[GaryVoshol]

FiM originally set up 16 districts, envisioning an eventual 16 district tournaments. If every tournament were allowed to send Chairman's, IE and Rookie All-Star winners to the State Championship, there wouldn't be enough room to send the winning alliance from each district. Thus the culture changing awards category was created. This year there are 7 district tournaments, so the capacity could have been there, but it would mean changing the structure as more and more districts are added.

I think they went overboard in how they decided to resolve that, though. There's no reason a culture-changing award couldn't be given high points in the overall scheme. Winning Chairman's at the district should get you at least as many points as winning the robot competition. Winning a robot quality award should be equal to winning a team organization quality award (ie. entrepreneurship). In most cases, there won't be teams that are "robot teams" vs those that are "culture teams". Most teams that are good at one will be reasonably good at the other.

A better structure of points could be set up to better reflect the values of FIRST. When I heard of the concept, my thought was, "You mean points like in a FF league?" "Yes," was the answer, "But better." In my opinion, the point structure they came up with was not better. Hopefully after they see how the thing runs this year, they will tweak the point structure.

I can see the special category of you-can-come-without-your-robot for some teams who win one of the culture awards but don't do much on the field. They should be recognized just as much as the ones who build great robots. The recognition will be done in a different manner. The plan I heard was to have them put up displays in the entrance area at Ypsi. But it would be better still if they were allowed to compete because the culture-changing award they won generated enough points to get them entrance to the whole tournament. I'm afraid there might still be a team or two that wins some award(s) but wouldn't get enough points - in which case, they would truly be very lonely out there in that lobby with their display. I'm not sure how that can be resolved.

One downfall I immediately saw to this plan was the elimination of teams from outside the state, and the potential for very few teams to travel outside Michigan. We will certainly miss the teams that used to come to our events from ON, IN, IL, OH and other locales. If the district structure were to expand to other areas, perhaps the impact of this could be lessened. For example, there might be a structure in the Upper Midwest with a championship in Minneapolis, fed by several districts in WI, IA, MN, etc. Each championship would have an allotment of spots for the World Championship based on the teams entered. Teams would be assigned - or perhaps could declare - which championship event they were working towards. But they would be allowed to sign up for districts outside their championship on a space-available basis, earning points toward their own championship. I'd be a little worried about teams shopping for an easy district, but teams can do that now by selecting their regional event(s). So for instance, a UP team could decide to attend districts in Traverse City and another in Milwaukee, earning qualification points to either the Michigan or Minneapolis championship, but not both.