Quote:
Originally Posted by Allison K
On topic - This is great and I look forward to the possibility of interdistrict play.
Regarding "poaching" of world championship spots, moving to a system of proportional representation districts at worlds would be a step towards eliminating the problem. This attachment here (which I saved from another similar thread, apologies because I don't remember which one or who posted it, but this is not my original content) shows how underrepresented FiM is at worlds. Although there are many great reasons for attending an out of district regional (meeting new teams, travel experience, etc.), worlds qualification is an incentive. Distributing spots proportional to the number of teams in the district while removing qualification incentives for district teams at regionals would both calm the regional teams that feel invaded by districts, and the district teams that feel like they are getting the short end of the stick at home. |
As Frank said last fall,
http://www3.usfirst.org/roboticsprog...80%93More-Info
Quote:
Our intent in the 2015 season is to move to a proportional representation system at the FIRST Championship, based on team counts.
[...]
We will be easing the full transition in 2015 to the proportional representation system by taking a modified approach in 2014. To eliminate uncertainty with the number of slots being awarded, we are using 2013 season team counts rather than current season (2014) counts. Also, to make this change less sudden for existing districts, and to make the allocation more closely match early discussions FIRST HQ had with new districts being formed, I am adding a single FIRST Championship slot for each District to the allocations that were determined mathematically from the 2013 team counts. As a practical matter, these additional slots will reduce by four the number of waitlist slots available at the FIRST Championship.
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Emphasis mine.
Even a proportional system doesn't solve the problem. Teams from districts can and do go to regional events and win CMP spots... and they will continue to do so no matter how many spots their district has. Team 27 (and I have nothing against them, they're just an easy example from this year) came from Michigan to the Northern Lights regional last year and won Chairman's. That meant that they got to go to champs and some other team from Minnesota or Wisconsin or North Dakota or Hawaii did not. All those other teams didn't have the same benefit of qualifying at both a regional and within a district.
IMO the current setup disadvantages regional-only teams. The spreadsheet you linked to doesn't tell the whole tale - Minnesota, for example, didn't get all of those 24 slots. Some went to out of state teams in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Hawaii, etc. Minnesota only sent 16 teams to champs this past year. So while our state might have 8.56% of all FRC teams, our Actual CMP % was 4%.
District team's shouldn't be allowed to play at regionals unless regional teams can play (and earn their way to CMP) at districts as well. We're closing off significant areas of the country and making it harder and harder for some areas that are still doing regionals to send appropriate representation to champs. If FIRST is really moving towards a representational model for CMP, they need to figure out how to make that work for areas that still do regionals as well.