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Unread 05-04-2015, 18:59
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Mr. S
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Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection

Quote:
Originally Posted by Squillo View Post
I think @evanperryg has hit the nail on the head. As the best teams get SO much better than the VAST majority, it gets harder and harder for the GDC to meet what I see as one of its biggest challenges - designing a game/engineering problem that provides some challenge for those "top" teams, while still allowing the rest of the teams to meaningfully participate. While "playing defense" is one way to solve that problem, I don't think it's the best. It would be better, IMHO, if the less advanced teams could contribute to offense, but at a lower level. (I happen to think this year was a good year in that regard, I know rational minds do differ in this regard.)

I am not sure what the answer is. Part of me keeps thinking that maybe it's time to split into two competitions, FRC and "super-FRC," while still keeping some connection so that the "ordinary" teams can be inspired by and learn from the "powerhouses." I don't really like the idea of a split, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem otherwise. The "wild card" slot helps a little (at least when a single high-powered team would get multiple 'invites' to Champs, another team or two gets to go), but then there is the whole issue of the "first alliance second pick" that usually gets a MUCH less capable (i.e., fourth-or fifth-string) robot/team into Champs, while the "second stringers" are left behind (sometimes again and again... consider a team that regularly seeds 3rd or 4th - maybe in top 10-15% of all the teams by OPR or whatever else you could use to accurately measure performance - but never is on the winning alliance (because 1 picks 2 and then handily defeats all others). If FIRST wants the BEST robots/teams at Champs (often given as the rationale for allowing #1 to pick #2), then why let a third robot "tag along" merely by the luck of being drawn? (Or worse, because they happen to be "friends" with the #1 alliance? Like the old "popularity contests" in for grade-school student government.))

Unfortunately, I have not been able to solve this problem. One idea would be to give out points in some manner throughout the season, and then the teams with the most points get to fill, say, 2/3 of the Champ slots (with the rest for award winners; I do think it's good to let, say, Rookie All-Stars, EI and CA winners, etc. go to Champs). I'm not sure how all the points should work, we could debate that all day long, but I would think that being a "2nd pick" for a winning alliance would garner (way) fewer points than seeding high, being alliance captain of a semi-final competitor, etc. Even winning an engineering-based award could count for some points. There would also have to be a way to give single-competition teams as much of a shot as those who attend several competitions. This is really a difficult problem to solve... but that doesn't mean we/they shouldn't try.
Although interesting, you are getting off topic. I hope this does not cause us to get off track. Purhaps a new thread with this info would be appropriate.
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