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Unread 20-09-2003, 09:19
Joel J's Avatar
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Quote:
Originally posted by JVN
My Opinions:

Everyone should go to nationals.
Yes, it's true. In an ideal world, every team should be allowed to go to nationals, so that they all get to experience the "big show" of FIRST. This will not happen. I mean, cmon guys. No matter how many times we say it, FIRST is going to have to limit nationals in some way. Otherwise, Dave wouldn't be asking for our opinions on how to limit nationals, he'd just be saying "Yay, everyone goes this year!"

I didn't see any such post.
So, barring the above:

Everyone should get the chance to experience nationals.
Note: this is not the same as the above. Barring the "everyone can go", we have "everyone can go, at least once every 2 years." Now... there has been a lot of whining about this, but, at the risk of breaking with the 'popular' opinion... I LIKE THE EVEN/ODD SYSTEM. Face it, people can complain all they want how they got "shut out of nationals" but, I won't cry for them knowing that next year, they will get their "free ride".

Teams that build strong robots should go to nationals.
Yes, it's true. I'm one of those people that thinks the BEST robots should be at the big-show. Everyone else is a bonus. How do we decide which robots are the "best"? Well... how about with the current qualification system? Seems like a good plan to me.

The only problem with this is... even after going to multiple regionals, some of the "best" robots might not get recognized. (everyone has bad luck). A possible solution to this, is to overhaul the judging/award process. But, this is a completely different problem.


Summary:
I like the current system. It allows for everyone to experience nationals (even if you only go once every 2 years). It also rewards the *best* robots, and makes the nationals competition competitive. I think overall, it works well.

Again, in my opinion. The only major problems stem from the judging/award process. There has been a lot of talk about how this process needs to be reformed, and I won't go into too much detail here (I'll save it for another thread ) Basically, what it boils down to is: If FIRST is going to make the awards "worth" something. They need to make sure they ALWAYS go to the right teams. We've all heard the horror stories. Let's keep this from happening in the future.


Dave,
When can we expect the "final word" on some of this?


Thank you,

John

PS - I think I chimed in way more than my allotted $.02 this time. Sorry for ranting.
Conformist..

Unlike John, the conformist, I am selfish. As long as my team gets to go to nationals every year, I could care less. You can change as many qualification criteria you want, as long as it doesn't bar my team from going. <-- Unless you are a chairman's award winning or an original team, then one of these statements is most likely the subconscious drive that motivates you to "want" a change to the current qualification system. People go against the qualification system because it prevents them from going to nationals, or because they have already qualified and want to add their voice in to make it sound like they really "care." If the system was changed midway through the year and those that qualified for nationals no longer did, then I'm sure they would still have a voice against the new system and those who qualify would assume the empathic role.

Watch closely, also, the changes people want made to the qualification system. The changes probably give the team of that person, or the strength of that person, the best chance of carrying them to nationals. Teams with new innovations every year probably want more technical awards to be included in the qualification criteria; spirited teams perhaps want the spirit awards to warrant them a place at nationals; teams with competitive robots that don't quite make it to the finals of a competition perhaps want the scope of regional elimination awards to be broadened, etc.

How about that for cynicism? At the heart of my post is "sarcasm," but now that I look back at it, I think I believe it to some degree.

Accumulating points does sound like a good idea, at first; however, we see this as FIRST setting itself up for quite the fiasco in the long run. Eventually, all non rookie teams will have accumulated enough points to warrant them a spot that the National Competition. FIRST can only allow so many teams to enter, thus reducing registration for nationals to a true, "first come, first served" deal.

Rick's idea also sounds like it would work for the upcoming year. But it would run into a problem once the regionals began to grow. Now that I think more on the rate of regionals being added per year, Rick's idea would perhaps work for the next 4-5 years. I have to say that I don't like the idea and I suppose I can't put across a reason why...

Anyway, this thread distracted me, I have to get to other things.
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