Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[Citrus Dad]

Since no one else has started a new thread to prepare for the discussion at Champs about the future of FRC, I have stepped up here. I am not advocating a particular position, nor will I be involved in the actual preparation and presentation. This thread is NOT about complaining about FIRST's announcement--it IS about constructing positive proposals.

I strongly urge that many of you who are concerned about this organize yourselves to make a set of coherent alternative proposals to present at the town meeting. Given the likelihood that the locations are contractually locked in, keep those sites in your proposal structures.

Use this thread to organize this presentation, and select specific presenters. Also prepare presentation materials, and even budget and manpower estimates. The more professional and complete, the more seriously it will be taken.

We should take Frank at his word (see below) and engage in constructive discussion.

To meet our lofty goals, though, we will need your help. As Don said in his video, we want to engage members of the community in coming up with the best solutions possible to the challenges presented to this two Championship approach. The concerns you’ve expressed are valid. Over the next several months you will see a number of initiatives intended to engage the community in helping shape what these Championships and activities surrounding them will look like. As an example, we are currently planning a town-hall style meeting at the 2015 FIRST Championship that will allow the community to engage directly with Senior FIRST Leadership on this important change. In all of this, we need your help in doing what you do best – solve problems. I’m personally very interested in hearing your ideas about how we may be able to arrange for final matches between the winners of FIRST Championship Houston and FIRST Championship St. Louis.

Let’s work together to make these future Championships great.

Frank

[AGPapa]

I’m personally very interested in hearing your ideas about how we may be able to arrange for final matches between the winners of FIRST Championship Houston and FIRST Championship St. Louis.

Personally, I believe this is the wrong point to discuss during the meeting. The issue isn't that they're two championship alliances, but rather that the whole FRC community will be split. I think the focus of the meeting should be see if there is a way to have only one FRC championship at one of the locations, and have the other be for FTC.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Personally, I believe this is the wrong point to discuss during the meeting. The issue isn't that they're two championship alliances, but rather that the whole FRC community will be split. I think the focus of the meeting should be see if there is a way to have only one FRC championship at one of the locations, and have the other be for FTC.

Agreed. A final showdown would be nice and all, but it's really not the issue. At a meeting like this, it's just a distraction from the far more important and difficult to resolve problems.

Part of me is a little bothered that it was the only issue to make the blog post. It's mostly a red herring compared to the real and far more intractable challenges these contracts created.

My first suggestion: cross-event switching, e.g. where a Houston-bound team can trade places with a Detroit-bound one.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Personally, I believe this is the wrong point to discuss during the meeting. The issue isn't that they're two championship alliances, but rather that the whole FRC community will be split. I think the focus of the meeting should be see if there is a way to have only one FRC championship at one of the locations, and have the other be for FTC.

Agreed. While the "two champions" thing is a valid complaint, it's not like the problem is solved if everything is the same except for one "ultimate championship" match between these two alliances. Ultimately, it's the permanent fracturing of the FRC community that is the biggest and most obvious problem with this plan.

[Sunshine]

FLL and FTC at one location. All FRC teams at the other. Vendors, speakers, workshops can be more specific to age and needs this way.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

FLL and FTC at one location. All FRC teams at the other. Vendors, speakers, workshops can be more specific to age and needs this way.

The one thing i don't like about this proposal is FTC and FLL teams won't get to see FRC teams and the "big kids" and their robots. The other thing I loved to see at champs was the lower programs and how excited and inspired they were.

However, I suppose if we have the two venues, that may be the best compromise to keep one championship for FRC teams.

[safiq10]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

FLL and FTC at one location. All FRC teams at the other. Vendors, speakers, workshops can be more specific to age and needs this way.

I agree with this idea. FLL and FTC have grown beyond belief and the programs are getting better and better. I believe that they have reached the level where they can expand out and have their own location for a combined championship. I believe that Houston should be for FLL and FTC and Detroit for FRC. So that we can continue to have all FRC teams in the same housing but in a much larger venue.

[tStano]

One of the big concerns I've seen is that the "Championship experience" no longer happens in a stadium except for opening and closing ceremonies. With how the cities are laid out, there doesn't seem to be a way around this, but if anyone can think of some sort of alternative...


I think that qualifying teams could easily sign up to switch places under the current geography plan.
Create a list for Houston teams who want to go to Detroit/St Louis and a list of Detroit/St Louis teams who want to go to Houston. As soon a team qualifies for their championship event they can put their number at the bottom of their respective lists, and as soon as a team exists on both lists, the affected teams will be notified and will be swapped.

Once they had been swapped, this decision would be set in stone, but until a partner shows up, a team can cancel their request and go to their originally scheduled championship event. It sucks if you're qualifying near the end of the tournament, but its at least something.

[philso]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

FLL and FTC at one location. All FRC teams at the other. Vendors, speakers, workshops can be more specific to age and needs this way.

It is not as simple as that. Some of us are involved in FRC and one of the other programs. Two road trips on two successive weekends will be very difficult to make work. Many FRC teams have these two other programs as significant parts of their outreach (think Chairmans) so their team members may have to choose between being with the team they are coaching or abandoning them to participate in the FRC event. We have already seen this happen when an FLL tournament was scheduled for the same day as the FRC Kickoff. Lastly, many families have students participating in programs other than FRC.

