes FIRST is NOT about building to win or to go to championships, but it's a great inspiration. Yes, regionals have a great effect as well, but nationals for me was beyond anything I could have imagined. If a rookie team had the chance to experience this I would almost guarantee that every rookie would return for a second season than just the rookie all star award winners.

yes, my team will be returning and we did not win any awards or attend nationals last year, but that is because of the inspiration we received from another team. not all rookies get to experience having a sister team, having mentors, having basically a second family teaching you the ropes.

So if rookies may not be eligible to attend the Championship Event maybe they should all get mentored.

Is that possible?

After reading all of these posts, first of all I would like to say that I think it is great that this forum exists where people can express their opinions. I think it is a great barometer for getting an overall sampling of what teams may actually be thinking in response to announcements, occurrences, etc. Thanks team 47 for this great service

With that on to the way onto the matter at hand. While I feel it is in a sense awkward that this thread is going strongly into its 5th page and that much of the information is repeated information and/or opinions, I do not believe that I have read too many posts that were not unjustified or too far off topic. Despite the large # of replies, the vast majority of the posts were actually reactions to at least some part of the new Championship qualification guidelines. good job guys.

Sorry in advance for the length of this post, but I wanted to wait until I felt I had a significant amount of information and or opinion to post in order to avoid clutter and "worthless" posts, and now I feel I have enough stuff to say to really be saying something.

When the new guidelines for qualifications were released, I was quite disappointed. Not in FIRST mind you, but I was disappointed nonetheless, but more on that later.

Bear with me, if you will, as I share my story with you, as I feel it shows how the new guidelines will lead to some disappointed individuals and teams in the short run (I consider the short run in this sense to be the period of say 2 seasons or so).

2 years ago, I was a sophomore who was interested in robotics. My school did not have a robotics team or club for that matter. A small group of us, myself included, had begun to talk about having one about midway through my freshman year (around or after the build season 3 years ago). That first year (2 seasons ago), we did not really know much about first, there were only about 5 of us, and we had no kinds of sponsorships or fundraisers, so competing in FIRST probably would not have been terribly useful except in showing us what to do for the following year and inspiring us to do our best. So instead we mentored a Lego League team at the middle school across the street from us. The number of kids interested over there was even less than the 5 or so of us that were doing the mentoring, but I think we still made the best of it.

That spring, 3 or 4 of our teacher mentors went to nationals as part of a trip they were making in Florida and they got to check it out for a day or two. When they got back, they were so pumped about the event, and came back with video and a lot of stories, that the excitement was contagious. The next year (last season) we would definitely be competing. In the fall of last year, we went to enrichment sessions teaching us the engineering process, machine shop safety, etc, and found our primary mentors, a local university (Georgia Tech, just thought I'd add in a little plug for them ;) )

When the build season came around, we had roughly 30 people who had shown an interest in the competition, and we were regularly going down to Tech to work on the robot, first designing, then prototyping, then building, etc. We put in countless man-hours into building the robot, as I imagine most if not all teams do during the build season, but this was our first year and it was exciting, new, and we were pumped about it.

After ship day, I expected our work load to decrease and we could take it easy until competition day. I was wrong. in the meantime, we worked out t-shirts, promo items, budget issues, scouting databases (those at the Peachtree regional might remember our scouting RV where you could get scouting reports for any team there) and a wealth of other things. Granted we did not have all 30 people working on all these things all the time, but everyone helped in some way, and I personally tried to do as much as I could, finding myself almost as busy as the build season.

We are an even numbered team, so we knew that if we were going to nationals, we would have to earn it. Being a rookie team, we would also be scrambling extra hard to come up with the money for travel and accommodations, etc in time. We ended up taking to awards, the J&J sportsmanship award, and rookie all-star award. Initially I thought that the rookie award qualified us for nationals, but someone fortunately corrected me before I got TOO excited lol. We ended up in a situation where we did not qualify on our own merit strictly, we were all tired, and had missed several days of school (several of us missed half of our HS graduation exams, which just happened to be the week of regionals!) . Also, finding the money for travel and hotels, etc would be a pain, even if we did manage to snag one of the open spots left. So, we decided to put the money we had set aside for national registration to good use and helped sponsor another rookie team to go to nationals to help with their expenses (they had qualified through awards to go to Nat's).

This year, I am the club president and am already putting in countless hours each week into making our club as strong and smoothly run as possible. We currently have 73 members, are competing in 3 competitions (FIRST, BEST, and FLL), and have sub-divided into 7 sub-teams. Managing this is proving challenging, but we are holding up pretty well. While we did not take home any awards at BEST, we did great for our first year, especially since only 1 of our BEST team members had been on the FIRST team last year.

This year, we are not going to nationals because we are an even team. We are not going to nationals because several of our mentors worked hard to help organize the move to Atlanta (drawing up proposals and such, they did not have a say in the final decisions and do not have any real power over who goes to nationals, etc just in case you're wondering, so we do not have an unfair advantage in that sense). We are not going to nationals based on previous points; last years awards add up to 4 points, 5 are needed for qualification. I am a senior this year and am already putting in countless hours per week doing all I can for the club. Thus, I will not be on a competing team as a team member if our team makes it in the future. We were really looking forward to going to nationals this year with them being in Atlanta, us being super-prepared and dedicated to go, etc. Now it appears that we will just have to work twice as hard to qualify....oh well

I hope that we make it to championships this year, and am a bit disappointed that our chances are so diminished, and that last years rookie all star award did not qualify us last year nor will it qualify us for this year. Had we started under the same conditions a year prior or a year after we did, then we would be going to nationals (either by even number, or rookie all-stars, respectively). Do we still have a chance at going? of course, and we plan on maximizing that chance as much as possible.

This brings me to my actual point (yeah, sorry this message is becoming WAY too long, but as I said, I have a lot to say :-P). Yes I am personally disappointed with the new guidelines. Am I disappointed with FIRST for laying out the guidelines this way? Not in the least. I am disappointed because now the chances of me being able to compete in the championships in my high school career are very diminished, despite all of the work I have put in helping this team grow from 5 members to 73 members. Of course I could have never done this without the equal if not greater efforts of our teachers, mentors, and all of my peers dedication. But once again, that is a story for another post.

The point is, that I am quite convinced that these guidelines are a good, fair way to determine national participation in the long run (once we see how they work they may need to be fine-tuned, but it appears to be a good system). by that I mean that I as of yet have been completely unable to come up with a better system that is more "fair" to more teams.

Sure you can debate each small point....should the original '92 teams have automatic acceptance into the Nat's? It is obviously a difficult question, as they have put in a ton of time and effort over the years to help form and shape FIRST into what it is today, and are still around. Personally I am leaning towards saying that this is better overall than not letting them in. I will not go on and on about justifying my position, I believe most of the best arguments have been shared on both sides in this thread. What about the tiered system, and the rest? same deal. I feel that FIRST has done an excellent job of finding a good system overall that I believe should be more or less fair to all teams in the long run.

While I have heard many people say that they do not like the plan or one particular aspect of the plan, I have not really hard anyone discussing what options would be better overall. So this is my challenge: to all of those who feel that this system is unfair, unjust, or basically not the best of systems overall, instead of just saying what you DON'T like about it, first mention something you DO like about it, then discuss possible alternatives to make it better I feel that this is the best option in maximizing the usefulness of this forum and the opportunity of everyone being able to share their ideas

It is disappointing that our Rookie all star award did not qualify us last year, and that had we received it this year it would, but by all means I believe it should be grounds for qualification. Essentially that is how I can say that I am both disappointed at the news of the new system, and yet happy with the new system overall

I am now approaching the message length max, and have been rambling for far too long, but this is how I feel and I hope that it has helped those of you who actually took the time to read through it all

please give me some feedback on this as I enjoy hearing different POVs

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Its a start!
 

The point is that if last year we were bound by the current qualification system... Wildstang would NOT have been in Houston, and couldn't have won.

I would really like to apologize for the length of the last post, as I probably wrote in a bit too much detail. and for those of you who were wondering, yes I did have to shorten that last sentence (abbreviating to POV) to make it within the character limit.

On a related note: it appears the limit for characters in a post is NOT 10000, but actually 9962 :-P not sure whether this was on purpose, a fluke or what but just thought it would be an interesting tidbit.

Also, sorry for the lack of necessity and off-topic-ness of this post, but I felt a formal apology was in order.

