Frank Answers Fridays - Expanded Championship

[cgmv123]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...idays-06062014

Today’s good question comes from Brian R., from FRC Team 2383, The Ninjineers, out of Plantation, Florida, USA:

Question:

I’d like to ask you more about the format of the World Championships next season and in the future. I am really excited about the expanded FRC championships. I’d like to know about how many teams will be there, how they will compete, and how they will get there. For example, will there be 600 teams? Will there be 6 or 8 fields? Would regional finalists or other specific award winners be invited to St. Louis? Also, has FRC ever considered a weighted wait list for the event by giving more preference to finalists and award winners?

Thanks in advance for your response!

Answer:

Brian, thanks for the question. I’m really excited about an expanded Championship also! I imagine the thunder and spectacle of up to 50% more FRC teams participating in the event and watching the Einstein finals, and I get goosebumps. Not just because it’s going to be a great show, but because we’ll be able to deliver potentially life-changing experiences to that many more people.

With a large increase in the number of teams, though, there are many details to be worked through. As an example, to support 400 teams and 4 Divisions for the 2014 FIRST Championship, we had more than 700 FRC- specific volunteers. To support 600 teams and 8 Divisions, we would need well over 1,000. Just as with the teams themselves, all these extra folks need to be able to find hotel rooms – if they are from out of town – and need to be fed in a short enough time at the event to get back to their next activity. As another example of details needing work, consider the dome floor and field placement. The dome floor seems pretty large when you are walking around out there, but try to squeeze in 8 fields, and enough space to put all the robots needed to run Divisional eliminations, and things start to get pretty cozy. We have several options to address challenges like these, but options, right now, is what they are, until we make final decisions.

The bottom line is, we are currently working hard on plans that will allow us to significantly increase the number of FRC teams attending the FIRST Championship while still making it a wonderful experience for everyone involved. The plans being worked include the process by which teams will be invited to Championship. We don’t yet have details in place, but they are a top priority for us to work out over the summer. The final plans will likely include between 6 and 8 Divisions, and team counts between the mid 500’s and 600, but I don’t think this tells you anything you haven’t already figured out. We’ll share the plans when we have them figured out and it makes sense for us to do so.

In answer to your final question, I don’t know if we’ve ever considered a weighted wait list. We haven’t, during my knowledge, during the time I’ve been with FIRST. This gets to a fundamental question about the Championship. I believe the purpose of the FIRST Championship is inspiration and recognition (I don’t think I’m going out on a limb on that one….). With a limited number of slots available, how do we pick the teams to best fulfill that purpose?

Frank

[Koko Ed]

If they do go eight divisions I truly hope they don't go back to pit divisions. I liked the floor space but the the seating was never enough and was getting dangerous as the weekend went on as they looked like they were starting to come apart.

[the programmer]

So simple solution to the problem with getting people fed in time: stagger the lunch times between divisions. With the current setup, the could have Archimedes and Curie eating from 11:30 to 12:30 and Newton and Galileo eating from 12:30 to 1:30. This would work very well on Thursday and Friday but not so much on Saturday.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by the programmer

So simple solution to the problem with getting people fed in time: stagger the lunch times between divisions. With the current setup, the could have Archimedes and Curie eating from 11:30 to 12:30 and Newton and Galileo eating from 12:30 to 1:30. This would work very well on Thursday and Friday but not so much on Saturday.

Possibly. FIRST is going to have to answer the even bigger question of is St. Louis capable of hosting 200 more FRC teams, 300+ more FRC volunteers, xxx more FTC teams/volunteers, xxx more FLL teams/volunteers, and xxx JRFLL teams/volunteers. I'm not talking about venue size (which is its own debate) but hotel, food, etc.

Its not incredibly easy as is but it would be interesting if FIRST had some numbers they could share regarding the St. Louis infrastructure on # of hotel rooms available and booked during the week of champs.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Its not incredibly easy as is but it would be interesting if FIRST had some numbers they could share regarding the St. Louis infrastructure on # of hotel rooms available and booked during the week of champs.