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by philso

It is not as simple as that. Some of us are involved in FRC and one of the other programs. Two road trips on two successive weekends will be very difficult to make work. Many FRC teams have these two other programs as significant parts of their outreach (think Chairmans) so their team members may have to choose between being with the team they are coaching or abandoning them to participate in the FRC event. We have already seen this happen when an FLL tournament was scheduled for the same day as the FRC Kickoff. Lastly, many families have students participating in programs other than FRC.

I'd like to see the actual numbers on how many this would really effect.

[philso]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

I'd like to see the actual numbers on how many this would really effect.

So would I. Other posters on this thread have also mentioned this issue. Depending on the real numbers, such a split may be acceptable or not.

My position comes from watching Chairman's Award videos and reading Chairman's Award presentations from around the country. Most of these were from HOF teams. It also comes from my observations of the Houston FIRST scene. I see many of the same faces at the FLL and FRC events, including many of the key volunteers that make these events possible. I suspect that this split will affect the larger, more established teams the most. The driver for a Houston area team that has won 3 regionals this year was a co-coach for his younger brother's FLL team. They run one of the best FLL events in Houston and sponsor something like 5 FLL teams. A team member from a past World Championship team is one of the mentors for an FLL team going to the World Festival this year. A third local powerhouse team, that has also won 3 regionals this year, used to run some of the FLL tournaments until they switched to VEX-IQ as their feeder program.

[Alex Webber]

Originally Posted by philso

It is not as simple as that. Some of us are involved in FRC and one of the other programs. Two road trips on two successive weekends will be very difficult to make work. Many FRC teams have these two other programs as significant parts of their outreach (think Chairmans) so their team members may have to choose between being with the team they are coaching or abandoning them to participate in the FRC event. We have already seen this happen when an FLL tournament was scheduled for the same day as the FRC Kickoff. Lastly, many families have students participating in programs other than FRC.

As stated on the FRC Blog, the dual championships would be based off of their regions. This being said, as long as your second program is located in the same region as your FRC team, then you should be good to go.

I support multiple teams across various FIRST Programs. Will they all be going to the same Championship?

In addition to qualification based on performance or ranking, FIRST will determine what teams attend which event based on geographical location of the team and by balancing team capacity at both events. Hence, it is highly likely that the geography for FTC teams at a given Championship will align with the geographies for FLL and FRC teams at the same event. However, we are still in the process of determining those geographic alignments for each Championship.

[zinthorne]

Here is my proposal:

Since Houston and Detroit are probably required for use because of contracts, the plan needs to be formulated around each. To achieve this, I think that the current form of Districts and Regionals needs to be changed. I think that everybody should move to districts. What this would then allow is a fair way to seed teams to worlds. (For out of country teams, regionals would have to have a format set up) FIRST would then use the same method they use now for district teams to worlds. (In PNW the top 30 or so teams seed to worlds) What this would then allow is a 400-500 team championship event hosted in a single city. This would get the best teams from each event to worlds. We could have the "Everyone is a winner" mentality at the District championship level. This means multiple chairmans winners, but only the winners in the top 30 seed to worlds. (Using 30 as example for each district) This would be the same for all the awards that would normally seed you to worlds. So even if you win an award you would have to be in the top 30 to seed to worlds.

This model of all districts would allow for a fair way to seed teams to worlds. It would ensure the truly best teams go to worlds, and allow for there to be one true winner. This would I think also unite the FIRST community and give everyone a legit shot to seed to worlds. With the regional system there are truly good teams that do not make it to worlds, because they just arent on the traditional number one seeded alliance with the 2 teams that always pair up. I think we can all think of the teams in our areas that win every event in our area for as long as we can remember. And I am fine with there being powerhouse alliances that happen every year, but this system would allow for team who are not on those to still go to worlds. (For me personally my team has gotten second place to the same team for 3 years running and still has yet to beat them)

I hope you guys consider this idea for a FIRST championship.

[MrRoboSteve]

To those making a proposal, observe that you are engaging in a classic product definition exercise.

Prior to thinking too much about a proposal, it is worth spending some time thinking about what attributes a proposal might be judged on. Here are attributes that were discussed in the other thread:

. Cost of attendance for teams, including travel
. Presents FRC as entertainment
. Venue availability
. Event volunteer availability (both key and regular volunteers)
. Team mentor availability
. Team member availability
. FRC staff availability
. Fits between New Year's Day and AP test day
. Number of teams participating
. Avoiding events developing persistent easier/harder reputations
. Equipment (field) availability
. Economic feasibility
. Every team has the opportunity to attend, at a minimum, once every four years / number of students inspired by event
. The result of the annual competition is a single champion alliance
. Capacity of event to inspire students
. Ability of teams to decide where they compete
. Ability to inspire FLL/FTC teams via co-location

Ideas for others?

One might then consider building a House of Quality to compare various proposals on these attributes.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

FLL and FTC at one location. All FRC teams at the other. Vendors, speakers, workshops can be more specific to age and needs this way.

I recommend you take Citrus Dad up on his suggestion and start working out a proposal for how this would work. FIRST has tentative plans for and knows how a 400 FRC team Champs would work at each location. You're going to have to convince them that either:
1. An 800-FRC team Event can work at one of the locations.
2. A smaller FRC Event can work at one of the locations and is in the best interests of the program.

If you show up and all you have is a demand/suggestion that we split FLL+FTC and FRC because you really want a single FRC Champs, that's probably not going to get as far.