You could have narrowed it down just to that. Like Baker said time and time again, clear, concise, and to the point or nobody will read it (I didn't).

Good point though. I see too many people whining and not offering better alternatives that are fair to everyone.
Actually, it is 10,000. You or your program probabaly isn't counting line returns correctly (which is 2 characters: one for carriage return and one for line feed). There are 38 line returns in your post, which would account for your number being off.

i am sorry for any argument i may have caused now, prior to or after any of my posts, and i am sorry for starting the O/T'ness of this thread. with that said i want to propose a situation to everyone. You all say that you want the nationals bigger and you want to go, but you may not qualify this year, so i got a challenge for everyone who is not qualified to compete.

GO TO VOLUNTEER!

The only way that first will expand and the nationals can contain more teams, is if the volunteer amount goes up. So if your team is not qualified to compete, go to volunteer. Personally if i saw a team down volunteering that was or was not from around the Atlanta area, and did not qualify to compete but went to volunteer, that would show more inspiration to me and prob many other people/teams then if you had qualified and went to compete. So please everyone if you do not qualify what is restricting you from volunteering at nationals. Sign up and bring some team members, bring some rookies and show them what the whole atmosphere is about. Competing is not the only way for a team to be at nationals. So please feel free to help out with FIRST and give back to them for once, what they have been giving us for 13 years, and that is competitions. And if anyone out there might be so inclined to help out here are a few links that will help you in your "volunteer quest". You can sign up on-line when the system is put back up at http://www.usfirst.org/volunteer/ and also you can get volunteer info at http://www.usfirst.org/volunteers/ !!!!!

So if you DON'T go to compete, go to VOLUNTEER!

~Mike

Woa this thread has exploded within the past few days! Let's get Bill O'Reilly in here for some topic mediation!! ;)

This new system is... well it's what it is. Different. And I think it's pretty much as fair as possible at the moment. FIRST is getting bigger, the expectations are getting higher. I think it's about time FIRST raised the bar a little. However, I'm also saddened that the awards aren't going to be as important as they once were. What about Animation or the Inventor Awards??? The Regional Animation Award was just introduced last year, but what's going to happen with that this year??... Only time will tell, but my guess is that it will have absolutely no effect on competition qualification.

Also, with the veteran 1st year teams. They should be allowed to come back year after year after year, not because they're "better" or more experienced, but just because they happen to be the first ones to get into this awesome thing known as FIRST. I know there are teams out there who do A LOT more than 1st year teams, but they weren't here first. Plain and simple.

Wow... that's probably as long as a post you'll get out of me for a while.. :]

Excellent point dez250! (I knew I forgot something in my large post lol). By all means, if we do not qualify to compete, I will certainly be first in line to volunteer, and will encourage my team to do the same.

And thank you Jnadke. I know I should have been more concise but sometimes I am not as good at narrowing things down as I am at explaining things in detail. However, despite the fact that you did not read the entire post, you certainly hit the nail on the head; that one paragraph WAS the point I was trying to get across, no matter how indirectly I was attempting to do it.

Mike- all the teams should go to the Nationals. Frankly, the experience of attending the Nationals is the most motivational and fun part of the whole FIRST world. It is where you get to meet the kids from other parts of the country and it is the big event that FIRST hypes as the "superbowl of smarts". What team doesn't want a shot at the superbowl or is content to settle for little league when everybody raves about the big leagues?

FIRST is about motivating kids and being a part of a bigger picture. You don't need to win but everybody SHOULD be there. All the teams have something to share with the others. If team 25 could have gone to the nats in the beginning we would have. You were there and know that we wanted to but didn't believe we could. We weren't ready then. We certainly are now but unfortunately in the future may not be allowed to. THAT's the issue.

We'll have no choice but accept what is thrown at us. But we don't always need to be smiling about it.

WC

wow - lots of interesting discussion
 

So many points come to mind; I'll just hit on the ones I can remember and limit this to a list of "ten" comments:

Most of the posts in this thread bring up valid thoughts and observations. Some are a little off - but that is mostly due to some gray areas in how the criteria was presented by FIRST, which I'm sure will be clarified this week and put some false assumptions to rest. And some posts are just not based in reality - such as this not being a championship or should be open to all teams. As Ken, Andy, Dave, and some others have pointed out - once most people step back and actually consider the criteria, they have reached calm and well thought out opinions on it (recognizing pros and cons)- but some people instantly react on emotion without considering the difference between idealistic and realistic.

# 1 - the FIRST Championship is a Championship in EVERY sense of the word, just like any major sports Championship. In every sport, every team gets a chance to advance to the Championship by winning their "regional" division or tournament. Like many sports, FIRST also adds some "wildcard" criteria to add to the field so more teams can participate. Some will ALWAYS be convinced it should be done "their" way, but make no mistake, the FIRST Championship is just that - a Championship with more teams participating than any other competition most can think of - so whoever wins that Championship event or wins any award at that event is truly deserving and should be extremely proud. Just like they should if they achieve any of those recognitions at a Regional event.

# 2 - while 95% of the discussion is productive, those few people who just can't let go of the idealistic yet completely unrealistic "everyone should go, they should let in hundreds of more teams" have the best intentions but need to redirect their energy in more productive ways. 300 teams get in - that's AMAZING. To those who say everyone should get to experience FIRST - everyone DOES - the Regional Competitions are tremendous productions rivaling and exceeding State Championships in any sport. Please, people need to let this go - FIRST holds a larger Championship than any other sport there is. Be thrilled with that, and be thrilled that the Regional Competitions are such a great experience. The Championship is such a small part of the impact FIRST makes - it's the 6 weeks, the teamwork, the regional competitions, the off season events and workshops where teams work together.... these things are 90% of the FIRST experience and are why teams come back. Any team which has lost this focus and feels that the "Championship" event is the "experience" or impact or main motivation of participating in FIRST has forgotten why they got involved and thought the program was so great in the first place.

# 3 - regarding some thoughts saying more teams should get more notice to plan to attend - this system DOES that. Last year 8 teams per regional qualified with only a few weeks notice, this season 6 teams. Meaning over HALF the field (about 10 percent more of the total teams, which hasn't changed in #) will know NOW, months in advance, so they can decide if they want to go and fundraise.

# 4 - as a few students and mentors like Allison very astutely pointed out - NO team only finds out with a couple weeks notice that they get to go the Championship. EVERY team knows right now what circumstances may lead to them qualifying - so as some students pointed out, teams can have the discussion now "IF we qualify, do we want to go?" If the answer is yes, then fundraise now and turn in the bureaucratic paper to get permission now. If you don't qualify - then you are ahead of the game for funding next year, and the trip can always be cancelled with school districts much easier than trying to get last minute approval.

# 5 - the "original" 1992 teams getting a free ride issue: Great example of a great topic in which BOTH sides are basically right and neither side is wrong. While I agree with those who wouldn't give them a free ride (mainly because the students on the teams weren't around back then, and work no harder now than the students on many other teams), those who think it's a good idea have some darn good reasons why also - it's only 6 or 7 teams and not worth losing a sleep over, as someone pointed out. That's a great example of a topic which would be good for teams to voice their thoughts on in the Team Forums so maybe FIRST can see if there is a strong preference one way or the other.

# 6 - the view of some (a few I must say) who actually think this system helps "the rich get richer" or "isn't fair to the rookies".... just not the case. FIRST is getting rid of the 5-point system, which rewarded teams who could afford multiple events in one year, and they created an automatic qualifier for rookie teams, which has NEVER existed (plus rookies can still qualify the others ways). This will guarantee that 30-40 rookies (All Stars plus some other qualifiers) will get the chance to go. That's possibly about 20% of the rookie teams and 10-15% of the entire Championship field.

# 7 - there seems to be an illusion that "even" teams lost their "guaranteed" chance to register this year. Many have pointed out the numbers, that when you take out the 5-point teams and the 6 qualifiers per regional there are probably only around 80 spots left to "open" registration. This means that only 80 "even" teams out of four to five hundred could have open registered this year. So if you're an even team, remember - you had a MUCH better chance of NOT getting in than you did of getting in. They just decided to give teams who haven’t got to attend the championship in the longest time the chance to fill these spots - isn't this what most said they want, for all teams to get the chance to experience the Championship eventually, in a somewhat fair way? (That’s posed to those who understand that no Championship event can ever include everyone - or grow to 500+ teams, which would have the EXACT same problem in a couple years when there are 1500+ teams. And it's SO MANY factors - not just volunteers, space, money, resources, schedule/calendar - all reasons, not one single reason)

# 8 - and this is key, the letter from FIRST said this is a transition, and that the "existing" 5 point system is discontinued now - they are basically telling us that they will still work on improving the system after this year, and are looking forward to constructive feedback, input, and ideas from teams in the off season to help.

