[FRC Blog]2017 Updates

[ollien]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 8/17/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...g/2017-updates

2017 Updates
Written by Frank Merrick.

We’ve got a big list of updates to get out to the FRC Community about things going on in 2017. Some are not yet fully baked, so they need to stay in the oven a bit longer, but others are ready. We don’t go into much detail below, but we were anxious to get these out, so here you go!



2017 China Regional

The rumors are true, in 2017 there will be an official FRC Regional in China! Just this weekend, a very successful off-season event was conducted in Shanghai, and the Regional itself will be held in Shenzhen. Dates are TBD. I think this is an exciting development!



Subdivisions at the Championships

Each Championship will have 6 Subdivisions, and 3 Divisions pairing up 2 Subdivisions each for award purposes. We feel this is the best way to give a good experience to all involved. At this time, we anticipate a round-robin playoff format among the 6 Subdivision winning alliances, followed by a best two out of three playoff between the 2 top Subdivisions coming out of the round-robin to determine the Championship winning alliance. Several details still need to be worked out, but this would mean that all 6 Subdivision winning alliances will get 5 matches in the round-robin, and 2 will get an additional 2 or 3 in the final matchup.

We are currently working out the naming details on those new Subdivisions. We should have more information shortly.



Championship Slots from Regionals

We recognize that as a group, and under the 2016 scheme, teams qualifying for the Championships from Regional areas would be under-represented at the 2017 Championships. In an attempt to help address this, all 2017 Regionals will be getting one wild card slot in addition to those that would normally have been generated. This means that if, under the existing rules, a Regional normally would have generated no wild card slots, they instead will be generating one. If they normally would have generated one wild card, they instead will be generating two, etc. At this time, we anticipate no other changes to the wild card rules as they were in 2016.

It's important to understand that this is not necessarily a permanent change. If we need pull this bonus wild card slot back in future years because of Championship capacity or other reasons, we will do so.



Robot Transportation Exemptions

With the continued growth in FRC, and with the increase in the total number of slots we will have at our Championships, 2017 is going to be a busy year for robot shipping. FedEx is extraordinarily generous in their shipping donation to FRC, but we still are responsible for being good stewards of this valuable resource. We are continuing the Robot Transportation Exemption program in 2017, allowing teams to request assistance in shipping their robots to Regional events, if transporting their robot to the event themselves would be a hardship. However, those requests will get closer scrutiny than they have in the past. If you are a non-District team and planning to attend two or more Regionals in 2017, or if you are a District team (and so already getting two plays) planning to attend a Regional, that will be an indication to us that you may have the resources to pay for robot shipping on your own, and you should be prepared for your exemption request to be turned down. We recognize this may be a challenge for some teams, but feel it’s a good way to more fairly distribute this resource.

More to come on 2017, stay tuned!



Frank

[ollien]

Personally, I'm super excited to see this wild card change. As someone whose team has never been to champs, this gives me some hope for the future.

EDIT: I am curious though. If all 3 winning teams generate wild cards, who does the fourth wild card go to?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Not a huge fan of 6 divisions, I find the round robin finals in vex makes it less exciting so I'm not super pumped to see it come to FRC.

Huge fan of the extra wildcard at regionals. Should definitely balance out the regional spots at champs with quality teams that often miss out.

hopefully the scheduling issues with regionals in NY/southeast US get addressed in someway, but I'll take this as a win for today.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Not a huge fan of 6 divisions, I find the round robin finals in vex makes it less exciting so I'm not super pumped to see it come to FRC.

Huge fan of the extra wildcard at regionals. Should definitely balance out the regional spots at champs with quality teams that often miss out.

hopefully the scheduling issues with regionals in NY/southeast US get addressed in someway, but I'll take this as a win for today.

This exactly. Definitely a more complicated system and not that spectator friendly compared to a nice simple bracket.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Seem like great changes to me, very happy with 6 subdivisions at each championship and a round robin Einstein.

Anyone want to do the math on how the extra wildcard will effect the North-Champs, they should be getting even fewer wait list slots now.

[Kevin Leonard]

I like the extra wildcards and 6 divisions/champs.
I'd love a little more wildcard reform (wildcards given out via district points structure), and districts/regional reform (let regional teams attend districts the same way district teams from other areas do), but we take every little victory.

