Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

To continue to clarify, automatic bids are also given to the Championship Winning Alliance and Championship Engineering Inspiration Award winners.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

I think the process for teams to get to championships is perfectly fine if the goal is to get about 350 teams. The only thing I hate is the race to click for open spots once it begins.
As stated earlier in this thread, many teams that qualify dont/cant attend. Without the open bids to go, I could see that 350 shrink significantly to a lot less.
Now if it isnt a priority/goal for FIRST, then disregard the above statements.:)

Teams that can afford to go, should be allowed to sign up based on when they pay. If you cant afford it, do something about it. Preplan ahead of time. Sure, unfortunate things happen where teams just cant go............well, welcome to real life. There is always next year.
We always shake our heads when we see teams pull up in chartered buses, big trucks with trailers, and packed cars to the GWCC. :)

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

We received a Rookie All Star award and cannot attend Atlanta this year.
At the start of the year, the school gave the team the option to compete at two regionals -OR- one regional and Atlanta (if qualified). Not expecting to receive an invitation to Atlanta, the team opted for two regionals as their best chance to have an extended competition season. Then when the invite to Atlanta arrived, and the team wanted to drop going to North Star and switch to Atlanta, it was just logistically too difficult to pull off in such a short amount of time, not to mention that the schools "human resources" now had overlapping schedules with Atlanta. So we are glad to know someone else will fill our slot.
We also learned that, by virtue of not exercising our 2010 Atlanta invite, we do have an early priority access for next year's open slots in St. Louis, so there does seem to be some fairness in at least certain aspects to the process.
-Dick Ledford

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Actually 1511 has qualified through awards/winning every single year, so in effect, our registration in the first part of the season is given to a team on the waiting list. So they did not "take" the open "experience" slots from anyone. They were part of the teams that everyone seems to agree "deserve" to be at championships because they won their way there. I am certainly not for a free for all registration (no awards qualifiers), but I think the open registration system (opening first to teams that haven't gone - for nearly a month!) is a fair way to go. If a team really feels strongly that they want that experience for their students, they should spend the entire year fundraising. 1511 holds 5-6 carwashes over the summer, and does a patron drive in the fall, in addition to many other fundraisers AND our corporate sponsorship. It is a lot of hard work, but its not handed to us on a silver platter. If teams are willing to work for it and save up the money, I like that there are slots open for them to go. If they want to sit back and complain that they should have been handed a slot, or the award that they won should have qualified them, it just doesn't make sense. Where there is a will there is a way.

If FIRST moves to a "you have to win to register" system, I would hope that they push Championships off by 3-4 weeks to give more teams a chance to not pay a fortune for travel costs.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

This is the roughest part of winning your way in. The FIRST time my team won their way in after I joined was 2004. We won a week 5 regional, Philly, and had at most a week and a half to raise the money and book travel. That is not easy to do. We shipped the robot to Atlanta and hoped we could get the money to go.

In 2006 we were lucky enough to win week 3 and still have a week 5 event to go to. We won both and raised the money to go in between.

In my opinion as a mentor the easiest year to plan for was 2008 when were were a pre-qualified team, defending champions, because we knew we could go all year and planned for it raised the money and went. The luxary of that much foreknowledge is a great thing. Hall of Fame and founding teams have that luxary every year and I am jealous of them for it.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Nothing is keeping you from planning to go every year.

You don't even need to bring a robot if you don't get in during the open registration or through winning a qualifying award. It's not just about competing. You can volunteer and help make things run smoother for everyone. You can attend the workshops. You can watch the FTC and FLL matches. You can still be inspired by other teams' robots.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

I'm personally a huge fan of the Open Slots for the Championship.

816 has gotten into the Championship in 2006, 2008 and 2009 because of this. If FIRST were to move to a winners only Registration system then I think they would have a lot of difficulties filling the Championship up due to both budget and logistical constraints. I know many school districts require a months notice or more before a school trip can be planned so even if some teams win a week 4 or 5 event their school may not let them go.

Also, in some years there are other side programs that can earn a team an invite to the Championship. In 2007 I believe the FIRST Fuel Cell teams all earned an early invite to the Championship so that they could display their fuel cell projects. I believe that this was how we got a spot in 2007.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Just a quick note --

two years ago, my team went to championships, and upon arriving there we fond a number of our other georgia teams had suddenly gotten off the waiting list (like within 3-4 days of champs starting :eek: ) Turns out, that year was the same one that a NY regional was held the week before championships. The reason those teams got picked out of wherever they were on the waiting list is because they were local enough that hey didn't need a lot of time to figure out logistics.

That is probably my only reason for liking the idea that champs moves to St. Louis next year. A lot more teams will be "local" (ish) and not have to worry about last minute plane flights and things. I say that's my only reason because i enjoyed having champs in my backyard ever since i joined the first community in 2003 :) i will sorely miss volunteering when our team wasn't able to attend, but hey, i'm sure it'll come around again another time

The one thing i like about the open slots is that teams who can build good robots (or will) and happen to be the ones that don't win regionals (maybe #2 :rolleyes: ) can go, and they don't lessen the calibur of teams there. True, there are teams that signed up and then managed not to build good robots, and those teams don't generally make it into finals for any division or einstein, so why worry about it really?