# 9 - great discussion. It shows how passionate so many people are about FIRST, how much of an impact and how much so many have gotten through participating (and again, I would propose little of that is a result of the "Championship"), and shows that the future of FIRST is very bright with all the great students and mentors coming out of the program, staying involved, and contributing their ideas and energy. FIRST continues to improve every year, and I have no doubt this year will be even better than last, and next year will be even better than this.

# 10 - While painful (long), I figured I'd stick to my rule of sparing everyone multiple posts and just reply to all the topics that caught my attention in one swoop. To those who made it here, to the end - WAKE UP! Maybe reading this entire post should be an award which qualifies one for the Championship? ;) Thanks for listening to my $.02, multiplied a few times.

#10a - I totally understand if Brandon bans me from posting on CD again, sorry about the length. :)

Can't wait for the new season - kudos to all for all the energy and hard work you continue to put into your teams...the students are the real winners...and all clichés aside...they are winners because they participate and make it to a regional event with a robot.

Re: wow - lots of interesting discussion
 

I agree the 1992 teams should definitely be able to go to nationals every year. as was pointed out earlier, a number of these teams have earned the Chairman's Award, so they would be at Nationals anyhow.

I agree this system is fair to the greatest number.

What I don't agree with is the even teams that were rookies last year...well, actually...I'll broaden my argument.

If a team has NEVER been to nationals. Ever. They could be a rookie from last year or a 4-year team or an 8 year team...I don't understand why these teams are placed in the last tier? That's really strange.

If the teams that are older than one year are placed in the first tier and rookie teams from last year (who didn't go to nat's thus would have never gone before) are placed in the last tier...I think that's a bit of a quirk that FIRST needs to address.

If anyone has a clarification on that or comments, please by all means share because that grey area confuses me greatly.

I agree Jeremy
 

it's obvious just from the reactions, that some aspects of the system are a little confusing and could use clarification - which I'm hopeful will be coming.

Regarding your tier placement question - would this wording help understand it more:

A team is placed in a tier based on "the last year they attended the Championship OR (if they have NEVER attended the Championship) how many years they have participated in FIRST without attending the Championship."?

Your concern is valid, but don't worry - it's not the case. Teams who have not gone in 3 years will be two tiers above those who have not gone in 1 year - regardless of if they have ever gone or not.

Don't know if that wording (which is my interpretation, NOT an official wording from FIRST) helps clarify or not.

JM

I feel just a bit shafted ...
 

I am an engineer on one of last year's rookie teams. Having an even team number, and not winning any qualifying competitions/awards meant we were not able to attend nationals last year. That was easy to swallow, as I feel most rookie teams have a ton to learn and are not really prepared to compete at nationals anyway. However we did expect to at least have the opportunity to try to register for nationals this year, then with the announcement of this new qualification system it seems that opportunity has been taken away (unless we can earn it thru one of the other “current year” qualifiers).

If I understand these new criteria (please correct me if I am wrong), excluding the award/competition based criteria, the 6 tier system helps to assure that teams will have ”a chance to register for nationals” at least once every 6 years, depending on demand and "lottery" luck. If I am reading this correctly our team would be in tier 2 this year (did not attend last year, and did not exist prior to that), which is the fifth level away from being eligible to register. I would say that assures we will NOT have an un-earned opportunity this year. While I don't think that is necessarily unfair, it sure is disappointing.

I would suggest one small adjustment. I think the 6 tiers should be reduced to four. With most high school careers lasting 4 years that would give 4-year team members at least one potential chance during their tenure to attend nationals. I was fortunate enough to attend with another team that I worked with in 2002, and I think it is something that everyone should be able to experience. For a student to come into the program at the "wrong time" and have the timing exclude that possibility (again assuming that the team did not otherwise earn a spot) just doesn't seem fair.

I suppose it would take a lot of conjecture and a bunch of number crunching to figure out, but maybe there won’t be enough tier 5 and 6 teams to fill all available spots.

What many people will think that will happen is that they have to wait 6 years till they get the *chance* to *maybe* get to nationals. This isn't true.

Tier 6-4 are probably not going to have many teams, if any, on there, and most of them on there, probably wont' go. This then allows for 3 to try out. And with how it looks, MANY teams will already register, so don't think that you will only go every 6 years. It won't work like that. I think that every year we will get down to about tier 2 (2 years since last Nats) and most will get to go.

Re: I agree Jeremy
 

Partially I mentioned it to defend rookies... from what I heard, first-year rookie teams start out in tier 0. With the suggestion I made, first-year rookie teams would start out in tier 1 (since this is their first year competing), with everyone else who went the prior year. That way last year's rookies would get a fair chance at the lottery on tier 2, instead of being hopelessly lost on tier 1. While this suggestion doesn't put rookies over any team, it gives them a fair chance for the next year (most likely pre-registration will cover tier 6-3 teams and then a lottery will be held for tier 2).

So I goto Cedar Point this summer, they got this new roller coaster, highest in the world

but we get there late in the morning, and the line is already long

so we go on a few other rides, then get in line for the new roller coaster around noon.

We are in line until 5PM, getting close to the front

and a bunch of people start coming into the park on the evening pass (cheaper after 5)

and they think they should automatically goto the head of the line

And Im looking at them thinking, are you nuts?! We've been standing in line for FIVE HOURS!

and the guy says, yeahbut we JUST GOT HERE - so we couldnt get in line at noon - so its only fair that we get to goto the head of the line

and you guys stay behind us - youve already been waiting 5 hours, you can wait 5 more - right? after all, its not OUR fault you have been standing in line for 5 hours already because WE just got here!

?!

why would anyone possibly think that a new team should be put infront of teams that have been wanting to goto the chamionship for 5 or 6 years (but havent been able to, for whatever reason)

?!

...and then the new ride breaks (again) and nobody gets to ride at all ;).

but would you disagree in saying that every team should get to experience nationals at least once before the veteran teams who don't qualify based on competition get a "free entry" ?

i think that teams should at least get to go every 4 years so that at least once during your high school time on a team(granted your on it 4 years) you get to go to nats. every one should get to go at least once!

So, with that mentality the Championships will include 1/4 of the total number of FIRST teams. Let's look at the numbers.

Throughout the years, FIRST has grown at about a 30-40% rate. If we conservatively assume that this growth rate will decrease to 20%, then the Championships will be this big in the coming years:

2007: 518 teams at Championships (2073 total teams)
2011: 1,075 teams at Championships (4300 total teams)
2015: 2,229 teams at Championships (8916 total teams)

(warning, sarcasm mode: on)

Wow... won't that be fun! In eight years, the Championships will be almost 10 times as big as they were last year in Houston. Golly, someone is going to have to build a REALLY big facility to host this event... 'cause we all deserve to go!

(sarcasm mode: off)

Seriously, you guys... look at the numbers. You simply cannot make the arguement "all teams should go". Hosting an event with 50 or 60 teams is not especially easy to do. I cannot even fathom hosting a competition with 500 teams, let alone 1,000 or 2,000. You guys are smart enough to build robots, you need to be smart enough to figure this capacity thing out.

I don't like being harsh, but maybe this will clear things up.

Andy B.

Withholding my opinions on discount admission at theme parks, I think that having rookies be able to go to Nats in front of Vets is a good one. First, nothing boosts a new team more in funding and recognition than saying "We went to Champs." Second, MANY rookies teams cannot afford to go, so we are loosing how many spots to rookie teams? 10? 20? Anyway, your analogy isn't totally correct. The Champs arn't a que line for a ride where it's first come first serve. A tiered system is set up on years since attendance. What would be more accurate would be having people who havn't ridden the ride or those who havn't ridden in a while get ahead of those who have ridden it more times.

As FIRST continues to grow it seems we will need to have the Regional "qualifiers" advance to a Divisional competition, then on to the National Championship.

