Multiple Event Winners

[Joe Ross]

By my count, there are 23 teams that won multiple events:

Did not lose an event:
1114 x3
2056 x3
111 x2
148 x2
195 x2
233 x2
254 x2
303 x2
525 x2
768 x2
987 x2
1503 x2
1676 x2
2471 x2
2815 x2

The following teams attended 3 or more events, and won 2 of them:
33
118
217
359
1918
2137
2337
2415

Congratulations to all the multiple event winners!

Let me know if I missed any.

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

[nitneylion452]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but the fact of the matter is: they won fair and square so why should a team that may not be as good go to championships? At the same time, the reverse is true.

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

I'm inclined to agree with you, but the fact of the matter is: they won fair and square so why should a team that may not be as good go to championships? At the same time, the reverse is true.

True, but there are many, many teams who have never made it to the championships. I agree with you, though. It's true they won. On the other hand, if a single team attended every regional in a state, and won all of them, then that would reduce the amount of teams making it to the finals. I guess both sides could be right.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

If the team has registered, paid for, and traveled to a regional, then why would you want to deny them the opportunity to try to win the event?

Also, just to be clear: Any team that wins multiple events does not take spots away from other teams. Teams that are on the waitlist get the opportunity to go instead.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

I think that this comes up every single year... Like Eric said, they do not steal a spot from another team... In my opinion, these teams help other teams. In their second (or even third) regional win, they take teams in their alliance to a regional win and thus to championships.

Last year at Palmetto, the winning alliance (343, 1261, and 1398) were all already qualified for championships. Of the finalist alliance (1772, 2751, 1102) I do not think that any of them were pre-registered for championships. But, after the regional, all three (I believe) were invited because of their performance at the regional.

All in all, they are already going to the regional... they have paid, and have earned the right to do their best at any competition that they go to. With multiple regional wins, the wait-listed teams get moved up (that may not have gone otherwise) and get to go.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

...So, from these 5 events, and their associated 30 seats at CMP:

1114 took 4
2056 took 3
1503 took 2
3756 took 2
771 took 2...

How can you say that these teams took multiple seats? Each team only gets to attend the Championship once in a year. It's not like they reduce the number of teams attending if they win more than one regional competition. On the contrary, by not using one of the slots being held for regional winners, they let more teams in from the wait list.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

How can you say that these teams took multiple seats? Each team only gets to attend the Championship once in a year. It's not like they reduce the number of teams attending if they win more than one regional competition. On the contrary, by not using one of the slots being held for regional winners, they let more teams in from the wait list.

Alan, I realize that. I was merely pointing out the distribution of the slots associated with a given regional and which teams earned those slots. I'm fully aware that 1114 has opened 3 seats for waitlisted teams by being awesome.

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

Keep in mind that those teams that win multiple Regionals also have given their alliance partners a ticket to Championship as well. It has been mentioned that teams on the wait-list will get to go, and that is true as well.

As for the Michigan teams (where some of these multiple-event winners are from), teams are NOT automatically qualified for Championship OR The MSC by winning a district. Teams must compete for points, and at the end of the season, the teams with most points qualify for The MSC (plus Chairman's Award winners, assuming they don't have enough points to qualify).

Besides, it should be noted that these powerhouse teams are essential to FIRST Robotics. As far as I am concerned, FIRST would not be as successful as it is without powerhouse teams doing what they do best: winning. Seeing a team like 1114 win an ungodly amount of events makes one ask, "How can I make MY team compete at that level?" I talked about this a little bit when JVN posted about multiple-championship-winning teams getting an auto-in to the Championship event. While all teams should have the opportunity to compete, one must also recognize that the teams that win year-after-year will not ALWAYS be perfect, don't win the Championship EVERY year, and are part of the culture change that FIRST is attempting to create.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Wow that's a lot of teams! Just putting my $00.02 in, I think it can be unfair for any one team to be allowed win more than one regional. They're already going to the championships, so why not give another alliance the chance to make it to St. Luis? Just my opinion here.

(Obvious full disclosure: I'm exceptionally fortunate to be on one of those two-time-champion teams.)

I think you're missing one of the big things about the alliance that won Palmetto--at the time, neither SPAM nor Triple Helix was qualified to attend Championship. I don't think (though I can't really confirm) that either were even registered. Do we just tell SPAM and Triple Helix "Hey, you've got a regional winner on your alliance, so we're stopping you at semifinals. Good game."?

If I'm under this policy, and the Petunia Regional is our first event but the Magnolia Regional later in the season carries more cachet, am I really contemplating giving less than 100% at Petunia just to give ourselves a chance at Magnolia gold?

If I'm us this year, at our home event (Palmetto), with parents and sponsors in the audience, do we shrug off our qualification rounds because we know we won't have a shot at a second title and can more or less pack up before lunch ends?

(I won't even go into the implications for Hall of Fame and original and sustaining teams, who are qualified automatically.)

Heck no! Some guy in denim keeps saying a society gets the best of what it celebrates. I certainly don't want to celebrate a system where teams are coming to an event prepared to go off half-cocked because of a well-intentioned but constraining let's-give-everyone-a-chance policy.

Currently, the waitlist does an adequate job of handling these extra spots. Eventually, FIRST will grow to the point that they can book Championship up entirely on qualifying teams (and even then with some anticipated fudge factor based on double-qualifying teams). After they grow beyond that threshold, who knows? But for now, I can't find fault in their system.

[skymech]

I did not see team 359 Waialua on your list they went to 3 won 2 if you want to know

[skymech]

my bad I have to look better sorry

[LightWaves1636]

Cool. Glad to see two of those on the lists are Texas.

and honestly I'm fine with teams doing multiple regionals, if they got the resources to do it than why not. Back when I mentored and volunteered in Colorado, I loved powerhouse teams coming to visit, it helped me get my students to realize that we've still got a long way to grow. Also going up against a powerhouse team helped my team analyze what we need to do in order to become better because if we make it to FIRST World Championships, we want to go making sure we're prepared and that we don't flop.

And yeah, winning events doesn't take away the opportunity of attending FWC, there is an open wait list for all teams to get on.

[Racer26]

I almost wonder, though, if instead those spots should be offered to the finalist alliance captain, their first pick, and their second pick, if the champion alliance has 1, 2, or 3 teams already-qualified (or pre-registered) for the championship.

[Jon Stratis]

Lets also keep in mind that those team who won in multiple regionals did so with different alliances at each regional... I'll even say it's a statistical improbability, given the alliance selection process, that we've had a single pre-qualified alliance win a regional this year (or any other year). It's much more likely that at least one team on the winning alliance had not yet qualified.

Of course, now that I've said that, I'm sure someone is going to come in and post a long list proving me wrong