Qualifying for CMP in the future

[Arefin Bari]

I do agree with some that have mentioned that we should have more divisions. After attending the championship this year, the possibilities are endless. It's a huge venue. I feel that with correct planning we can have 8 divisions. Einstein can have a whole elimination round to decide the champions. Some of the mentors and I were talking about this same situation and I believe all of us came to the conclusion that someday (maybe soon), 8 alliances will play on einstein and the championship event will be more than 3.5 days event.

[dodar]

I just had an interesting idea. What if we did something like what the Olympics or FIFA does and hold the CMP every 2 years? Hold all the regular regionals and Michigan districts like we do every year and the 6 teams still gain their spots and qualify for the CMP the following year and teams still qualify the year of the CMP plus Michigan would get 36 slots. Just like now there would also be multi-slots used by teams, so the remaining open slots would be filled by the best remaining teams who didnt qualify(i.e. OPR or record for the combined 2 years) so we would be going away with the waitlist. This would allow for between 500-600 teams attend.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by waialua359

As great as those teams are, and the results we got this year, everyone is in the same boat. Every team regardless of their history, should be given the same opportunity to attend. If at large bids decrease or go away entirely, as a result to FIRST growing, then you just need to be 1 of those 6 ways to qualify (non-MSC).
Art has a great idea, but I have just one concern. What about teams that cant drive to an event or isn't financially feasible to be a part of a district type event?
If FRC is a world championships, and it expects teams to grow outside the US, then what?
How many of you will be able to participate in the Australia tournament if it indeed happens as planned in 2014?

Agreed on teams needing to earn their way, despite their history.

So, I think the district model works for a lot of regions. One exception: Hawaii. Another: Israel. So, these still run on a regional system, six qualify, etc.

By putting a majority of the FRC teams on a district model, you alleviate a majority of the strain on the Championship.

Look at any other competitive sport format, and you see this makes sense. Teams don't whine that they don't get to go to compete versus teams across the country. BUT, they can be proud of making it to a STATE or REGIONAL Championship. And then if they make it farther, good for them, they EARNED it. Otherwise, try again next year.

PhilBot, the numbers you posted are very thought provoking, thank you.

-Mike

[JesseK]

Art's plan runs 2 major risks:
1.) 2 T1 + 1 T2 requires more time from mentors, students, and the like. Mentors have families, students have school work they already are behind on.
2.) The Tier 2 events, if mostly qualified for (thus paid for with reduced registration fees), will not have the same amount of revenue available to pay for the venue + whatever other costs FIRST imposes.

Anyone willing to run the money numbers to figure out a break even cost? (i.e. how many teams have to choose T1 vs T2 for FIRST to maintain its current standard of Regional Events)

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Madison

Give FTC and FLL their own events.

Problem solved.

How? That doesn't decrease the number of qualifying spots from FRC regionals. All it does is give more floor space in the pits for FRC.

Besides, don't the FLL (plus JrFLL) and FTC students deserve a chance to be inspired by being part of the World Championships alongside FRC?

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Art's plan runs 2 major risks:
1.) 2 T1 + 1 T2 requires more time from mentors, students, and the like. Mentors have families, students have school work they already are behind on.
2.) The Tier 2 events, if mostly qualified for (thus paid for with reduced registration fees), will not have the same amount of revenue available to pay for the venue + whatever other costs FIRST imposes.

Anyone willing to run the money numbers to figure out a break even cost? (i.e. how many teams have to choose T1 vs T2 for FIRST to maintain its current standard of Regional Events)

As far as I understood it, most current FRC events don't see any of the money from event registration. They have to pay for themselves via sponsorship.

I think its high time that FIRST started disclosing to us where the money goes. As I did the math earlier today, HQ pulled in nearly $15,000,000 from FRC alone for the 2011 season, never mind FTC and FLL. The only event FIRST HQ puts together for FLL is the World Festival (concurrent with FIRST Championship). FIRST HQ takes $225 to register each FLL team (there exists some 17,000 of them) and doesn't really have to do much for any but the ~100 teams that go to World Festival.

AFAIK, FIRST is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and therefore has to be able to show the IRS that in a given tax year, they make less than some amount of money (I think, I know this is how NPOs work in Canada).

[wlaroche]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Personally, I think 8 smaller divisions would be great. 4 in the stands, 4 in some building near the pits. 60 teams per division.

8 divisions would be nice, but from a volunteer perspective it get difficult to have that many fields. We could of used more people this year. That being said, everything worked out and it was a great CMP. I had a lot of fun helping out. But if you spread that many people out even thinner, I think it will start to negatively impact CMP.

Maybe it becomes mandatory that each team has one volunteer for CMP. I am sure each team would be excited to help out.

[Racer26]

For those interested: FIRST HQ's FY2010 Financials: http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Who...bsite_Copy.pdf

[meaubry]

Future CMP idea –

As the # of teams continue to grow, it will soon be impossible to accommodate the growth at the Championship event.

Here is an idea to consider.
Create 4 smaller regional championship events that would be held on the final week of the regular season, that would establish the teams that would meet at the Championship event, 2 weeks later.

The criteria for attending the regional events would be similar to what is used now as criteria for the Championship, only that could be expanded a little as well. The 4 Regional Championship events could be like a super regional event (180 teams, if the game is a 6 team game). That is 720 total teams attending all of the Regional Championship events.
I am using the word regional very loosely, and do not imply that regional is geographic dependent. In fact, as teams qualify during the earlier weeks events, they would get a chance to select which Regional Championship event they would like to attend from a choice of the 2 nearest locations to their home state. Details obviously would need to be worked out, but you get the idea.