While I agree that as FIRST grows there won't be enough room for even 1/4 of the teams to compete at Nationals, I don't think your numbers can be taken at face value. Some of the teams that qualify might not be able to go due to lack of money or other reasons. For example, our school district won't let any clubs go to Nationals/Championship unless they win(in our case a regional). With our luck I can't see us doing that anytime soon so we would never use our spot. Also, many teams from outside the US would never be able to go as most school districts are very cautious about letting their students travel outside the country. Keeping that in mind, I'd think that at most 3/4 of the teams would be able to actually go.

Championship
 

Here's how I see things:

I'm glad that the current system gives preference to teams that haven't been in the longest time.

I don't like the "qualifying points" system at all.

FIRST has a problem - two "winning" structures. We know that it is very possible to build a winning machine without doing a whole lot of inspiring, and it is possible to inspire without building a winning machine.

What is happening is that FIRST is trying to reward the winners of both structures while allowing as many teams to participate at the "national event" as possible. Of course, those who believe one structure is more important than the other are disappointed in the current system.

Until FIRST says something like "We are rewarding the teams that INSPIRE and we don't care about how well your robot performs on the field." or "This is a COMPETITION and we will reward only those teams who's robots win on the field." We will have this problem.

Personally (OK, DISCLAIMER: statistically, my opinion is shared by a finite number of people both on my team and off - I just don't know who they are - and I probably haven't met them) I fall on the side where competition is fun, but not the be-all and end-all of the event. I don't really care who wins or not. FIRST is not very much about how your robot performs on the field. It is the effect your team has on everyone around them.

Howzat?

-Mr. Van
Robo-Dox, 599

I've tried to keep my mouth shut and stay out of this. It has been tough, but now I have to break my silence.

Honestly people, what are you going to accomplish from complaining and moaning on this board? Here's your answer, nothing but trouble. These new rules were made because many of you complained about the old rules, so FIRST did their very best and listened to you people. They changed them. But no...still doesn't make you happy. Instead of wasting your time moaning and groaning in this thread or any other thread about what you think should be done, go to the team forums in the summer time. Thats why they created them. If you can't go find someone who is going to make your point for you. I've seen too many complaints and not much to justify them. If you have a complaint, save it for the forums and try to come up with what you think would be a good replacement. The people on the FIRST board work their butts off to try to make you happy and all of this is just a sign of disrespect to all the hard work they do. It's the rules, they are going to stay for this year. Deal with it.

A very disappointed D.J.

I'm sorry I have to get negitive about this, but as I read through and see the different methods of defense to this decision, I see no other way.

Thank you to people like Jason Morella for clearing things up a bit, and thanks to people like D.J. who post as such to get us all back into our right minds.

When's the last time you called up FIRST headquarters just to say thanks? Or saw a volunteer at a regional and said, 'Hey, you're doing a really great job here. Thank you for everything you're doing in your spare time.'

Sadly, not enough people do that.

I think D.J.'s post (before the slams and the negative comments come in) was similar to my earlier post.

Just please remember when posting that there's a group of people trying really hard to do what's best. As was pointed out to me (and I really do appreciate it) criticism is the way to improve on the system, but please don't take it to extremes.

Criticism and flat out complaining are two different things. Criticism is good right now: let's work things out and find a better way. Complaining is not only getting us nowhere, but making everyone seem like the mentality is "This system sucks, and here's why."

It all comes down to this: things are really changing. It's just how we, as a community, handle this change constructively and how we make FIRST a better place.

I know this is a little bit off topic, but i wanted to say it.

When Dean came down to Indy last month for the EIC/EMCW Expo, I asked him if he could sign a blown up picture that I have on my bedroom wall from the 2001 Nationals when we won the Delphi Driving Technology award. Dean delightfully signed it and he said, "thank you". I stood there for a few seconds, shocked. I thought to myself that I should be the one thanking Dean for all he has done instead of him thanking me. I did then thank Dean then he went off to talk with some of the students from 461.


Most people arent going to realize the impact of FIRST until they graduate from HS and move on. I am just now beginning to see all the greatness. Thanks to everyone who has helped me. :]

WOW ... RELAX DJ ... What set you off?

I actually haven't seen too much complaining the past few posts. But how about this for a suggestion ...

I know Indiana teams have been talking about working to reduce the outrageous cost of the Regional competitions - maybe modeled after the current pre/post season events run by various teams. I don't personally have much experience here, but I do know that the past few IRI events showcased some top notch competition with some of the best teams in the country attending - at MUCH LESS than 20% of the cost of a FIRST regional. I am sure many of the other events are similar. I have had many discussions with others regarding the enormous budgets required to sustain a viable team. A "reorganization" of sorts could help solve multiple problems at once.

How about establishing three or four divisions and making the divisional competitions the big glitzy "bling-bling" of FIRST while toning down the regional events significantly (more Divisions could be added as FIRST grows). MUCH less money would be required by individual teams to enter these "scaled down" regionals - then all teams would have to "win" their way to the Divisional "playoffs" which then leads to the National event. The criteria for advancement would be determined by FIRST according to whatever they wanted to emphasize about the program (could be pure robot competition, inspiration, design, etc ... , or a mix - this is a separate debate). If FIRST is not spending so much money on 23+ HUGE GLITZY regional competitions they could even subsidize the Divisional and National costs to ease the burden on teams that win their way there. What better way to increase the participation in FIRST?

The problem with this type of system goes back to the common misconception that the 4K you pay as registration for a regional goes toward the expenses of that regional. In reality, only a very small portion of it does. In reality, the majority of the registration fees cover things such as:
-The salary of those who are employed by FIRST
-Travel costs of sending FIRST representation to the various events
-Some of the bills associated with their office
-Paying the drayage costs that FIRST covers for each team
-Paying the Meeting Co, etc. for handling the event logistics
-etc, etc...

The regional events are for the largest part funded by local sponsorship(those companies you see on the "200X FIRST _______ Regional Sponsors" banner.) As with any major corporation, these sponsors have a definite greater interest in funding _local_ events rather than an event held further away. So if a scaled down regional structure was used, it would not save FIRST any real money, but rather only cause the local committee for each regional to ask their sponsor(s) for a smaller check...

Are you saying this stuff costs over $200,000 PER EVENT??

SOMEBODY besides me is getting FAT!

Don't forget the kit of parts. While a lot of the materials are donated, there are also many that aren't. Notice how this year FIRST cut out the battery charger, compressor, etc. to cut costs so the fee wouldn't have to increase.

As much as I like the idea of having regionals like off seasons, its just not possible to get the fee that low with all the other costs.

I think that the largest cost of a regional is the event location itself. Not all regionals have this donated. It's expensive if you have to pay the going rate (or even a reduced rate) for a place that can fit 2000 people and 40 robots. And that cost isn't likely to change.

And, ask the people at the LI regional how hard it is to play the game with out a big display screen.

FIRST is a non-profit organization, funded primarilly by corporate donations

and yes, you set up a regional with 40 teams, and the year long expense it takes to organize it, supply the teams with what they need, hold the event, then goto the next one, cost well over $200,000.

I don't think, under any circumstances, every team that wants to go to nationals will be able to go. But FIRST should be working on expanding the numbers rather than finding new ways to limit teams' attendance to nationals.

I think what we need is a compromise, try to allow more teams to come but don't try to accompany them all. Besides people, you haven't given the system a chance, you don't know what FIRST has up their sleeves, I mean who saw those bins coming eh? I'm a programmer, not just for the robot, so I'm used to putting out something totally new and field testing it before making more changes. They're only human, give them a shot at this. Until it goes through a season and we see how it reacts, can we really criticize it?

Has anybody figured this out yet?

Don't know if anyone has posted this yet but FIRST updated their site and it is now much clearer.

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2004/cmp_elig.htm

Once again, we have spoken and FIRST has listened. I think the new system will work fine...for now.

<edit>
Ideally this means a team can get a "free ride" to the CE every 2 to 3 years.
</edit>

If we get off with paying only $200K, we're getting off lucky.

With the new post by FIRST those of us who were 1st year teams last year are officially screwed.

We have been put in the same category as the teams that went to Nationals last year...

"Tier 1 Last attended Championship in 2003, or
never attended Championship and Rookie Year is 2003"

Therefore the statement that

"These slots will be based on the number of years since a team last attended the Championship. " is false.

Teams attending last year (hence 0 years since last attending) and Rookie teams from 2003 who DID NOT go to Nationals.. (1 years since last attending) are treated exactly the same...

