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Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
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Anyone see any international teams at MSC this year? Chilean Heart, maybe? How about out-of-state? Anyone? |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
But this system really has helped me make more friends inside of the state of michigan.. I've gotten to know the refs and many of the people behind the scenes that make michigan what it is... Plus you get to see your instate friends a lot building on those friends.. I'd say without this district model, I wouldn't be as close to members of 67,503,308 and others.. Plus getting to see people like Paul from 217, or Jim from 33 and many others... And think of it this way, we have people watching us! Andy Baker and Karthik and Dan Green, travel hunderds of miles to see this event... There is no shortage of outside travelers.. You just have to look sometimes..
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Re: Michigan State Championship
As an original detractor to the Michigan system, I feel like I've become a massive supporter of the program in the least two years. The system fosters positive growth unlike any other program.
You market the program as a two for the price of one FIRST competition. Teams get their KOP and two events for the same price a rookie pays for one regional. With the closed system, the compulsory registration in FiM events makes Michigan teams stay in Michigan, not taking sponsor's money out of the state. GM isn't as much of a sponsor in, say, eastern Virginia than they are in Michigan. The delineations of the districts helps FiM send mentors with years of experience around to float among veteran and rookie teams, to create intrastate collaboration. The state competition pits the best teams against the best teams, providing competition that is apparently worthy of statewide network television. Sure, teams from as close as Northern Illinois or as far away as South America can't participate in FiM, but if other states and regions wised up into the district model, maybe teams could participate in interstate district competitions. The only complaint of FiM is its walled garden approach to FIRST. Funny thing is, that's a big complaint a lot of people can make about Apple. Sure, it sucks that there is no interstate competition. However, approach the idea of FiM the way a team approaches a design for the robot: pros v. cons. It's hard to convince me that expensive events that don't foster the kind of growth FiM does are better simply because they allow non-local teams to enter. |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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Also, imagine this conversation. It's not hard to envision... A:"Where's your team from?" B:"Alpena." A:"Oh...my family goes hunting there every fall...meh." Now imagine this conversation... A:"Where's your team from?" B:"Sao Paulo." A:"WOW! I've never been there before! Is there rainforest near where you live? How about....(insert local trivia here)" Until FiM, this was possible, and if you replace "Sao Paulo" with "Canada" it happened A LOT! P.S.:It was after midnight (local time) when I posted this. PayneTrain, feel free to vivisect this post to your heart's content. I'd like to see the results. |
Re: Michigan State Championship
Questions for you Jeremy Marr,
Were you at the State Championship? The level of competition is something that you can not duplicate anywhere else in the country during the 6 week regional period! It's a great way to get exposure to FIRST without presenting a boring set of matches where the only 1/3 of the robots are functioning well and the number 1 and 2 seeds always play for the win. Looking back at past events like Great Lakes, Detroit and West Michigan, yes we saw out of state/country teams, but only about 5% of those 3 events had teams not from michigan. So really we gave those spots to michigan teams so they could play closer to home. Yes there are downfalls to the system. But there are solutions. Before the district model, most teams spent 10k to do 2 events and most teams did 2 out of the 3 michigan events or did GLR and something else, (unless west coast or UP michigan team). But those teams whom went out of state met other teams and were able to build those relationships. Or when going to Championships they were able to do the same thing. But with the district model you can play your two events for 5k and still go out of state! Many teams choose to do this! 1528 and 217 went to Finger lakes, 245 went to Alamo, i think it was 288 and its two sister teams went to Waterloo and another out of state competition. Also there are numerous off season events to attend to also get this feeling of meeting new teams. IRI or MARC or Kettering, which all get out of state attention. Don't limit yourself to the regular season! Yes, travel for some teams is painful for the UP teams and some other northern michigan teams, but solutions are in the works. The west side of the state now has two districts (Niles and Grandvalley) and there are talks about a district event in the UP. Which by all means would almost kill any discussion about border teams(other than states, which teams from the UP have come down to do, for them its a chance to met people really from another state). It just takes time to get it right and in 3 years it has come a long way and will continue to get better. Also like I stated in previous post the district system helps build relationships with local teams and help promote cooperation within the state to bring up the level of every team as a whole. I can't tell you how many new teams were started in the last few years because of this district model and how well veteran teams have been the first to help get them going. Under the old system you couldn't do this as well because a one and done deal hurt retention percentages. Rookies came into big events usually not having a complete robot and didn't get a chance to do anything. But with this district model the help you would recieve during a normal district event can be translated into your 2nd event. I know my team comes into our first event with a lot of questions and sometimes it takes all our first event to iron them out and to learn from them. A rookie team under the old system usually had one shot to figure that out and was done for the year. Why do you think we've seen such a dramatic increase in teams the last 2 seasons. This systems negatives are highly outweighed by the positives. Michigan did the right thing in moving to this model and being someone whom was here for 3 years of the old way and 3 years of the new way and much rather keep things district style, and i bet you there are numerous teams whom agree with this. I can live without meeting new people, but thats not true, new people and teams are exposed each year, so I really am always meeting new people. Dean wants FIRST to be a varisty sport in every highschool across the country and into many other countries and so far the best way we've seen this happen is to break a state into districts (like all highschool sports!), and show people you can play this game in a highschool gym! FiM is doing it right. A note on my like all highschool sports comment, in highschool did your football team always play out of state or around your school? I know mine played around the district. But I know if they wanted to they could schudule a out of state matchup if they wanted to. So really FiM is turning robotics into a highschool varisty sport! Jeremy if you want to continue this type of discussion off the boards feel free to PM me. /rant |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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Go to championships once every four years. Go to an offseason event. The border police won't stop you there. I think it would be sensible for FiM to allow teams within 30 miles of a district event but not in Michigan to be put on a waiting list for a district competition. Quote:
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The district model can be adjusted for low team density states to have their own district, go to a regional championship, and be able to take that experience back home, and replicate in 5 years to wall off the state for intrastate competition. If you feel like there is a lot of value to be had in Michigan returning to the regional model, feel free to PM me. I don't want this thread to get too heated like some threads have lately. :D |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
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That's where I grew up, and they could really benefit from a team. |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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Re: Michigan State Championship
I know it's been said, but I'll reiterate...MI teams can go to other regionals outside of MI where they might meet teams from anywhere - there are a lot of relatively close ones (Midwest, Boilermaker, Buckeye, Finger Lakes, Waterloo, Toronto, etc.). I do miss having other teams come to events in MI, but I believe the positives of FiM outweigh the negatives as was mentioned earlier.
I think the biggest thing you can take from the FiM model is that a district event can be run for MUCH less money - you don't necessarily need high team density; however, you do need a team of dedicated volunteers. It's going to be very difficult to continue to grow FIRST if something isn't done to make it more affordable. I believe one of the few reasons that MI has been able to grow to the number of teams it has is due to the affordability of the FiM model. |
Re: Michigan State Championship
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I know money is tight in these hard times and overnight travel is difficult for some teams. That is why there are multiple districts around the Detroit area for the majority of those teams to get there two events without spending money much needed for other items. This does not mean that you have to go to those events though. I think the overnight experience is worth the cost for all the hard work my students put into the program throughout the year. The students enjoy the fact that we go someplace overnight and have a great time while we are out of town. If you carefully manage your travelling cost, then your team can do overnights in Michigan. Niles had like 6 empty slots. For 2 nights and 9 rooms (not the greatest of rooms but what do you actually do there) my team paid roughly $1000 total for rooms and gas. We met some very nice teams from the westcoast and we plan on going back next year. If your team is interested in attending this event have your mentors contact me. I most likely can help with these things. |
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