Quote:
Originally Posted by Oblarg
Ok, having read your post I think this is a matter of talking past each other more than anything, and nothing other than a clarifying post from Jared will resolve it.
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Jared and I had a reasonably long conversation about this subject after one of our matches on Thursday. I will not speak for him, but I will share my opinion on the subject with the hope that it may help your understanding.
From 2006 to 2010, I went with my team (at the time, 816) to the Championship via the wait list. Two of those years, we had no business being at a 'championship' since we were less than competitive. That being said, those two Championships (mainly 2006) were two of the most inspirational moments of my life. Seeing what could be done if one was willing to put their all into it was simply astounding. I am a fan of the waitlist because it gives teams this opportunity.
With that being said, the Championship is our Championship. As a group, a family, a league of competitors and as a culture, the Championship is our moment to get together and show each other and the world what we've got. There will always be unfair match ups and tough breaks just like any competition, but at some point we need to look at where we're going and make some difficult decisions.
There will be some point in the near future where FIRST and FRC reach critical mass and having a Championship like what we've got now will not be feasible or a good idea or whatever you want to call it. The situation is being addressed by both the wildcard system and the district model and both have shown promise for long term growth. They create a 'fair' way to allow teams to qualify for the Championship without doing it through one of the conventional methods.
Aside from the issue of the size of the Championship, we also need to address the question of 'what is FRC going to be' in the future. We're finally starting to break the boundaries of sports and some places are considering FRC to be equal to that of any other Varsity sport and personally, I think that's amazing. With that being said, if we keep allowing teams that don't meet some sort of minimum competitive threshold to compete at the Championship, are we really a sport?
I'm not trying to say that every team at the Championship needs to win an event, be a powerhouse or anything like that - it's not who we are. What I'd like to see is a small amount (and I mean really small) of robot related emphasis placed on any qualification method for the Championship - the easiest way to summarize it would be 'A qualifying team's machine must be able to complete the game objective'. Something as simple as scoring 3 discs in this year, or being able to hang from the 10pt bar would suffice. I know some of the qualification methods are not about the robot, which I can agree with, but if we're sending these teams to our largest most visible event, then I think that it would be in the best interest of all of us to have each team be able to at a minimum complete the game objective. *
If you can't understand what I'm trying to get across here, then that's fine. It is a bit controversial and different from the norm. Also, this is just my opinion and has nothing to do with any team so please keep that in mind.
*TLDR, there shouldn't be Machines at the CMP that cannot complete the game objective.