Quote:
Originally Posted by Libby K
And while that's something that comes down to the teams in the community being willing to help out the rookies around them, and not something HQ or any district can decide -- it's a better solution long-term.
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I think this is a great point, though there are still going to be those rookie teams who push away help and insist upon "doing it themselves" (and struggle immensely as a result). But a lot of teams could be bolstered by closer and better mentoring by seasoned mentors or teams that really work closely with them, on not only building a robot but building their team (and DONT just let them go after their first year). But lets face it, the rookie teams that sustain these days are mostly the ones that form with experienced mentors, or very very close "sister" teams.
Many people are getting up in arms about the rookie & second year points... I need to see a model before I agree/disagree. I do agree that it is a little strange that NO rookies attended MSC last year, and there is some need of remedy there (IMO, it shouldnt be all rookies, but at least a few should be good enough rookies to make it in - with 11 RAS teams, NONE were good enough to move on to DCMP??)... how did MSC award RAS??
Anyways, one point that I think A LOT of people may not be considering is yeah, the age points bonus may seem big, BUT, how many of those teams are going to be able to come up with the extra $4,000 it takes to register for the District Championship??? or even if they get help from FIRST or the Districts to do that, how many are going to be able to quickly coordinate and pay for travel after week 5 or 6 to get to a week 7 event? I don't think this is going to dilute the pool as much as people may think.
After letting this settle in, I think I'm fairly happy with the result, and I certainly trust many of the names on that list (know most but not all of them), and I am glad to hear that this was run through the MSC & MAR data. I'm certain all of this will make sense against the data.
What I am more interested in are the questions that are not touched on in this document & blog:
1. How many World CMP slots is each District going to get?
2. How do Legacy/HoF teams play into the number of slots? What if a Legacy/HoF wins an outside regional slot?
3. What auto-qualifies a team for World CMP from DCMP? Chairmans is noted in the document, but does that mean 0-EI and 0-RAS auto-qualify (even though at regionals EI & RAS have auto-qualified teams in past years).
4. How many of each award do District Championships get to give out (CA, EI, RAS, WF, DL come to mind).
I posted those in the comments.