|
Good start
Chris,
I like your line of thinking. I'll try to add to your excellent points.
Ideally, the only teams who should qualify for Nationals should be the teams who win or perform very well at the Regionals leading into nationals. BUT... as we know, this is not logically possible for this year.
So... I'll join Chris and try to tweak the qualification rule for this year:
Chris wrote:
"1. Using a previous year's results to give automatic bids to Nationals is fine."
Makes sense to me
"2. Qualification points should not be given for this year's nationals."
Good
"2a. The national champion team(s) (should get) an automatic bid."
Good
"3. Qualification points should somehow be normalized to the number of regionals that a team attends."
Yes, that makes sense... and we can even make it an equation:
n = number of regionals a team attends
p = total "FIRST points" a team wins during all regionals it attends
Qp = qualification points a team gets
qp = p/n
"4. Giving exemptions to the original teams is silly. This exemption must go. "
Agreed. This is not needed.
"5. Qualification points should be normalized for the size of the field at a regional. "
Nah, we don't need to allow for this. This is not that big of a deal. Granted, it will be tougher to get awards at certain regionals, but the normalization factor will not be even, and this adds a level of complexity that is more trouble than it's worth.
"6. Automatic bids should perhaps be passed down. "
Again, this is getting complex. As said in a previous post, while if an "auto-qualifier" would get a Controls Award, this opens up a spot to the even numbered teams who are on the waiting list for Nationals. Also, IF a "auto-qualifier" wins a Technical Award... well, then they deserve their position at Nationals... and that makes their "auto-qualification" moot.
To add to your ideas, I think that the Chairman's award winners deserve "auto-qualifying" exemptions. Believe it or not, these teams don't buy this award (as someone else was ranting about in another post)... they deserve it. Look at Chatsworth and Baxter Bomb Squad (last two winners)... they win this award by working hard and spreading the ideals of FIRST.
Andy B.
|