Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

That's surprisingly similar to what I had in mind. Cool stuff. I am now reading about Fantasy FIRST. That's pretty interesting too - I had told my students earlier this year that we should do that, so I'm glad to see that it exists.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

For both RAS and RCA, you should remove robot performance from any consideration in the ranking. Robot performance is no part of either of these awards.

Maybe a better way to solve the issues of winning RAS because the team is the only rookie at the competition is to weight the points earned for RAS by the number of rookies at the regional. I would make it an exponential rating so the point value rapidly increases as the number of teams go up.

The problem with a weighting system is you may have a truly deserving RAS winner as the only rookie at a regional. But there is not enough information captured to determine the relative value of the RAS award across various regionals.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I suppose you could make it worth a pile of points and then make it an optional award that the judges only give out if there is a rookie team present that has earned it.

More generally speaking, I am a fan of the rookie awards. They recognize rookie teams and the difficulty of being a rookie. I have issues, however, with the idea that we should send lots of rookies to the Championship to inspire them. I think they're better off finding a way to get to a second regional every year instead of going to the championship once as rookies. A second regional is going to do more to build up their confidence in their own abilities. It is also important to note that most regionals have at least a couple of really strong teams present, so it is not usually necessary to go to the Championship to gain exposure to those high caliber teams.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

On the matter of the inequality created in a points-based system when some teams attend multiple events while others attend only a single event, wouldn't it be possible to divide the number of points a team earns by the number of events they attend? This would level the playing field in that respect, and also reward teams for consistently high performance at multiple events.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

But this also kills continous improvement... Lets say a teams first events ends horrible and don't make elims, and in there second event are finalist, when you add up and divide the points, they have an average point total of maybe a quarter-finalist.. I don't see that as a solution

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

How about this:

Any team may go to however many events they feel like going to. However, only one event - most likely the one that produced the most points as any other wouldn't make sense - goes towards qualifying for Championships.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Aren't you still skewing against teams that can only attend 1 event? Virtually all teams do better at their later regional(s), so comparing a 1-regional Semifinalist someone who doesn't get anything at their first 2 events but wins their last one isn't really valid it seems.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Ok, Im sorry but people are just gonna have to realize that life ain't fair. If a team can attend more than 1 regional a year, would you want to penalize them against a team that cant?

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I would want a points system to push everyone in the direction of attending two events, so I would not be in favor of taking average score or highest score. I really like the Michigan system of adding points from the first two events of the year.

It seems to me that attending only one event is an inefficient use of all of the resources that go into an FRC season. That second event costs marginally less than the first (because robot is already built and the hundreds of hours of time are already spent), and I think the second regional of the year is in some ways more valuable than the first. I really like it when students get a chance to take a working project and then tweak and refine it to take it to the next level. Too often they run out of time on projects (in school and in FRC and elsewhere) and have to settle for something that barely works, and that doesn't give them the same valuable experience or the same confidence boost as working on something until it's actually good.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I'm not convinced a point system is the answer. In fact, unless there's some pretty serious schedule changes, I'm convinced it would be a bad idea.

The points system works in Michigan because a vast majority of the teams who qualify are going to be within a few hours of the location. It's a lot easier to set up travel arrangements on short notice when they're within your state. Additionally the registration for MSC is $1000 cheaper than CMP registration.

On the Championship scale, too many teams are going to have to book airplanes, come up with large registration fees, and generally prepare for this event on too short of notice. Yes, many of the teams that qualify in the last couple weeks of regional competitions or come off the wait list already face this problem. But this expands it to all teams going to Championship. Because of the nature of the point system, everyone but the top few teams is going to be in jeopardy of falling out of qualified position until the last week of competition.

Forcing 300 teams to scramble to submit field trip forms, registration fees, transportation, hotel reservations, robot shipping, tool logistics, and everything else associated with coordinating going to an event in a couple week period is pretty ridiculous. And this is generally in the same time of year as standardized testing begins.



