Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

So the only teams that get invitations are: Winners from Regionals, top 8 seeds from Regionals, RAS/EI/Chairmans from Regionals and Opens?

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

In this example, they get entry into their Regional Championships. But you are correct in that they don't get entry into the World Championship.

EDIT: Think of it the same way I set up the Chairman's award. In order to win the championship Chairman's Award, you need to first win an Open Event Chairman's Award and then the Regional Chairman's Award. So in the same way, in order to get into the World Championship via winning events, you need to win and Open Event, and then win a Regional Championship. Going straight from an Open Event to the World Championship is the actual problem that this proposal is trying to solve.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Ok, then so you said the Regionals would have something like 120 teams, but only RCA/REI/RRAS/Regional Champs, Open CA/EI/RAS would get in automatically, how would the others get in?

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Perhaps we need to hear about how much bigger, FIRST plans to grow in terms of no. of regionals. As the no. of teams grow, if it only means that current regionals will get larger, it shouldnt affect CMP at all.
For the really large tournaments, make them a 3.5 day event if need be.

If these problems wont occur for another 10 years or so, why announce them now?

Should the MSC model be done in CA already? I havent heard too many teams complain about not having one.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I explained that here:

To better explain, imagine a list of robotics teams that are in a Region. Each year, half of those robotics teams are given automatic entry to their Regional Championship just because it is "their time". The following year, the other half of the robotics teams would get their automatic entry.

The other half of the robots in the list that don't get their auto-in will have to compete for it.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Oh ok, that makes sense. I just didnt understand what you were meaning by, "their time."

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Another consideration is what could be called a "critical participation number" that is, the number of teams required at the championship event in order to make it economically and otherwise viable. This has been a tacitly been seen up to now in the signup and standby queues currently in use.

How would it be if winning regional events automatically paid the registration for CMP? If a team could not go to CMP, then their registration for the same regional next year would be paid. Some other team could (would) go to CMP in their place by paying the entire CMP registration. Yes, I predict the registration for regionals would have to go up slightly to cover it.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

This idea isn't very well thought through.

"All 50 or so teams" is a far underestimate of the number of teams that win those awards. There will be some "doubles" in terms of teams who win two of those awards and there will be many teams that don't make it to Championship. But with 48 regionals and 3 of those awards per event, we're talking well over 100 teams that make it to the Championship event based on those criteria.

Secondly, why are we lumping them in as #8 seeds? Basing it off of these Top 25 rankings, we see four hall of fame teams (16, 67, 111, 254), two regional Chairman's winners (1114, 2016), one Michigan district Chairman's Award winner (33), and four Engineering Inspiration winners (27, 118, 234, 2415). Based on whether or not you accept HoF and DCA winners into the Kamen division, you range from having six to fifteen of the Top 25 teams in one division (of five). You don't have to worry about not having enough talent here to compete against the other divisions, you have to worry about placing all your good teams into one division. Even ignoring the rest of the gripes about separating these teams from the field, you're throwing off the competitive balance by doing this.

We do?
While I've seen a lot of suggestions along those lines, there have been some suggestions to follow different paths as well. Nobody has definitely concluded that this concept is better than all the other possibilities. Heck, we've barely even scratched the surface of what all the other possibilities are.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

One of the things that's different about FRC is that teams can attend as many regionals as they want constrained only by budget. I can't think of any other sport that works like that, not even FLL. Of course FIRST is all about inspiration and going to events is inspiring. Is going to three regionals more inspiring than two? Perhaps but there is a point of diminishing returns. I suspect most teams going to three or four regionals are doing it to better their chances of doing well on the playing field at CMP.

I bring all this up because one way to make more space in the FRC program would be to limit teams to two regionals. Besides making CMP more equitable it would reduce the number of teams going to CMP. I don't know by how much.

I also like the point system being discussed in this thread as well as the idea of eliminating the hall of fame and sustaining team automatic qualification.

Setting up a series of super Regionals is the way most other sports would grow. It's asking a lot of teams to raise the money to travel to that event and CMP, though. The district model works well when there are a lot of densely packed teams. It gets a lot more expensive out west.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I don't see how it reduces the number of teams going to CMP. If anything, teams going to 3+ regionals makes fewer teams qualify for Championship. For instance, 1114 earned four Championship invites this year by winning 3 regionals and a RCA. If they only attended two regionals, they would have opened the door for another team to qualify for CMP.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Actually if they had won those regionals and RCA or not, those spots would be given to another team(s). Its only difference between the teams winning/earning their spot or giving the spot to a team off the waitlist.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

For those that want to eliminate the #3 alliance member take a look at 2010.
We (359) were 3rd or 4th seed in San Diego and chose 294 with our 2nd choice. Although 294 improved their robot and were a finalist in Los Angeles, this 3rd team position on our winning alliance was their entry to 2010 CMP.

They won Newton as the 1st seed captain and won CMP in a major upset.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I think he means that the same number of teams go to less events each, it decreases the team-events, which theoretically reduces the number of regionals, though not by much. I think we should be trying to get more teams to more events, because that makes the CMP more competitive (more event experience). There just needs to be a way to limit the teams going to the CMP then.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Are we even looking for a complete change in the system? Because I'm sure what we want is a Championship more than a Festival.

If innovation to the system is what we want, then at the beginning of the year, lets split all the robotics teams into Divisions right off the bat. You play as either Archimedes/Curie/Newton/Galileo for the entire season, earning Qualifying points based on the results of each regional you go to. At the end of the year the highest 50 robotics teams in each division are invited to the championship to play on their division turf at the Championship, plus all the award specific winners.

The goal is to restrict the number of teams allowed into the Championship while letting the program grow without restriction - maintaining a Championship feel that imitates other High School sports while being its own.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I merely forgot to place the 1 in front of the 50.

Also, HOF teams would be dispersed among the other four divisions, and DCA winners don't even qualify for CMP.(33 won MSC, not MSCCA)

If you have five divisions, there would ideally be 5 teams of the unofficial top 25 in each of the 5 divisions. Having 6 in one isn't ideal, but it's obvious that FIRST doesn't split up the divisions in a finite way.

There is also an option for FRC to do a Round Robin on Einstein. Sure, it would take longer, but you also have a guarantee of getting the two best alliances in the final.