[Jon Stratis]

I'll reserve judgement on the round-robin tournament structure for Einstein until I see it. There's potential for it to be boring, if two alliances clearly dominate after the first couple of matches... but there's also potential for it to be very exciting if the alliances are mostly evenly matched, or there's a question of alliances changing strategy depending on who they're facing. One thing's for sure - scouting other divisions is going to be somewhat important. Previously, you could scout the finals for the division you knew your division would be up against in the first round on Einstein, and then use the other Einstein matches to scout future opponents. Now, it's everyone!

Going to 6 divisions is probably good overall. If they did 4, there would be 100 teams per division, which would lead to fewer matches played and more complaints from everyone (who remembers the complaints the last time that happened?), and going to 8 would mean only 50 teams per division, which I don't think is deep enough for Champs.

For the wildcard spot... if a regional generates 4 wildcards, why not have a "3rd place" match? Make it a single match, winner take all. I've seen "3rd place" matches happen a lot at off-season events...

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Seem like great changes to me, very happy with 6 subdivisions at each championship and a round robin Einstein.

Anyone want to do the math on how the extra wildcard will effect the North-Champs, they should be getting even fewer wait list slots now.

I probably screwed something up

but


20ish Regionals x 7 is 140 Regional slots

Using last season's numbers
Ontario - 137 teams
Michigan - 411
Indiana - 54
New England - 182
Mid Atlantic - 122
Chesapeake - 132

1038 total, or about 33% of all teams. Of the 800 total CMP spots they'll get about 265.

That brings us to 405.

So Halfchamps North has around -5 spots to split between original teams and the wait list. Hmmm.

[jajabinx124]

I too am not a fan of the 6 sub-divisions and the round robin format coming back to FRC.

I'm happy about the extra wildcard. Hopefully it should help a bit for under-represented regions at champs.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by ollien

Personally, I'm super excited to see this wild card change. As someone whose team has never been to champs, this gives me some hope for the future.

EDIT: I am curious though. If all 3 winning teams generate wild cards, who does the fourth wild card go to?

My major question in regards to the Wild Card changes is this. Does this mean that the rules will be changed to help prevent Wild Cards form being burned? I really hope this is the case, otherwise I could see this being even more of a loss at some events that already have several pre-qualified teams attending.

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

My major question in regards to the Wild Card changes is this. Does this mean that the rules will be changed to help prevent Wild Cards form being burned? I really hope this is the case, otherwise I could see this being even more of a loss at some events that already have several pre-qualified teams attending.

I hope that is the case as well. For the past 2-3 years for the 10,000 lakes regional and North Star regional in MN, their have been a crap ton of wildcards and with this new rule in effect, I see 1 or 2 wildcards being burned because of it. North Star in 2015 burned at least 1 wildcard because there were so many championship qualifying teams attending that regional. Just an example that wildcards get wasted at certain regionals even without the rule change.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

My major question in regards to the Wild Card changes is this. Does this mean that the rules will be changed to help prevent Wild Cards form being burned? I really hope this is the case, otherwise I could see this being even more of a loss at some events that already have several pre-qualified teams attending.

They said no other changes, so no. It does at least mean that the captain of the finalist alliance will be guaranteed an invite to Championships though.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Ugh, this means that horrific deconflict step will still be there at CMP judging. Giving out more awards would spread the inspiration, pretty please? I promise to only complain a LITTLE more about 2Champz [1]

If not, Frank - please add boxing gloves in the judge box for CMP.


[1] Publicly... [2]

[2] In writing [3]

[3] This week.

[bduddy]

I feel obligated to state that I suggested the 6-division round robin here a while ago (although not two of them...), and I still think it'll be a really fun format.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Ugh, this means that horrific deconflict step will still be there at CMP judging. Giving out more awards would spread the inspiration, pretty please? I promise to only complain a LITTLE more about 2Champz [1]

If not, Frank - please add boxing gloves in the judge box for CMP.


[1] Publicly... [2]

[2] In writing [3]

[3] This week.

I agree... the subdivision stuff is not so good... would love to see awards per subdivision and then we can just go back to calling them divisions...

Originally Posted by Frank

If you are a non-District team and planning to attend two or more Regionals in 2017, or if you are a District team (and so already getting two plays) planning to attend a Regional, that will be an indication to us that you may have the resources to pay for robot shipping on your own, and you should be prepared for your exemption request to be turned down. We recognize this may be a challenge for some teams, but feel it’s a good way to more fairly distribute this resource.

But Frank... how will 900 get our second robot to a regional now?!?!?! We were counting on FedEx to pull through for us!