On a related matter, in order how to determine how to allocate points, you have to decide the goal of your championship.

Is it to reward the teams who were the most successful? Or is it to put the teams that will compete at the highest level (on the field and/or for awards) into a competition against eachother?
Those are two related, but fundamentally different goals. And there are plenty of other possibilities to consider as well.

Because depending on what your goal is, it will change the weighting of how you compare both awards, matches, and events.
If team A was consistently good across multiple regionals, but never spectacular, should they make it over team B who struggled at their first event but performed spectacularly at their second?
Should you be looking at average performance, peak performance, total performance, earliest performance, or most recent performance?

My personal take, should a point system come around, would be a hybrid of those. Simply put, I'd calculate points at each event, rather than per team. I'd then pick from three different rankings lists in an rotating fashion.

• Team's average score from all events attended
• Team's net score from all events attended
• Team's peak score from all events attended

The first team off the the average list gets invited first. The highest remaining team on the net score list gets invited next. Then the highest remaining team on the peak score list. And it continues rotating.

The concern, naturally, will be that teams "buy" their way into Championship buy attending several events and getting high on the net score list, even if they perform at a mediocre level. My counter is, if a team can afford (both in terms of money and manpower) to attend 4+ events in a year and then the Championship, I think they're clearly doing something right that deserves recognition.


That being said, I still don't like a point system being the main qualifier with this scheduling set-up. Give a bigger space between regionals and championship and I'll change my mind.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

How are we running out of room at champs?
Is it pit space? I was not at St Louis, but was there no room for any additional pits? We can look toward larger venues or be more creative with pit locations.
Is it match count? Match count can vary from regional to regional. Lower the match count.

What are the actual limitations we are being warned about?

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

From what I could tell, if Two fields are left in the pits, then there isn't all that much room for additional pits. You might be able to squeeze enough pits in to get the number of teams up to an even 400, but anymore than that and you're really pushing it.

If the two pit fields were moved back into the dome, then you could probably put at least another 70+ pits without too much difficulty, but at that point the divisions might be too big. (IMO, any bigger than they are now and they're too big.)

Interestingly enough, it seems that FRC will reach the breaking point as far as the Championship is concerned sometime after next season - which means that it'll be time for FIRST to start looking for a new home for the Championship. I wonder if they'll look for a larger venue to house more teams and run more divisions, or if they'll restructure the Championship (Registration aspect of it) so that the event can remain the same size.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Speaking from the perspective of a small, money-tight team:

Attending a second event essentialy doubles our budget. To run one season costs us about $10-15k, adding a second regional bumps us to $25k+. Travel, room, and board costs a LOT, especially when the only option for travel is out-of-state and we have to charter our own bus. Couple this with living in a state where the Powers that Be have ... interesting ideas as to what the benefits and priorities of secondary education are, it can be a tough sell to remove some of the best students from school for a cumulative week.
When compared to international teams whose only option for multiple regionals lie in going outside the country, we've got it easy.

I agree that multiple regionals is a great experience, and twice in our seven years we have been able to do that, but it's not always viable. Expanding the sports analogy our Leaders have designed FRC around, I'd be willing to bet there are a bunch of Butlers or TCUs or Boise States out there that could make a bunch of noise at the highest levels, if only given the chance.

I think the idea of recognizing the points earned at a team's single-best, or two-best regionals, or an average of the season, would be a good solution - at least until a district-style model becomes widely available.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

Moving to a points based system will mean that some teams will never go to champs. Having the open slots available, allows those mid-level teams a chance to play against and be inspired by the top level teams that are always at champs. It will raise their game for many teams. Open slots may need to be on a three or four year allocation.

Re: Qualifying for CMP in the future
 

I don't get the connection between "state ... Powers that Be" and "tough sell to remove some of the best students from school for a cumulative week". Could you please elaborate on that? Has your school failed to meet state standards and been put under state control?