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-   -   [FVC]: Longer competitions (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57070)

KathieK 20-04-2007 08:28

[FVC]: Longer competitions
 
From the Game Design Thread:
Quote:

Originally Posted by fredliu168 (Post 619958)
Tournament Structure: Perhaps VEX can consider making 2 day tournements for large tourneys (Penn had 45 teams). This allows many more matches and less of a rush.

I am considering the idea of a Friday afternoon/Saturday competition (if FIRST will allow) for next year, similar to FRC's off-season event BattleCry. This would also allow mentors and students to network/socialize on Friday night which is something I think the program needs to start doing more of. But it would also add additional costs to the event organizers to rent space and pay personnel to staff it, and to teams to attend the event if hotels are needed. Any comments?

fredliu168 20-04-2007 10:09

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
I think 2 day tournements are a good idea only for "large" tournements with 30+ teams. Competing at Penn or Toronto, each team had only 4 matches to show their robot. With 2 days the entry fee may increase by 1.5x, but it will also allow mentors and students to network/socialize on friday night as well (as Kathie mentioned).

EricRobodox 20-04-2007 17:52

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
San Diego and Los Angeles Vex Regional Championships had over 40 each if I remember correctly. Each team got a lot of matches. As well, we had two fields for competition and a practice field at both San Diego and Los Angeles. I dont think regional championships need to be 2 days if you have the same set up, I dont know if other regionals had same number of teams with only 1 competition field. As well, the two fields in the regionals, not world championships, seemed to work very well. Boh regionals did not fall behind. In fact, Los Angeles we finished early ahead of schedual!!!

I think the only tournement that needs to be longer is World Vex Championship. That was pretty bad with only 4 matches.

chaoticprout 20-04-2007 18:58

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
I wish the possibility of 4 vex fields would be possible, hopefully IFI will release some new crystals for this sole reason. Play 2 at once, queue 2 at once, imagine how many more qualifiers there would be/ the speed at which the finals could be played at.

artdutra04 20-04-2007 21:43

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
The multiple-day FVC competition idea is certainly an excelent one to help grow the gracious professionalism and inter-team bonding within the program. From what I've seen this year, especially at the Championship, many of the FVC teams who are new to the program (and have no previous FIRST experience) don't fully understand our gracious professionalism and "open" and friendly culture yet, and an idea such as this would only serve to strengthen the program.

Plus, a Friday-into-Saturday competition idea would be a good basis for a lot of BattleCry-like team social activities, like FIRST Jeopardy/Family Feud, ice cream, movies, fun "driving competitions", human player challenges, and other games.

EricRobodox 21-04-2007 00:26

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
I think that a 2 day event would scare people away from competition. This is because they now need to deal with travel. One day is ok for there and back from competitions, even if its a few hours away. Though if you have it a 2 day event, you are talking about a lot of teams paying for travel expenses, to which Vex was made to be a cost effective way to introduce FIRST to new people. Having them pay for travel will scare them into coming and spending more money.

KathieK 21-04-2007 13:11

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
These are great points that you are all bringing up, please keep adding to this thread.

The off-season FRC event BattleCry offers teams who WANT to come on Friday afternoon an opportunity to start qualification rounds and join in the social activities that evening. The next day qualification rounds continue with all the teams present. So it's not a requirement that you be there on Friday. I'm not sure if the model would work for FVC nor even if FIRST would allow it, but it's intrigued me since the fall when we were planning ConnVex to see if we could make it happen. It might also allow judges to begin some interviews of teams on Friday afternoon so that time crunch would be lessened.

GaryVoshol 22-04-2007 08:07

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Another option would be to schedule MORE VEX tournaments in MORE locations, so that no one tournament would have too many teams. That would also lessen travel costs for teams, because more locations means a better chance of having one near you.

I can see FVC expanding greatly in the next few years. Probably never as big as FLL, but maybe halfway between FRC and FLL. We will have to have hundreds of VEX tournaments to handle the number of teams. That's either a very scary or a very inspiring thought!

gblake 22-04-2007 11:42

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EricRobodox (Post 620790)
I think that a 2 day event would scare people away from competition. This is because they now need to deal with travel. One day is ok for there and back from competitions, even if its a few hours away. Though if you have it a 2 day event, you are talking about a lot of teams paying for travel expenses, to which Vex was made to be a cost effective way to introduce FIRST to new people. Having them pay for travel will scare them into coming and spending more money.

There were no FVC regional Championships any closer than 3-4 hours away from my team, (and I live in the densely-popluated southern end of the Boston-to-DC metropolitan corridor. This end of that corridor contains many FVC teams).

I bring this up, not to complain; but as evidence that there are probably many, many teams that put overnight travel into their plans from the time they first decide to become an official FIRST team. Without staying overnight in a hotel before the competition, we all would have been sleep-deprived at the start of the event and zombies by the end. I know other folks get up at 4:00 AM every day, but I'm not one of them... :)

Blake

gblake 22-04-2007 11:45

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by KathieK (Post 620881)
These are great points that you are all bringing up, please keep adding to this thread.