This goes for those of us who were even numbered last year and couldn't have gone if we wanted to...


sarcasm (ON)
Was last year's crop of rookies that bad???
sarcasm (OFF)

Yes, second year teams are in Tier 1, but not, as you say, screwed. Just like every other team out there you will also have the chance to compete in the CE once, or maybe even twice every four years. This I think is very reasonable.

FIRST never said the transition from the old system to the new system would be flawless and I don't think anyone could expect it to be perfect for all teams.

Its been said near a million times already, but hopefully this is the last. Lets just stop complaining and enjoy what is great about the FIRST competition and what brought us all here in the first place.

At our team meeting tonight, I realized something that had not been brought up here yet.

What is the biggest award that FIRST gives out?

Chairmans Award.
Duh, we all know that. But how many acutally *DO* that?
From what I've heard, its only about 1/3 of the teams that enter.

It its so prestigous, why don't more people submit a entry?

Mayhaps FIRST has seen this, and is not happy.
Mayhaps FIRST looked for a solution, and found one.

If you want to go, win Chairmans or Engineering Inspiration.
You can't win if you don't try.


Wetzel

Well if you've ever read what the teams write up (those that win) and think about what they did and what you do, many teams don't think they'll even have a shot at winning. Thus they don't bother try the next year. My old team, well S.P.A.M., we have a tradition of always doing it no matter what. Cause, well hey you never know? Its like matches, sometimes its just luck on who you get paired up with, etc....

Wetzel, you maybe right there....

I have strived to bite my tongue and stay out of this thread... but now I'm riled up... and here I go:

How does any one of us have the audacity to tell FIRST what they should do?

FIRST is probably the greatest organizational feat ever accomplished in the history of high school organizations. Never has anyone attempted to bring 10,000 high school students together in one place to celebrate. And done it 12 years in a row -- successfully. And done it for the sake of doing it -- not to make money out of it.

Why can't everyone honor them for their ability to do so? Why can't everyone thank them for caring to strive to find ways to make it possible to do so?

Why can't everyone realize that the only single thing that the FIRST Executive Board should do is to continue the absolutely amazing job that they have always done?

They asked our opinions, they listened to them, them evaluated them, they weighed them with all the issues, and they came up with the fairest system that they could.

Are we that spoiled? Are we that unappreciative? Are we that audacious to think that we are better than some of the best minds in the country who come together on a volunteer basis because they care about this organization with all their hearts... and then some?

Do we all know what gracious means?

I know one thing for sure. The FIRST Executive Board has done an amazing job coming up with a system. Whether I as an individual like it or dislike it is immaterial. They did a great job.

Thank you FIRST -- thank you, thank you, thank you -- I can't say that enough. We can't say that enough.... Its too bad that more of us don't try.

I have no problem with people discussing their opionions. I have no problem with people making suggestions. I cringe when I hear a bunch of unappreciative whiners telling FIRST what they should do.

I'll shut up now... well, after one more thing:

FIRST Executive Board -- Thank you for continuing to do an amazing job!!!!!!!! You guys ROCK!!! Sorry we don't appreciate your hard labors as much as we should.

Thanks Aidan. I'm glad there more out there other than myself that have that much passion for FIRST.


I like this quote that Dave Lavery once said, "You can either spend lots of energy complaining about it and whining or you can try to figure out how to make a positive experience from the whole thing."


People, lets give this system a chance to show its colors then we can evaluate it later on. I'm still not sure on how this system will affect our team, but I know that it's going to make us want to work harder this upcoming season.

Thank you for saying what I couldn't.

FIRST has seen this and they are not particularly happy about it. But beating on people is not the way to get them to do things that must be done with enthusiasm. I know that they have had discussions on this subject because I have been a part of them. Whether those discussion produce any fruit remains to be seen.


ChrisH

If you haven't already seen, the list of teams in the tiers are out...

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2004/tierlist.htm

FIRST has done an outstanding job with this system. It looks like it may actually function for five-six years without major over-haul.

FIRST has also done an excellent job with sharing information and getting this to us in a timely manner. Now that we know the system, we can plan around it.

Something which has not been picked up on this discussion is that the new system will give everyone a chance to go to championships if space allows. In the past two years, if you were odd (2002) or even (2001), you could not get onto the wait list. In the waning days of each year, FIRST threw the list open. As I read the new system, the wait list can potentially contain every registered team.

BTW, I just received this from FIRST. We're a Tier 2 team, so this answers how they will process additional tiers.

Because my team pays $10,00 to enter, I dedicate my self for six weeks plus missing school for around a week to the competitions. They aren't giving us a free product here, we are paying to participate and for them to create rules to keep order. If we don't like it then we can complain. Simple as that. If I go and buy a product and don't like what they offer, I can take my business else where, Battlebots, Robot Wars, etc.

People need to forget that FIRST isn't this 'holyer than thou' organization that we can't touch. If it wasn't for us, there would be no FIRST, so why can't we give our opinions about what FIRST does?

Why do teams in 1992 have a free ride?

Why aren't teams that have ten years or more?

I would think that would be worth something 10+ years of keeping a team together keeping the money coming in so you can compete every year. Why not give points for that. Most company reward people for their loyalty. Why not FIRST.

If it wasn't for the old teams bringing in the new team and sticking around from year to year there wouldn't be a FIRST.


Maybe there should of been something in the rules saying if you bring in so many new teams you get points. I think this would be better than if you were here in 1992 you get to go to the Nationals.

If FIRST want to make some good rules that will bring in more teams this one should. every team you bring in is worth 1 point. you get 5 teams in you get to go to the nationals. Is it not worth it for FIRST to do that then tell someone they can go because you were here in 1992?

I encourage everyone to read the posts by Jason Morella, Ken L, and Andy B, in this thread.

I have two famous gardening quotes for you:

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."

and

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

I talk to people in this program that feel family and job strain, that come to FIRST meetings disregard everything else, and I talk to people where FIRST is the best thing in their life.

It's been said on here repeatedly that FIRST makes life more difficult - sure, but people wouldn't do it if it wasn't enjoyable.

So, seeing as how you are 1. missing school, 2. giving up all your team's money, and 3. 'dedicating yourself' (whatever consists of that in your definition, everybody is different), you seem to be sticking in this for the long haul. Thereby, it is assumed that you are enjoying this program.

But your team doesn't have to pay the money, you don't have to miss school, and you don't have to waste precious time on a competition. Nobody asked you to. You, and the thousands of other FIRSTers, do it because it inspires you.

You are more than welcome to post your opinions about FIRST. Nobody said you couldn't, technically. But you must also understand that other people are just as liable to post what they think about you... because they also pay their money and take their chance on this organization.

You are not a special exception on CD. Post whatever you like; nobody is standing over your shoulder and telling you not to. But remember this:

If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be having much of a FIRST, either.

I don't see it as beating on people, I see it as a subtle dangling carrot.


As a gardener, I can always get thorn less roses.

and

I can always put lots of effort into making my grass greener. Fertilizing, watering, mowing in a proper manner(there are better ways to mow then others)

You get out what you put in. Posts that just say 'We got screwed outta our free ride this year' are not productive or helpful. Those that have some thought behind them can be valuable. By everyone contributing their thoughts and opinions, they can be gleaned for that 1 bit here and 1 bit there.

Business do this, and I know in particular the EMS system calls this Quality Improvement. Its a constant process of self-review with the intent to identify parts of the system that can be improved. Once a problem/weak spot has been identified, a plan is developed and then implemented to improve it.

Compare this to a group sitting around in a bar talking about the latest trade the Redskins made. Everyone will have an opinion, and they all will discuss it back and forth. You could make the very valid point that it dosn't matter that they think it was a horrible trade, that they should just accept it and move to something else, but that is their passion.

FIRST is the passion of the people here on Chief Delphi. Consider us like passionate sports fans, we will discuss any decision that FIRST makes. The difference is here, FIRST(or representatives of) will read our opinions and they might actually make a difference.


Wetzel

As long as I am reading this right, then 163 teams are already qualified to go.

But, according to THIS PAGE at the bottom, there is 210 spots to fill.

Now take 210 and subtract 163 and you get 47 teams left that are not already prequalified.