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

I apologize if it sounded like I was picking on your team, that wasn't my intent. 1511 is a team I truely look at as a team we'd like to emulate.

That being said, we, here in 1729, won't go tothe championships unless we earn it through either an award or winning our regional. Our reasoning is that it is a (championship) competition, and as such we are trying to win in the area with which we qualified (EI, CA, regional champion). I believe it focuses the kids more since they know that if they want to go they need to succeed at the regional level.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

On the flip side, the negative feeling when you don't qualify at an event, and the immense pressure everyone on the team feels when you have to qualify or lose, are both detrimental to any team's success. I say this having been on both sides of the coin.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Agreed, that there is some of this. We talk about expectations and such long before the competition so that the kids are prepared for any situation. Learning how to handle defeat graciously, and how to overcome adversity is a good lesson. In the end, learning to dislike losing and learning how much effort it takes to win (along with the rewards of winning) is also a good lesson.

Pressure and stress is something that they are going to have to cope with if they want to become and engineer and is a good lesson to learn in the relatively safe enviroment of FIRST.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

A third side of the coin is available to a very few teams. The TechnoKats enjoy knowing that we are eligible to attend the Championship whether or not we qualify through winning a specific award. This takes the pressure off and helps let us enjoy the competition without worrying about the extra stress of a "win or stay home" scenario.

(I don't know whether that has anything to do with the fact that we have always qualified by receiving one of the qualifying awards anyway. That we haven't had to rely on the "legacy team" clause is a matter of pride.)

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Yet another way to 'qualify' for Atlanta is via FTC. While most do not believe it has the same hype as FRC, it is always just as fun and I expect our students to get the exact same amount out of it as the FRC kids do. Plus I should have more time to peruse the pits since I don't work on the robot :D.

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

Coming from a location that is just about as far from Atlanta as a team can get....(except the Hawaiian and Alaskan teams and the foreign teams...) I can speak to the issue of trying to get an "open" spot in November. It allows us to make our plans in advance.... to raise airfare from Seattle for our team is a huge undertaking.

The other side of the coin is that we have qualified 6 times in the last 4 years by virtue of Regional Wins, Rookie All Star, EI or RCA so we have always "won" our way in too.

But laying that aside..... the Championship was never designed to bring all the best robots together and decide on who is best... Just look at the way we pick alliances... we never get the 3 BEST robots on one alliance anyway... FIRST is designed this way....

Get over it.... Winning the championship is a lot of fun... but in many ways it is just like a regional... Does anyone out there actually think that the 3 best robots win ANY regional? Of course not... Alliance picking breaks up the best robots...

I love the way we do this... and our team has been on the receiving end of a regional win and on the other end too...we have won when we were definitely NOT one of the best robots on the field....I will cite an example... in our first year in Las Vegas we were a decent robot but we got picked 24th by the #1 alliance....(Thank you 254 and 1425) As part of that alliance we went on to win... other things have happened too... I have seen GREAT robots not win a regional for many reasons...

FIRST CHAMPIONSHIPS is about inspiring teams.... it has NEVER been about bringing the best robots there...

Would you really like to have something like what they do for the NCAA championships? Can you even imagine how hard it would be to try and pick the best robots? Come on...

Championships started as EVERYONE going.... now about 1/3 can choose to go...


Think about this... if you really wanted the Championships to be about the best robots... first of all you would not have the support of FIRST....

(It is NOT about the robot...)

second... you would have to have someone else pay for transportation and lodging and the registration fee for every team...

otherwise teams that could simply not afford to go still couldn't go...

I like the system.... every year we have won our way in... but other than our rookie year... we could sign up and do the work necessary to go... and still let other teams that are on the waiting list get in because we won our way in...


I like the system...I like FIRST...working in it inspires my students...
it motivates them to be the best that they can be....

thanks for listening... I hope to see you on the field!!
or in the pits...

R

Re: Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?
 

I am sure FIRST gives open bids to the Championships to assure that the event gets filled each season. After the initial registration for all the prequalified teams the "12-noon free for all" for the remaining slots in the model not designated for those earned in competition is supposed to fill the rest.

This year it didn't really work too well and all the slots were filled in minutes only to have a number be vacated weeks later when the money was due.

At first our team missed the slot (by seconds apparently) when the open registration began. Our team regrouped and decided then to hold our money towards the Hawaiian regional next year if we didn't win a slot for the Championships. When the wait list opened up later in the fall we were invited and turned it down. Fate had it that we did indeed win a slot at NJ and we registered then. So we now have a daunting fund raising year ahead of us if we plan to still make the trip to HI.

Overall this year has changed our/my view of the Championships and open enrollment. Every team deserves a chance to experience the event- that much is certain. Like Olympic teams, very few will win the big event but all benefit from the experience and the pride of representing their school on the big stage.

The move I see to make FIRST more like regional and divisional HS sports is unfortunate because it will most likely reduce the opportunities for the less successful teams to participate in non-local events. Overall I prefer the "local tournament" model similar to that of travel soccer where teams can sign up for any event they want to register for and it doesn't require weeks for local competitions to determine who the travelers are. As for the Championships, maybe I can see winning a spot as the ONLY way to qualify. That way it is a TRUE championship. But if it is just a "celebration of robotics" then open enrollment lends for a much more diverse celebration

WC :cool: