Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

I don't think it will happen, yet. Eventually they will either need to increase the capacity and change qualifying system. These have been hot button topics on CD lately.

I miss the days where wait listing got you in every time for the Championship.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

I think the benefit of 60 more teams at Champs is not worth it for the additional infrastructure and resources needed to pull it off. I would think FIRST would want to see a substantial gain in teams, like 100+ for the additional manpower/planning required.

The additional fields would certainly allow for more matches/team, but I don't think that is a huge issue currently. As you've pointed out Eric, in the near future there won't be enough spots for the pre-qualified teams, let alone anyone else. Increasing the maximum # of teams possible should be the goal. Otherwise, commit to Champs as an event where some type of pre-qualification is needed.

Just my $.02

-Brando

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

Something has to change soon when it comes to championship qualification. FTC and FLL are out of space and have been for years. IIRC FLL teams can only attend the championship every other year (if they qualify and meet scoring qualifications). In FTC only the Inspire Award and Captain of the Winning Alliance get an invite and the 1st and 2nd picks of the winning alliance get put into a lottery.

Even if you get rid of the non-qualifying teams, FRC is still rapidly running out of room at the championships. Imagine if the FRC championships were so impacted that the elite teams could only compete once every other year. Imagine 67 not being at the championships in 2009, or 469 not being at the championships in 2010, or 1114 not being at the championships in 2008... Would a team really be able to call themselves "world champions" if some of the best robots in a given year were not allowed to compete at the championships?

Here's my solution:

Split the programs up and turn Championships into a week long event:

Sunday - Setup for FTC/FLL
Monday - FTC/FLL Judging & Qualification
Tuesday - FTC/FLL Judging & Qualification / FTC Eliminations
Wednesday - Breakdown FTC/FLL and Setup FRC pits and fields
Thursday - FRC Inspection/Qualification Matches
Friday - FRC Qualification Matches
Saturday - FRC Qualification Matches / Divisional Elims / Einstein / Closing Ceremonies

Obviously there are drawbacks for groups that are competing across multiple programs. However, this does allow the championships to grow as the number of teams grow. Imagine how many more FRC teams could compete if they could utilize the space FLL and FTC currently occupy. On the other hand, imagine how many more FTC and FLL teams could compete if they could use the space currently used by the FRC pits and fields.

Just a thought...

--Jon

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

8 divisions:
Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, Newton divisions are populated by teams that "earned" their way in - champions, chairmans, rookie all stars, engineering inspirations, hall of famers.
Play in the main "dome" area.

Flowers, Kamen, Lavery, Murphy are populated by teams that "bought" their way in - waitlisters.
Play in the secondary "pits" area.


Flamesuit: check.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

As much sense as that would make, I could never see FIRST moving in that direction. They seem determined to have more crossover between FLL/FTC and FRC teams, not less.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

I'd personally like to see an east coast and west coast championship, that would effectively double it. But more likely there will be more regions like MAR & FIM, and the regional winners will qualify for champs.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

This seems like a good idea on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, it falls apart. The obvious upside is that more team compete at championships and it lets all teams with the ability to go actually go, but the negatives probably outweigh the few positives.

The problem is that if Einstein remained as the overall finals, the 4 new divisions would get walked all over. Look at a team like 67, the last time that they failed to qualify is possibly 2003 (unless they won a judged award that year). Your new system prevents buy-in teams from being able to play with the great teams that earned their way in. The split also would put a split in the culture between the teams who "rightfully earned" their way and teams that "are just here because they have money."

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

My only issue with an East & West CMP is that your ability to compete at the highest level will be based on how much money you can afford to spend on event Registration. For a team currently in a district system, they have to spend a minimum of $9,000 just to qualify for the Championship then an additional $6000 for the Championship. Add in another step and you're looking at 20k just in registration fees...

Also, in preliminary number crunching, it seems like the minimum CMP size this year would have to be 362 teams. With 142 teams already registered, this leaves and open capacity for 220 teams. Remove the 26 Historic qualifiers * and you're left with with 192 open spots... This doesn't seem like enough to safely cover the amount of teams who will be awarded spots (336 spots) at the regional and district levels. Are they assuming that 144 of those spots be double filled either through pre-reg and then winning or winning multiple events...?

The numbers almost lead me to believe that there will either be a change in qualifying at the regional and/or district level (less spots) or the CMP will be larger than the usual 8x teams per division.

*Note, 'Historic Qualifiers' includes 15 HOF teams, 7 Original and Sustaining teams, the 2011 world Champions and 2011 CMP Engineering Inspiration winner. Interestingly enough, Additionally, 191, 842, 20 and 973 have not yet registered for the CMP but are qualified. There are also some double qualifiers within the Historic Qualifiers, 191, 151, 111, 254.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

I'm 99.9999% positive there is already a plan in place, and it doesn't involve making championship bigger, it involves more tiers in competition. District winners go to regionals, regional winners go to super-regionals, super-regional winners go to championship.

If what I've heard is correct...

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

From the newly released Section 1 of the 2012 manual:

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

The world championships would really just be a qualifying event for IRI.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

The Wolf division better not have field problems... Then it would be Bad Wolf and I'd insist on parking a Tardis on it.

Additionally, it would provide more matches. If we do 8 divisions of 50 teams that buys us 50 more teams but it also buys us 11 or so matches per team.

I wanted to highlight something Jon said and explain why it is such a problem.

FLL students are the most passionate group of students in FIRST in my experience. They genuinely love being at events (ok, they sometimes get grumpy when hungry) and love to show you what they did. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They also outnumber FRC-ers by a good margin. Why aren't we celebrating them more? Here you have students who have spent lots of money and time travelling across the globe to compete and we say "sorry, the big robots have nearly 400 teams but you guys can only have X (where X < 400)".

Idk, seems like something is wrong here.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/09/11
 

I wouldn't go knocking FLL and FTC guys, they work a lot harder to get to the Championship than FRC teams so cut them some slack they deserve it.

I can see FLL going to another round of competitions before St. Louis in a few years with how fast they are growing with one team representing each country.