Going by this years qualifiers and 26 regional events
"Regional Chairman's Award winners (1 per Regional) (26 total)
Regional Engineering Inspiration Award winners (1 per Regional) (26 total)
Regional Rookie All-Star Award winners (1 per Regional) (26 total)
Regional Champions (3 per Regional) " (78 total)

Then we have
163 (teams already qualified)
26 (Chairmans 2004)
26 (Engineering Inspiration Award winners 2004)
26 (Rookie all stars 2004)
+ 78 (Regional Champions 2004)
--------------
319 teams going to the Championship Event this year.


(Why does it say that the limit is 210 then??)
And what is the real limit on teams attending the championships this year??

Remember, my calculations are taking into account that all winners of awards this year will be teams other than the ones that are pre qualified, and not other award winners that will qualify either!!

It's still going to be a big event no matter what!!!

All along, I thought working and thinking relentlessly about how to improve FIRST and the experience it provides displayed passion -- not complacency in accepting the things we're given.

But, hey, what do I know?

I re-read Aidan's post... and I gotta say, I missed the point where he told us to be complacent, and accept things.

What I took out of Aidan's post (and you can correct me if I'm wrong buddy ;)) is that everyone should be more respectful with what they post. They should be thankful for what they get.

Constructive criticism is good, but how much of what was posted here can even be called that? Not many people in this program understand what it actually takes to plan nationals. The actual numbers involved. The resources needed.

To mindlessly make grand declarations of how things should be done is silly. Think things through. Back up your emotions with logic, and reason.

Maddie -
What DO, you know?
Because... personally... I'm an ignorant college kid when it comes to this stuff. I DO NOT know the "numbers". Do you? I don't know how 13 (or however many) people manage to organize and run 20+ regionals and a national competition. Do you? Have you sat in on some of those meetings? I haven't. Every time I attend a competition I am again awed by the sheer magnitude of it. To even imply that it's as easy as an off-season competition is SILLY. I was at IRI, I was at Battlecry... I loved both events, but neither matched the awe I felt walking into the Verizon center for the NH regional last year. Standing in the booth at Battlecry wasn't anything like standing in the booth in Cleveland, in Connecticutt, in Long Island, in Toronto. These competitions are something unique. The FIRST staff puts a TON of time and effort into these competitions, and making them a success.


So, I ask...

Have you hugged a FIRST staff member today?
Heck... I bet they'd settle for a pat on the back, a "good job" and a "thank you".




It is not the criticism that bothers me.
It is the criticism without any gratitude.
Show some respect for the people who make this possible.

It is a good system.
It has some flaws.
It will work well anyways.
We will work together to improve it.

John

PS - Maybe in the future FIRST should just post a horrible system. Like "only teams 1-100 get to attend nationals. Then... when all the whining is going on... they can replace it with their actual system. Who would complain? ;)

Things could be a LOT worse, but I don't think they can get much better... I'm happy with what we've been given.

John --

I think the disconnect is that I don't understand where people have drawn the conclusion that not liking the new system or parts of equates to ungratefulness toward the FIRST staff. That's certainly not how I feel at all and my feeling is that there's nobody here who's angry with the FIRST staff for this system.

Rather, we all see a system that can be improved in some way -- whether it's because it doesn't focus on what we feel is important, or because it was unclear about some procedures, or because we're not eligible to go the Championship event.

Personally, I like the new focus on awards that we've been told to consider important, but haven't been treated as such. I don't like the classist system the tiers promote, but it's about the fairest classist system I can think of. I think there are places I'd like to see it changed, but I don't ever intend for that to translate to "Dave Lavery! You screwed up, you stupid moron!" or anything like that. Similarly, Aidan's post was, to my thinking, reinforcing a classist structure -- establishing the FIRST staff as being above those of us participating here on ChiefDelphi.com and in the FIRST community. I'm forever sorry that I'm not one of the greatest minds in the country, or even close to it, but I don't appreciate the implication that I cannot suggest improvements to this system because of that. Maybe I'm egotistical, but never have I considered the minds or accomplishments of any member of the FIRST Board of Directors to be greater than anything I or anyone else in FIRST could achieve. That, always, was my inspiration. This wouldn't be the first time I've been told, directly or indirectly, that I participate in FIRST for the wrong reasons, though.

I appreciate the work FIRST does tremendously and, as you well know, I can also empathize with what it feels like to work hard at something while someone else is constantly trying to undermind your ability to do that. I know, probably better than anyone here, what it means to be ignored for accomplishments and criticized for your faults. I agree that more can and should be done to let FIRST know we appreciate their effort, but that shouldn't come at the expense of voicing our opinions of how to improve this experience for everyone.

Personally, if it's not obviously so, I express my appreciation for this program by staying involved. In my life, it'd be so much easier for me to walk away with the great friends I've made and the amazing things I've learned, but since I do appreciate the opportunities FIRST has given me and thousands of others, I stick around and work my behind off on their behalf.

Y'know, we all do. At least, I thought we did. I thought we were all showing our appreciation by being involved and working with them to spread this great message -- not for them.

Edit: Also, as an unrelated note -- a lot of this thread and the discussion in it centered around confusion about the tier system and how it relates to rookies and teams who've never attended the Championship. I don't think it's a stretch to legitimately say that, as in the past, FIRST has a difficult time with technical writing. Improvement there could lead to less confusion elsewhere.

Edited again: I also wanted to mention that, since it may not be clear, I have very few objections to Aidan's post beyond what I mentioned above. Rather, the subsequent implication that, as people who challenge things, we do not have a passion for FIRST. That's nonsense.

I have been following this thread from day one and continue to grow more and more frustrated and disturbed by what I am reading. I have responded here in what I hope is a coherent manner.

Many people are complaining that they have been "screwed" out of going to the Championships, esp. if they were an even numbered rookie team last year. Additionally, many of these complaints come from the people that are coaches or mentors. To these adults, I ask: What are you teaching the students you work with using what I see as a "Little League" parental attitude?

To the students that have been complaining that they will never go to the Championships, I have this bit of advice: Become a mentor after you graduate from high school. Not only will you have more of an opportunity to attend the Championships, but you will be giving something back to the program that gave you so much.

I do not view the Championships as the "ultimate" experience. After all, it was not the Championships that got me involved in FIRST, nor has it kept me in FIRST. It was an email from a college professor that I have saved over the years saying, and I'm paraphrasing, "I am getting involved in a high school robotics program. If you are interested, come on down." Out of the 50 or so students that email went out to, I was the only person that responded. That was 4 years ago when I was in my first year back in college. From that email, and my subsequent involvement in the FIRST program, I have gotten the following from the program:

1) An amazing mentor who
-a) lets me know of opportunities like the Undergraduate Research Program
-b) has me working on a CNC
-c) has let me spread my "wings" and come up with solutions to various design problems
2) The opportunity to quickly realize that the degree I was thinking of getting would not make me happy
3) The chance to realize that persistence can be a good thing
4) The chance to work and influence the next generation
5) The chance to work on dealing with a variety of individuals and/or situations
6) The opportunity for hands-on learning to make me a better engineer in the future years before a class in Senior Design
7) Some hope for the future of society

I currently work with two teams (since the rookie season of each). One is going to be a 4th year team and is odd numbered. The other is going into its second year and is even numbered. Neither team will collapse if it does not get to go to the Championships.

The goal for each team differs, but they are not attained by attending the Championships. For my second year team, there were six Saturdays that were used for designing and building, along with the weekend at the SoCal Regional this past year. My goal at the regional went from one of doing well at the beginning of the weekend to one of "I want one good round where the robot can be controlled by the students." We had problems with the programming, and after putting weight onto the robot, we had problems with turning. In our 5th round, we finally managed to move, and I was elated despite the fact that we weren't turning. The next day, we were able to modify the robot so that the students could control it the way they wanted to, thus acheiving my overall goal of "one good round". The students were excited to see all of their hard work over those six Saturdays and one weekend finally come together. This, to me, was what the FIRST program is all about. How, I ask you, would the Championships have changed/enhanced this? The answer is that it wouldn't have. Did that rookie team disband? No. Will that team say "we should disband since we can't go to the Championships this year?" No.

For the veteran team, the goal each year is to have a working robot in the box at ship time. Are we always 100% functional? No. Do we always manage to have a robot that can drive and do at least one task? Yes. Did the Championships change this when we attended last year and in 2001? Not to my knowledge. We accomplished the various designs that we set out for ourselves each year, or we reevaluated what we were trying to accomplish and made the necessary adjustments at the regional level.

