Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I think this was a very well run event. Thanks and congratulations to all involved - including Wilbur.

Regarding the positives and negatives, it is good to remember that this is a "post-season" event, and the results really don't matter (or should I say, that the results matter even less than they do during the "regular season"). Post season events provide an opportunity to do things that don't always happen in the regular season:
1) Let everybody on the team play. The large number of matches was great for this.
2) All teams get a chance to play in the eliminations. Having missed out on the eliminations for our first three years of existence, we know how discouraging it is to watch from the sidelines. I'm not sure how many teams here benefitted from this (3096 hadn't been in elims before, but they earned a captain slot at MARC), but I think it is great for post season events. The qualification seedings still reward good performance, but fear of missing the elim's won't keep you from letting everybody play, either. I would like to see this done at fall "pre-season" events, too. It really helps when the students to get this experience.
3) The mentor matches were a lot of fun - and humbling, too. I would be willing to pay (charity fundraiser) to do it again, and it did help spread out the line for the pig roast.
4) I don't fault teams for leaving early. We had a long drive ahead of us, and left shortly after we finished, too (haha).

Thanks again to all involved.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I know this is going way off topic, but what would have happened if a team not in the top 8 had declined???? They still would have to play, since there were only 32 teams. Just some food for thought.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

the answer to that, josh, is why would they decline? everybody has to play in a 8 alliances of 4 set up, even if teams such as us had broken bots. we could drive and our HP could score but thats it. I don't know if you saw our bot, but it was 95% dead. if we had chose to decline in order to prevent destroying the last 5% of the bot, we would have left the 1st alliance without a 4th partner. we enjoyed playing with you guys instead of declining.
i'm betting the response to declining would be the verbal equivilant of LOLwut??

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

But you see, based on how the picking works the 1st alliance needs a 4th partner, so they would need to play with you. That or they get the advantage of never needing to rotate to their 4th member. So either you get placed in the #1 alliance or they get an advantage. It is a legitamate problem.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

thats what i meant by saying the first allinace wouldn't have had a 4th partner, they'd be at an advange. they probably would have said we had to play.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

what I meant was would you still play or not, if you declined an acceptance. With only 32 teams and 32 places that HAVE to be filled, what would have happened? For instance (obviously hypothetical) if say tech fusion (since you used yourself as an example) turned down the 8th seed, could they have been picked by another alliance? :confused:

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

The only way this type of elimination round could work is if you had 32 teams participating. If we did not have enough teams to do this then obviously it would not happen. If a team out of the top eight declines an invite because they don't like the team then that is a show of ungracious professionalism. I (as shown in several of my other replies in other threads) hate that and make sure people hear my opinion on it.

Now, I have seen out of the top eight teams turn down an invite because they were damaged and would not make a good alliance partner. This is an example of gracious professionalism to heart. I respect any team that turns down an invite because of this.

Remember with every action you take, there is a reaction to it. Think of what reaction you are looking (want) for before you take the action.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I assume you are talking about a situation like with alliances looking like

1 2 ?
3 4 ?
5 6 ?
7 8 ?
9 10 (20 Declines)
11 12 19
13 14 18
15 16 17

So, #20 declines then what happens? The only solution is to say that you can only decline if you are in the top 8.

Steve, you have your definitions of GP, others have theirs. My suggestion would be to respect every team out there, they may make decisions differently than you but they do make logical decisions based on their own criteria. A team has no requirements to let their reasons for a decision be known nor should they ever feel obligated to. Your decisions can be made based your opinions but you shouldn't disrespect others for doing the same.



Sorry, I'll butt out now.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I have to agree that we can’t fault a team for making a decision that is perfectly legal within the rules of the alliance selection process. What we need to fault is the process itself. It wasn’t all that long ago, before the civil rights acts, when it was perfectly acceptable to discriminate. We have in the past denied women and minorities their rights – shut them out - all perfectly legal. Should we dismiss those actions simply because they made decisions based on their own criteria, when the criteria were morally wrong? What we had was a culture that condoned and legitimized elitism. We can’t blame the individuals, but we can blame the collective. FIRST should wake up to the fact that, regardless of the criteria, it is not right for them to promote discrimination.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

As I said every action has a reaction, we all react in different ways and if you are going to turn down an invite and pull yourself out of the competition, then you must understand that you are going to have a lot of negative reactions to your decision.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I would suggest that if you have 32 teams again next year that you poll the teams before selections to see if any have to drop out because of robot failure. If one drops out you can switch back to 3 on an alliance. You could also add no declining across the board and cut out the little speeches. I would be interested on how all the teams felt about the four team thing. Perhaps you can send a note to the teams as a follow up.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

Actually, I sent an e-mail out earlier this morning to all teams participating asking for feedback and that was one of the questions. I like your idea of the survey and no declining across the board. This is something that we can look into for next year. Thanks for the input.

