[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Here's the argument (sorry for restating it for those who have followed what I've been saying--one poster said "Specifically Mr. McCann, I believe that I and the majority in this thread have read your posts and understand what you are arguing for." Apparently some still don't follow and are asking for further clarification.):

I'll start with my premise, which I think many of you may have missed (and I was remiss in addressing earlier). I haven't yet seen a counter argument to what I've proposed other than saying "I want to do what I want to do." That's not a rationale position that states how what's happening now promotes the objectives of FIRST. I don't accept status quo bias--that what we've stumbled into so far is the best outcome. Make your case, don't just say that we should just stick with the status quo. To be honest, the attrition rate of FRC teams, which I've seen discussed in other threads, indicates that there are problems that we need to address. Lets' start fixing them. Come up with some good ideas. I've put out mine. Instead of shooting them down, propose something else.

I disagree in whole with the statement of "I want to do what I want to do". My team is young, has experienced some success, and this was the first year that we competed in an off-season event at MRI. I did not invest my time nor my team's very precious resources to compete at this event to win. My goal was to offer up to my up and coming members that same experience that we would expect to find at a highly competitive regional. Yes, we did very well. However, that was aside from how I approached the event as a coach. I established the idea with my team to treat this as a regional event. Do not expect to make the elims. We are here to hone our skills.

If the other teams do not approach this off-season event in the same manner (whether it be an 'A' squad or 'B' Squad) lessens the experience for my own team. My scouts would not get an experience that is like a regional; my PIT would not get an experience that is like a regional; my Marketing team would not get an experience that is like a regional. Etc.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

So here's my principals:

1) A preferred way to encourage participation in the FIRST program, and thus in STEM education, is to allow all teams the broadest level of participation in elimination alliances.

2) As a corollary, less experienced and less competitive teams learn a tremendous amount from being able to ally with more experienced, competitive teams through a series of elimination matches.

Why is it that learning only happens in the elims? Why is this your only hang-up?

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

3) Teams drafting their own second bot creates an insular environment which degrades the atmosphere of coopertition. A team doing so appears to be implying, even if that's not the intent, that it is better than any other team, that it is not interested in learning from other teams that might in in other alliances, and isn't interested in sharing its expertise and resources with other teams.

How is that? If you are a coach (I am assuming that you are because you have stated your accolades in athletics and such) - how can you not see the value in placing your team in a situation that allows for them to compete with the best against the best? Even as my alliance has to compete against another that has two bots of the same team, I want this. That means that the other alliance may have a competitive advantage and should be able to compete at a different level. But is that necessarily true? If alliance A is made of 3 robots from 3 top programs and alliance B is made of two robots from teh same team and another from a different team - what makes Alliance B stand out? They (Alliance B) have to compete against an alliance that is made up of 3 teams with their own best drive team, pit, etc. What about Alliance B sharing it's collective knowledge between the alliance - shouldn't the other team learn just as much from the other two robots team? I trust that through the integrity of FRC that alliance B's robotics teams would further the other team even so much more.

On the same note - I have witnessed first hand 2 different times where my alliance has benefited from our opposing alliance helping out one of our partners. So that point is mute.

On a side note, I would discourage my own team from choosing our 'B' robot - but we are 3-5 years from that being a possibility.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

4) With these objectives in mind, I suggest these changes to be used by event organizers (I can understand the concern about event autonomy, but FIRST can issue guidelines):

a) Offseason event should decide the intent of their event as to the level of competitiveness. IRI and Chezy Champs stand as the most competitive. Others like the Rookie Rumble will decide that maximum participation among all teams is the objective.

This is not just a ludicrous statement, it is insulting. Just because these two events draw in the best of the best they are exempt from your policies? Then how do other events ever grow to challenge IRI or Chezy? So events in other regions or states should just water down the competition to best fit the lowest common denominator?

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

b) in the less competitive events, to maximize the interaction among teams and the ability for the greatest possible number of teams to play in the eliminations, alliance captains would not be allowed to choose their own second robot unless there are no other 'bots running.

c) Another great option is to require alliance captains to teams other than other alliance captains. I specified rule changes above that would dissuade teams from losing late matches to avoid become an alliance captain.

Why then play qualifications? Why not just play 10 rounds of 'practice' and then random draw the elims - and leave out all the 'B' teams because they are not worthy of competing in the elims because their school is just too good.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

5) If teams tried to do these on their own they would be unilaterally "disarming" because other teams would choose more competitive drafting strategies, and a deep literature in political science and economics shows that few will choose this approach. If you really, really don't believe this, I can start sending you citations from the literature. I know of no studies that say otherwise.)

6) Hal Varian (1986) [now Google CIO] showed that we will underprovide a preferred level of charitable contributions or cooperative giving if we avoid compelling everyone to participate and leave the provision to individual choice. This means that if we want to encourage meeting the first two objectives, the event organizer needs to compel all teams to follow these rules so that everyone gains greater benefits and reaches a higher level of satisfaction with the outcome.

Yes, this does limit individual freedom of choice. But the sequential draft already restricts a team's ability to choose whichever team they want, and the selection refusal rule adds even more of a restriction. We often limit freedom of choice in many situations to improve overall societal benefits. The speed limit is just one example.

An important difference in offseason--for almost all teams, moving on the World Championships is at stake in the Regionals and Districts. That is never the case in the offseason, so it has a much different competitive flavor. Think of the NFL preseason games vs regular season and the level of competitiveness.

And within these statements I realize the difference between you and I. I understand the beauty of the FRC competition season and the need for off-season events. You, as a self-proclaimed policy-maker, want to regulate the off-season events - events that are put on by people that are fans/supporters/coaches/alum/etc of FRC that just want to put their own spin on FIRST Robotics.

I fear the day that the current generation of FRC leadership retires and a new group of policy-wonks/educational experts/politicians take over and recreate Dean Kamen's view of competitive STEM through cooperation. What you are suggesting goes against everything that I believe FRC is about. If you are solely concerned with promoting STEM through equal outcome - then please go ahead and do so. But do not do so at the behest of the rest of us.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

As to contacting event organizers, I am encouraging other teams who see the benefits of this approach to contact their chosen events and persuade those events to use these rules. It is not my place to be the event "police" and monitor what each event is doing. I used the Fall Classic as an EXAMPLE of a situation and I don't feel its my responsibility to follow up with them. (I follow up with events that we compete in where I think that changes would be beneficial.) So please do not ask me to contact anyone about this comment.

So instead of encouraging the teams that do not make it to the finals at an off-season event to create their own venue - you would rather have them push their own agenda on the kind folks that put on these off-season events. Is that how you create change? In other words, don't pave your on path as Dean Kamen did, pressure everyone else to change to your own ideals?

McCann - do you realize that you are truly the minority on this site? This site that is dominated by the hardcore FRC community? Why are you pushing your agenda for off-season events so hard? I just don't get it. Allow the FIRST to conduct the game and organization that has created so many opportunities for so many students to continue in their manner. And in that same breath, allow the off-season organizers to create venues and events that adhere to their own ideals. Why is this such a problem for you?

In the end - it is you that created the problem, stated the problem, offered a solution that was undesirable to the masses - and yet you complain that the rest of us aren't GP.