I am asking that everyone look at what it is exactly that you expect you or your students to get out of this program. I have a feeling that many of you will find that you can achieve the same goals by attending one regional, let alone two, if you can step back just a little bit.

Thank you FIRST for the extracurricular education you have provided me with.

indieFan
Coach 599
Asst. Coach 1070

Like the new system. Now you gotta work harder to get to nationals on a consistant basis.

I totally agree with Bob. Rookies seem to be getting penalized if they did not attend a Championship in their rookie year.

Hopefully, this is a clerical mistake by FIRST. I started a thread here to give some constructive criticism.

Andy B.

I think you're missing the point of our argument.

It's not that we're getting "screwed" out of a chance to go, it's that we're being placed in a much lower tier than people who have never gone otherwise. These other teams had a prequalified chance to go and for whatever the reason didn't. I/We don't understand why we're being placed MUCH lower than these teams that have had ample chance to go before and have opted not to.

It's not that we want to tear the system apart nor do we think it's a bad one. We have one qualm with one quirk in the system.

Simple enough.

But can you honestly say that after attending Nationals, you weren't twice as driven to go back? I think that a `taste` of the Nat's is something important to give rookie teams. I realize this is pretty much an idealistic wish and will probably never be realized.

If they WERE given this chance, perhaps they shouldn't compete in the main divisions. I believe the suggestion of creating a rookie division at nationals is a good one. Then again, I think that suggestion is a bit unfair to the FIRST staff and honestly a bit unrealistic, but I also believe that placing rookies below Tier 1 is a bit unfair to the rookie teams.

Anyone who is giving backlash to `complainers`, please don't make them seem ungrateful, spiteful, evil, or stupid. Most of the people objecting to the system have had a much more expansive argument than "THE NEW SYSTEM SUX0rZZz. IM GOING TO QUIT." or "WE GOT SKREWED MAN" and have made some intelligent points that need to be addressed.

I must agree with M. Krass that this classistic system is does not fall into my favor, but it is fair to a point.

[A little wordy again - sorry - if you want to jump to the gist of this post, skip to the bold text]
I am concerned that I did not get the point across that I intended to in by previous, wordy post. I'm also concerned that some felt I was addressing all posters to the thread -- my bad for not being more specific. I'm am confused though -- I went back and read my post and am not sure exactly where folks are pickup up any of the following:

"People need to forget that FIRST isn't this 'holyer than thou' organization that we can't touch."

"All along, I thought working and thinking relentlessly about how to improve FIRST and the experience it provides displayed passion -- not complacency in accepting the things we're given."

"I think the disconnect is that I don't understand where people have drawn the conclusion that not liking the new system or parts of equates to ungratefulness toward the FIRST staff."

I did say "I have no problem with people discussing their opinions. I have no problem with people making suggestions. I cringe when I hear a bunch of unappreciative whiners telling FIRST what they should do."

I absolutely support open discussion. I have never been a believer in complacency. I have always been a proactive problem solver. I do believe there is lots of room for improvement in a variety of aspects of this or any other organization. I do believe that FIRST wants us to help them improve the organization.

The message I was trying to send (and I'm afraid might not have gotten through) was this:

There is a time and place for constructive criticism. Reactionary criticism (even if it is meant as constructive) is rarely taken that way. Over the past couple of years, this is growing to be a larger and larger problem. I can tell you for a fact [do not ask me to justify it - you just have to trust me here], that there is a feeling among the FIRST staff that they cannot make a move without being flooded by complaints and criticism. That in itself is bad. None of us mean to do that to them, but as a group, that is what we do to them. I am not saying that CD is the only source of that - they get lots of emails and phone calls too - but CD is one of the sources.

They want our input on how to make all the processes better -- they know they need our help in making it better - but they need to get that on their own schedule -- when they ask for it. Or if they don't know to ask for it -- after an appropriate amount of time. Where is their positive feedback about their decisions? Where? I rarely see it. Am I missing it? And please don't tell me that the fact we show up is enough feedback in itself.

Let me summarize this way: what is your own personal ratio of input to FIRST? that is: (criticisms and complaints) to (thanks and support) Hopefully its somewhere near 1:1; 2:1 wouldn't even be horrible. I'm afraid that the average is more like 10:1 or even 100:1.

I'll tell you this -- Woodie's ratio is more like 1:3.

Perhaps I'm a little confused, but you're assuming we should hold our criticisms until an appropriate amount of time has passed?

What is an appropriate amount of time? After registration and all the slots are gone and everyone who isn't happy with the system is sitting there saying to themselves, "Man, perhaps I should've said something!"?

Please elaborate on an appropriate amount of time. When FIRST posts something to their site that is viewed by all the teams, I would think they're not hoping "maybe they won't see this major update!". I'm sure they're ready for feedback...however positive or negative it may be.

Which leads to my next point:

I realize that CD is covered in what appears to be supremely negative feedback to FIRST, but doesn't the sheer number of people who give their input give you a feeling that FIRST is doing something right? There are ALOT of kids involved, and if each kid didn't have atleast ONCE nice thing to say to FIRST, I'm sure they would've quit by now! The same if for FIRST...I'm sure if no one EVER said anything nice to them, they'd probably cut back their activities a good bit. I'm sure what you're fishing for here is everyone suddenly taking a turn and thanking FIRST graciously for allowing them to be involved in their program...but that's not what this thread is about. They have a whole forum for that... :) If you'll notice, MOST people put "i think this system is [insert positive comment here], but [insert objection here]" or vice-versa. Agreed, there are a number of people who are merely complaaining about where they fall in the system, but there are also a lot of people who are offering FEEDBACK, which i'm SURE is what FIRST is looking for.

I don't mean to pick you out of all the posts, but it was the last one and I didn't feel like navigating the jungle of posts to find more references.

I really feel like I'm being too negative in this post.

So for something positive: I must say that I support this "awards emphasis" system 200 times over.

Now i have stayed shut up on this thread for quite a while(which is probably a good thing),but then i read this post and saw it beutifully illustrate two points that have been the basis for many of the negitive posts. Sorry to use you as the test subject M. Krass but it had to be someone. In your second paragraph(the first paragraph below) you said "whether it's because it doesn't focus on what we feel is important" and waht you may deam important is not necessarly important to say delphi or my team. EVERYBODY who is on a team is prejudice, be it for or against their team, so any rules that anybody on a team is going to be prejudice in some way.


On this second paragraph i just wanted to say that they never said they were the only ones passionate about FIRST because they weren't challanging it, but they were saying that they WERE passionate because many people here are just simply bashing the new system, SO I want to challange anybody and EVERYBODY that if you don't like this system, design your own scoring system and work out all the logistics of it, send it to FIRST and see it they accept it. Otherwise you have four choices.

1) You can either continue to whine without till you see it has very little effect except to piss people off, and when you see the competition won't change for a while you will have to "cowboy up" in a hurry

2)you can accept the new system for what it is.

3) You can quit(just rember no quiter ever won and no winner never quit)

AND 4) YOU can make your own robotics league so you can truly appreciate the work and if you do put a thread here so people can say what they think of it (just to let you see how it feels)

I also want to thank FIRST for the great job they have done even though i am from a rookie team i have watched the comptition for years. I will shut up again. Sorry so wordy

I was just thinking...what if a team opts not to go to nat's this year?

Do they remain in Tier x? Or are they moved to another one? Wouldn't this clog up Tier 6 after a bit?

Or maybe I just missed this in the FIRST post...

Then next year they are in the Tier that applies to them. If they last attened in 2003, they move to Tier 2 next year.

I think they move up an tier.



I think this system is a good start for FIRST to address the growing problem of limiting teams at nationals. Nationals is "growing up" with FIRST, we it started it could be a giant party where all the teams shared their expirences with each other and it was the center for all the was FIRST. But as more and more teams joined not everyone can take part of nationals, but at the same time the regionals start to become a little of that same expirence.

Two years ago FIRST started to limit nationals with the odd/even system knowing that it was only a temporary solution. Now we sit in the next phase of the solution, I think in a few more years we will see another change. I would like to see another level of competition added between regionals and nationals ( possibily the mega-regionals) like a regional championship (regional as in Mid-west, western, eastern, southwestern, ect..) and have nationals be the ultimate competition.