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

I just have a few quick comments to make. Overall I had a blast at the event and I'm really glad to hear that so many people had positive experiences as well. It made the 3 hour drive home from my job and the 2 hours to and from the event worth it :P

- The field system. I think a lot of people took for granted the fact that for the most part our FMS ran smoothly.. anyone who has been to an event where you're sitting for 20 minutes waiting for a qualifier to start can vouch for the fact that it kills the overall energy and flow of the event more than anything else. I thank Pat, Keith, and the rest of the field/scorers table for keeping things together.
- Thank you to Steve Ketron and Lisa Perez for putting this event together and managing all the small things that came to be. The volunteers were very well supplied for (food, water, etc) and that really helped the morale of the staff.
- To respond to the questions of what if someone declined.. asking them if they wished to accept was more of just a formality to follow FIRST tradition. We felt that allowing the teams to graciously enter the alliance would be better than simply saying "we pick you" "okay here you go." It could have been communicated better but hey.. that's what trial and error is for.
- 4 team alliances/no serpentine.. all I'm going to say is that between the fact that the finals were not alliances 1v2 and that the first few qf matches were either ties or decided by less than 5 points, I liked how it played out. Made for an extremely interesting and dynamic elims.
- I'd also like to thank team 33 for letting me be a mentor for the day :]

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

you were a great MC as well, I liked the random :D trivia facts!!:D

Re: General Post MARC discussion
 

This is what I emailed back to Steve. I would like to post it here for others to see.

This is the consolidated feedback from 2 mentors, 1 student drive coach and 2 drivers.

1) 32 team eliminations

We all feel that there should only be 3 teams per alliance and 24 teams like the way it is.

Here are some of our reasons:
(a) This is how FRC had done it for some years. It is not broken. All alliance teams have a shot in winning. This is especially true for MARC when many teams were trying out different drivers in qualifying rounds so rankings do not mean much. Teams would usually use their best drivers for elimination round.
(b) When there are 72 teams like at IRI and 32 teams get selected in elimination round, they are all very good teams. It is different when you only have 32 teams and all of them get selected and you forced all of them to play. It dilutes the level of play.
(c) If I don’t have a competitive robot whether it is because of design, robot broken or not having the regular drivers, I would rather be one of 8 not being selected than to endure the embarrassment of getting selected last or close to last.
(d) Having the same 3 teams in the alliance in the elimination round allow some level of repeatability and consistency.

2) Alliance selection process (1-8, 1-8, 8-1)

We all feel that there should only be 3 teams per alliance and 24 teams like the way it is. The selection process should be serpentine (1-8, 8-1) like it is now which is what we prefer.

If you want to change it, some possibilities are:
(a) not allow top 8 alliances to pick each other to even things out a bit.
(b) fix the alliances ahead of time based on ranking e.g. Alliance 1 is 1,9,24, Alliance 2 is 2,10,23 etc. This also saves a little bit of time but it takes the drama out of it which is a tradition.
(c) no declining across the board should not be used.

3) Decision that all alliance partners must play in each round.

We strongly disagree with 4 teams per alliance and each team must play once in each round when there are only 32 teams.

4) number of qualification matches (13 each team)

4 of us feel 13 matches is good, 1 of us feels 12 matches like district events is enough. The robot did not get to vote but asked for mercy.

5) number of mentor teams (24) and the elimination style used.

All of us like the 24 teams with single elimination concurrent with pig roast. It makes the line for pig roast more manageable.

6) Price for next years mentor match teams (donated to a charity)

$20 to $25 for the average number of mentor matches will be roughly proportional to the $200 for 13 + average number of elimination matches.

7) Any other areas that you think I should consider.

(a) Follow the Michigan district event schedule more closely. It seems to work well.
(b) Ventilation in men’s room and access to additional facilities.
(c) Post or distribute pit map

Overall, all of us really enjoyed it. It was great. Thank you for all your hard work.