The off-season FRC event BattleCry offers teams who WANT to come on Friday afternoon an opportunity to start qualification rounds and join in the social activities that evening. The next day qualification rounds continue with all the teams present. So it's not a requirement that you be there on Friday. I'm not sure if the model would work for FVC nor even if FIRST would allow it, but it's intrigued me since the fall when we were planning ConnVex to see if we could make it happen. It might also allow judges to begin some interviews of teams on Friday afternoon so that time crunch would be lessened.

I recommend a half-day of additional qualifying Friday, a Friday evening social activity, and a Saturday schedule that is similar to how I think most events were run this year.

EricRobodox 22-04-2007 13:34

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Why not have Friday as practice matches and the social. Next day start off early with qualifying and end it similar to how it is now. That way for teams who cant travel the distance and spend the night, though some areas its not an issue, they can at least show up for the qualification matches. It wont be completely fair, but I feel it would be a good alternative to make sure rankings are fair and the lowest budgeted teams have an equal chance to compete though they don't have the money to travel.

fredliu168 22-04-2007 16:38

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryV1188 (Post 621031)
Another option would be to schedule MORE VEX tournaments in MORE locations, so that no one tournament would have too many teams. That would also lessen travel costs for teams, because more locations means a better chance of having one near you.

I can see FVC expanding greatly in the next few years. Probably never as big as FLL, but maybe halfway between FRC and FLL. We will have to have hundreds of VEX tournaments to handle the number of teams. That's either a very scary or a very inspiring thought!

That would mean FVC would have to increase the number of tournaments teams are allowed to win awards in. Also, it would probably mean more divisions in the championships, like the FRC 4 divisions.

I actually love that idea.

ManicMechanic 22-04-2007 18:45

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
For those of us who are hooked on FIRST, a 2-day event is very appealing. However, for rookies, I believe that a longer tournament would be a deterrent to participating because of the cost and time involved with a 2-day event. It is my hope that FIRST would keep its Championship events one day (except Atlanta) for the benefit of newcomers, at least until the program expands to the point of having regional qualifiers

When we told our school that we had qualified to go to the World Championship in Atlanta, they asked, "You're not planning on missing any school, are you, because we can't make that an excused absence." We assured them that it would be during spring break. I think they had no concept of what an honor this was, because the idea of a robotics team is still foreign to them (even though we've been affiliated with the the school all year). I can see other teams having problems getting time off from school if this is a Friday/Saturday event (and some, including myself, prefer to avoid competitive events on Sundays if possible). Having a hotel cost for Friday night is also a deterrent to some teams.

For bonding purposes, I highly recommend having one or more informal one-day scrimmage events prior to the tournament in your region. We went to 2 scrimmages and felt like we got to know 3 teams well enough that we are planning to get together in May and during the summer. We did a lot more bonding at scrimmages than at tournaments, because there was less pressure.

Because of the potential volume of teams, I think it's likely that eventually, FVC will more closely follow the model of FLL, where nearly all the teams attend regional qualifiers, about 1/3 advance to the Championship (formerly State) event, and only 1-2 % of those advance to the World Championship (Nationals) in Atlanta, rather the FRC model where most teams attend a regional event, and about 1/3 of those advance directly to Atlanta. If this is the case, a 2-day (State) Championship would be more palatable, because all the rookie teams could attend a lower-cost regional qualifier, getting the spirit of the competition, while advancing would require a higher level of commitment.

Rich Kressly 23-04-2007 01:56

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Good discussion.

From a programmatic standpoint, FVC has been committed to being more affordable and accessible up to this point. If that holds true in the future, I wouldn't expect to see multiple day regional events soon. Missed school and overnight travel, while a foregone conclusion for some, is a deal-breaker for many underserved, inner-city, and rural schools and teams that have scarce resources.

If I had to take an educated guess now, I'd be putting my energy into how to improve on the one-day format.

GaryVoshol 23-04-2007 09:24

Re: [FVC]: Longer competitions
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by GaryV1188 (Post 621031)
I can see FVC expanding greatly in the next few years. Probably never as big as FLL, but maybe halfway between FRC and FLL. We will have to have hundreds of VEX tournaments to handle the number of teams. That's either a very scary or a very inspiring thought!

Quote:

Originally Posted by fredliu168 (Post 621124)
That would mean FVC would have to increase the number of tournaments teams are allowed to win awards in. Also, it would probably mean more divisions in the championships, like the FRC 4 divisions.

I actually love that idea.

More likely, it will mean that FVC gets 3 tiers of competitions like FLL has now. You win(*) at a regional, and you advance to the next level. You win(*) at that level and you qualify for the Championships. Currently in the FLL model, the "next level" is state or country. For FVC, it would be a larger section of the US or a few countries for international teams.

Unfortunately, there would be travel and other costs associated with the 2nd tier tournaments, meaning the path to Atlanta (or whereever) just got more expensive.

(*) - "Win" wouldn't necessarily mean just the first place alliance and the Inspire award. Assuming maybe 20 second-tier tournaments of about 40 teams each around the world, 6-8 teams could advance from each tournament to Atlanta, and compete in a managably-sized competition (with divisions!) of 120-160 teams. Maybe first and second placed alliances, Inspire plus runner up, etc. could advance. The number of teams advancing from the regional to the 2nd tier would also be determined in advance, based on number of entries. For example in Michigan FLL, about 1/4 of the teams entered in the regionals advance to one of the two the State Tournaments. This structure could support 3000 VEX teams, less if they are allowed to enter more than one regional.


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