To say that FIRST isn't about the robot or that competition doesn't help FIRST's mission is crazy. FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology", what better way to inspire kids to do well with science and technology than to have think of a strategy and design and robot using what they have learned in science and the technology they are presented with to make the best machine possibile. I for one can tell you that I was pushed like that and even jumped ahead in my high school science class to learn anything that could help our robot design. Even the chairmans award and engineering inspiration award both are about the robots, maybe not what it did for your team but how your team used it to continue FIRST mission. That to me says that it's about the robots.

Certian parts of the new system i disagree (i.e. 10 year teams) with however I can see why FIRST may have done it and I stand behind their judgement. I can understand people being upset and ranting on and on, but there is a point where you need to stand back and look at what you have said, I am guilty of it too (after cleavland last year ) as are probably many others here.

- Scott

Thanks FIRST
 

When we found out about the original Championship qualification rules (odd/even), we balked. But that was a quick fix to the issue. A lot of us balked because well, we're not g. I was lucky enough to be on a team that automatically qualified that year and so were a few friends that I met the previous year.

And here they've come up with a solution, I say a solution. And I challenge you to come up with a solution yourself and post it here. Can you? Would you? Then you go tell FIRST what to do. Those of us in GEU110 (Engineering Design here at NU) there's this thing called the engineering design process that we're learning about. And part of it is evaluation and design analysis (not necessarily together). It may change or it may not.

I understand your guys’ complaints about not being able to go. Last year, I chose as an individual whether to go or not to go to Houston. I chose not to go cause of a whole bunch of reasons. Did I want to go, yeah? But I also had to be somewhere else at the same time. Did it bite, yes it did. But I had fun doing what I was doing so it all balanced out in the end. Yeah, I missed some of my FIRST friends who went, saw a FIRST friend who didn't go. And I'll agree with you that one of the best places to get people hooked on FIRST is the Championship Event. But how big can they possibly make it? We maxed out Disney, and they have pretty big parking lots (trust me, being from FL, I know how important that sales tax revenue from all the tourists are) and not to mention there are an extensive number of hotels on property and in the Orlando-Kissimmee Area.

But you also have to understand the magnitude and scale of putting on such an event. And putting one on at that magnitude isn't easy. Have you ever walked all around the Epcot Parking Lot, just not through the tents, watched the film showing them (of course at x time) of them setting up the tents and all? It’s a lot of work. Did you hear the guy from Disney telling us how many pounds of hotdogs, hamburgers, etc... that we all ate? To FIRST I would like to say this, it’s the same thing I said to the adult mentors I've worked with for the past four years of high school and in its essence: "THANKS FOR EVERYTHING GUYS."

And one more thing, all our concerns/complaints, they were probably brought up at the meeting when they were drafting this new criteria.

Before I begin, I wanted to mention (to Aidan, particularly) that I probably could've chosen what I quoted originally more carefully. Beyond what I outlined in my recent post, there's nothing about what you wrote that I disagree with. I apologize for the confusion. What I object to is going down the road that suggests that those who are silent with appreciation are, in any capacity, more passionate about FIRST.

No need to apologize. I'm here to learn just like everyone else, but that doesn't mean I won't refute what you say.

Quote:

In your second paragraph(the first paragraph below) you said "whether it's because it doesn't focus on what we feel is important" and waht you may deam important is not necessarly important to say delphi or my team. EVERYBODY who is on a team is prejudice, be it for or against their team, so any rules that anybody on a team is going to be prejudice in some way.

That's precisely what I said. We all see methods of improving these criteria because we're each approaching them with unique ideas about FIRST and goals for its future. In context, I simply meant that everyone is approaching their criticism of these criteria from varied perspectives and that those perspectives and influences should not invalidate the subsequent criticism. Rather, it's important that we recognize the motivation behind some criticism as much as we understand that criticism -- they both speak volumes.

Quote:

On this second paragraph i just wanted to say that they never said they were the only ones passionate about FIRST because they weren't challanging it, but they were saying that they WERE passionate because many people here are just simply bashing the new system

I don't see anyone bashing this system. I see people expressing their opinion of the criteria and displaying some of the motivations that helped form those opinions. Even if someone can't eloquently illustrate their discontent, sometimes knowing that they're discontent is enough to effect change.

The comment I quoted was dismissive and silencing of those who have voiced their frustration or concern about these new rules. If you've read some more of what I've written in other parts of this site -- such as in this week's Question of the Week -- you'll see that I feel very strongly about being respectful of and appreciating the many different reasons that people have for participating in FIRST. Any statement that suggests some ideal philosophy over any other is, in my opinion, a disservice to this community and to FIRST.

Quote:

1) You can either continue to whine without till you see it has very little effect except to piss people off, and when you see the competition won't change for a while you will have to "cowboy up" in a hurry

You're new to FIRST, reasonably, so I can understand why you might feel that way -- as it is indicative of the sort of behavior you'd expect in any other organization. The reality is that FIRST does listen in some capacity and that they have done many things at the suggestion of participants. If they didn't, I wouldn't participate.

Quote:

AND 4) YOU can make your own robotics league so you can truly appreciate the work and if you do put a thread here so people can say what they think of it (just to let you see how it feels)

I've been involved with FIRST in varying capacities since I began in 1999. I have been a small cog in the machine that makes FIRST people and it's difficult, thankless work. I know that what I've done is only a fraction of what's going on across the country, but I do appreciate the work that these people do for FIRST. Honestly, I've experienced far worse criticism than this and, really, it wouldn't bother me in the least. You can look at it two ways, I think;

1. - People are unappreciative and don't really care what you do for them.

2. - People are so passionate about what you've done that they want to do everything they possibly can do to make it the best it's ever been.

There are two sides to every coin.

I just want to thank EVERYONE!
 

One of the things that I like the most about FIRST is all the cool people we meet and all of their diverse opinions and ideas.

I thank all of you/them for posting their ideas and opinions here and for entertaining me with their views. I can choose to be offend by some comments or I can step back and try to really understand why they would say what they said. We all react to certain things in different ways. We all act selfishly sometimes in certain situations. We are very passionate about FIRST and helping our team do well. That is what drives us to sometimes make comments that may offend others. But we all fight with the ones we love - don't we? Why - because we care so much about what they think about us. Or, because we want so much for them to understand our point of view.

So, thank you to all who complain and to all who complain about others complaining. And thank you to FIRST for bring all of us together as a passionate community with a somewhat common cause that is so worthy of us our passion! I love you guys!

Raul

I have to say, I am starting to appreciate this criteria more and more as i review it. I am a little disappointed with the treatment of the Rookie Teams that did not attend Championships in 2003, but oh well.

I would like to say though, that without this system, veteran teams would have had it far easier. I think to a point, FIRST has brought them down to a rookie level again. Yes, they get the acknowledgment of being a veteran team by being placed into a higher tier (and that is the recognition for being around for X years), but they now have to work just as hard as any other rookie team to qualify for a Championship spot.

That is the way it should be because teams change on a year to year basis.

So, thank you FIRST for this revision and the changes made to make everyone in FIRST just a little more equal.

Sara

Re: I just want to thank EVERYONE!
 

I would also like to thank those of you who care so much about FIRST and spend so much time posting on this forum expressing thoughts. Some of you have different opinions about what should or shouldn't be said, but that's ok. Different opinions is ok because that's what we want on the forum, a diverse group of messages to show that no one think the same, and give everyone a chance to learn a different prespective.

Now. I would like to request that all of you go back on topic, and chat about the Championship Event Eligibility in this thread and continue the discussion about what's appropiate to post or not post in this forum in another thread. Those discussion is necessary for the good of this forum, but you are making it very difficult for the rest of us to chat about the original topic when new posts keep popping up that's not helping the original discussion. I run the risk of doing the exact same thing with this post, so I am going to try doing something to help us get back on track.

I started a thread call "Championship Qualification - Things you like and want to keep" in the Championship forum at: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=22402, and a thread call "Championship Qualification - How you would've done it" at: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=22405

Feel free to reply, but do try to stay on topic this time.

My latest FIRST Historians story is about the Championship and Qualification. I suggest you read it, as I offer some advice to those of you that feel slighted by the new rules.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=22407

Gee, thanks. :ahh:

-dave













p.s. yes, I know the full quote on the post really said "I am NOT saying 'Dave Lavery! You screwed up...'" But that line was just too good to let go by without some sort of comment!!:D :D :D