The St. Louis CVC (the agency that owns and operates the Dome and America's Center) says there are over 38,000 hotel rooms in the St. Louis area and that that exceeds the NFL's requirement of 24,500 hotel rooms to host the Super Bowl. (See Page 67)

[techtiger1]

Don't further expand the great divide that's all this would be doing in terms of FRC. The number of hotel rooms is irrelevant because you have no data on price ranges which is important because FRC students, adults and staff can only pay so much.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

Don't further expand the great divide that's all this would be doing in terms of FRC. The number of hotel rooms is irrelevant because you have no data on price ranges which is important because FRC students, adults and staff can only pay so much.

And "area" is undefined. Rooms within 30 miles, 60 miles, 100?

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

Don't further expand the great divide that's all this would be doing in terms of FRC. The number of hotel rooms is irrelevant because you have no data on price ranges which is important because FRC students, adults and staff can only pay so much.

Exactly. I'm pretty sure the Four Seasons downtown is quite empty during Championships.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

Don't further expand the great divide that's all this would be doing in terms of FRC. The number of hotel rooms is irrelevant because you have no data on price ranges which is important because FRC students, adults and staff can only pay so much.

The downtown hotels are insanely expensive. It's much cheaper staying by the airport. And with Battlecry going to Memorial Day Weekend it enables me to drive to St. Louis again and if I have a car I can stay further outside of the greater St. Louis area and possibly find even less expensive places to stay.

[PayneTrain]

On top of rooms being not sensible for an FRC team based on price, a 1 BR King does not hold nearly as much value to an FRC team as a 1BR 2 Queen/Double. There are currently a LOT of rooms close to the venue for the 2015 event that an FRC team wouldn't grab because you can't put more students in it.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Is the current wait list a "first come first served" system? I don't think I'd like seeing 200 teams go that just hit the button on a computer fast enough. Teams need to earn their way to the championship in my opinion.

[cadandcookies]

"Between 6 and 8 divisions?"

7 divisions would be... interesting.

[Alpha Beta]

To support 600 teams and 8 Divisions, we would need...

75 teams per division?

13 matches per team?

[Nemo]

With more teams headed to Champs, the first, easiest change I'd like to see is an expansion of wildcards.

For every regional event, add exactly six teams to the list who weren't already qualified. That means Hall of Fame teams create automatic wildcards anywhere they go. A team that qualifies via awards and winning at the same competition generates a wildcard. Under this system, it is debatable whether a winning alliance backup robot should get an automatic bid, or if they should instead be #7 on the pecking order. The latter allows for a predictable number of Championship bids to be created.

Here is a possible pecking order for choosing wildcards:
1-6: RCA, EI, RAS, Winners 1-3
7. Winning Alliance Backup Robot?
8. Finalist Alliance Captain
9. Excellence in Engineering Award winner
10. Finalist Alliance 1st pick
11. Quality Award winner
12. Finalist Alliance 2nd pick
13. Industrial Design Award winner
14. Semifinalist Captain from winning bracket
15. Gracious Professionalism award
16. List continues*

*list wouldn't need to be much longer than this for regional events, but it could be longer for district system championship events if they wanted to do anything like that. The points system they use is pretty darned good, though.

This could also kick in if there was no rookie to earn the Rookie All-Star Award. Then the next team on the list qualifies as a wildcard.

I like having the finalist robots and design award robots high on the list since it would tend to send teams with the best robots to the championship.

A system like this would make it seem less impossible to advance from some events. As things are right now, it's incredibly difficult to get into Champs with your robot alone at many (most) regional events if they have two really good teams. In fact, it's even harder if your team has a good enough robot to get picked in the first round. The two good teams pair up and win, and the #16 pick advances along with a rookie team and the two big award winners. Upsets happen, but usually the #1 seed wins those events when two great teams are present.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Is the current wait list a "first come first served" system? I don't think I'd like seeing 200 teams go that just hit the button on a computer fast enough. Teams need to earn their way to the championship in my opinion.

+1

Frank said the goal was inspiration and recognition. I don't know about the inspiration part, but the more competitive the robots, the better job champs does to gain recognition. I think people would rather watch 233 (who didn't make it to champs this year despite having an awesome robot) than a box of rocks on wheels. Also, being able to get in completely based on luck kind of cheapens the experience, at least to me.