Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
The district model does not lower the bar to entry at Championship. If anything, it raises it.
The amount of qualification spots available to a district is based on the amount of spots available at the regionals encompassed in that district. Michigan had three regionals prior to their district system, and thus was allocated 18 (3 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MSC winners, 10 points-based) qualification spots at Championship. MAR had two regionals, and thus was allocated 12 spots (2 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MAR Winners, 5 points-based). 16 spots seems low for Texas, given that there are now four Texas regionals (Dallas, Alamo, Lone Star, Lubbock), each qualifying six teams for Championship. If it were based off of the FiM and MAR structure, there should be 24 teams (4 Chairman's, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 Texas winners, 15 points-based) qualifying out of a Texas district system.
So right off the bat, 16 teams is already more selective to qualify for Championships than Texas would have been. But more to the point, it definitely shifts the competitive spectrum up. Currently multiple winners open spots to the FRC "general population" on the waiting list. That waiting list has no indication of quality, other than the teams on it can afford another event (and thus probably aren't struggling to exist at all). If you were to somehow quantify robot performance (and I'm not going to get into a OPR debate right now), I'd wager that the expected value of a team on the waiting list is lower than the expected value of a team qualifying via the point system (or the wild card system for that matter).
Additionally, currently you're qualifying four winners who were a second round selection at their regionals. These robots are, in large, not on par with the Texas elite teams. You're already opening the door to a number of teams who are lower on the competitive scale. In a district system, only one second round pick qualifies via winning the district championship, and that team is miles ahead of the second round selections who win most regionals. While neither 1640 (2nd round pick MAR) nor 830 (2nd round pick FiM) reached the eliminations at Championship, they posted a combined 12-5 record in their divisions and clearly belonged at the event.
Beyond that, while the amount of Chairman's qualification spots remains the same, the amount of qualifications from Rookie All-Star and Engineering Inspiration decreases. While Rookie All-Star can be impacted by robot performance, EI is not. I'd wager again if you were to take the expected value of robot performance from the additional RAS and EI winners and compare it to the spots garnered by the point system, the point system would be higher.
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