Teams that auto qualify as before, do so, to a Regional Championship event. The Regional Championships would be similar to the format used today at the current Championship event, with slight changes.
2 divisions of 90 teams, with the top 2 alliances from each division meeting to determine the Regional Champion. (Kinda like what happens on Einstein except with 2 divisions instaed of 4) Runner Up of Division 1 plays Winner of Division 2, and Winner of Division 1 plays Runner up of Division 2. Winners meet to determine Regional Champion.

The Championship event criteria would be based on certain # of qualifying alliances from each of the 4 Regional Championships. Each Regional sends the 4 teams that played at the end for the Championship. That means 16 alliances (total of 4 alliances from each Regional Event) would go, that is 96 teams.

Yes, those alliances at a Regional Championship would stay together and compete at the Championship Event. This eliminates the need for seeding and selection, and the Championship Event could be completed in fewer days and would fit within the larger FTC/FRC/FLL balanced format. It could more easily be televised and or filmed, edited, and produced for a TV special event.

Yes, logistics and planning would be needed - but it isn't something that isn't done every year during March madness, or during the Bowl season for college football. And, I'm certain there are alot of things that would need contingency plans for (such as what if a team in one of the 4 winning alliances chooses to or cannot attend the Championship). I haven't gotten all of those bugs figured out.

Just thought this might be something to consider one day.

As the growth continues, it would be easier to make this model scalable enough to sustain the basic format - for a while.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

As far as I understood it, most current FRC events don't see any of the money from event registration. They have to pay for themselves via sponsorship.

I think its high time that FIRST started disclosing to us where the money goes. As I did the math earlier today, HQ pulled in nearly $15,000,000 from FRC alone for the 2011 season, never mind FTC and FLL. The only event FIRST HQ puts together for FLL is the World Festival (concurrent with FIRST Championship). FIRST HQ takes $225 to register each FLL team (there exists some 17,000 of them) and doesn't really have to do much for any but the ~100 teams that go to World Festival.

AFAIK, FIRST is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and therefore has to be able to show the IRS that in a given tax year, they make less than some amount of money (I think, I know this is how NPOs work in Canada).

Also keep in mind that the T1 events will likely be cheaper than T2 events

$75K - 100K for T1
$150K - 250K for T2

[Madison]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

How? That doesn't decrease the number of qualifying spots from FRC regionals. All it does is give more floor space in the pits for FRC.

Besides, don't the FLL (plus JrFLL) and FTC students deserve a chance to be inspired by being part of the World Championships alongside FRC?

It allows FIRST to use the entire space that's available for accommodating FRC teams. It means the event can continue to grow and more teams can attend. If FTC and FLL each host their own Championship event, the same is true for those programs and they can celebrate their accomplishments without being in the shadow of FRC.

Little League players all know about Major League Baseball and they don't have their World Series in the same place at the same time as MLB. I think it's perfectly plausible to imagine a future where FLL and FTC participants view FRC teams as the Major Leagues and work toward success in their own programs so that they might, someday, get to be part of an FRC team.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate a bit here; there's a long way to go before the above would become reality. If FIRST is going to continue to encourage growth, though, I think they should be equally committed to accommodating that growth at the Championship while continuing to recognize teams as they do currently. If it comes down to spinning FTC and FLL off into their own events, that's how it should be. I think FRC teams being inspired by other FRC teams will go a long way toward making the teams and program stronger than FLL or FTC students doing the same.

[artdutra04]

The three tiered model wasn't entirely my idea, it was an Art^2 idea that we hashed out while driving to/from the Bash at the Beach offseason a few years ago.

The idea was that T1 events would be relatively inexpensive (like District or offseason events), and would primarily target colleges and universities to host them. T1 events would also have priority for local teams over far away teams, and T1 events could potentially start the weekend immediately after ship date.

T2 events would basically be the status quo FRC Regional, although on average they would probably be closer to Championship Division size in number of teams.

Teams would have the option at their own discretion whether to compete in T1 events, T2 events, or some combination of both. This is the most fair option going forward because if "walled off" district events are further expanded, it will further restrict the options of other teams. Giving teams the option of how they want to run themselves and how they want to compete is the best option going forward. Mentor/volunteer/student burnout is not an issue, as the decision of where (and how often) to compete at various T1/T2 events is left entirely up to each individual team.

For example, we're good friends with a number of other FRC teams in both New England and around the country. If the "walled off" Michigan district model was expanded elsewhere to a New England or Florida model, we'd almost never have the chance to compete with our friends Exploding Bacon unless we were both at the Championships. But under a T1/T2/T3 system, both of our teams could choose one year to both apply for an open spot at the same T2 event.

The only major aspect of the T1/T2/T3 idea that would need work is to figure out a system to decide which T2 events a team would compete at if they won enough points from T1 events. Perhaps they would have to preliminarily indicate which T2 event they would want to compete at if they won enough T1 points, and that would adjust the number of "open berth" spots at said T2 event.

As for points, getting Chairman's, EI, RAS, or Champion at a T1 event should automatically be enough to get into a T2 event. Getting Finalist and another award should be enough points at getting into a T2 event. Winning Chairman's, EI, or Woodie Flower's at a T1 event would then add you into the running for winning at your corresponding T2 event.


EDIT: There was also a proposal a number of years ago as part of N.E.R.D. (New England Robotics Division) to use the extremely high number of offseason events in New England as "feeder events" for a "offseason Championship", where teams who won at smaller offseason events could get points toward being elegible to compete at a "New England Cup" event in the late fall.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Not qualifying the third alliance partner for championships? Absolutely horrible idea. It's the alliance that wins a Regional, not an individual team.

Not counting RCA, EI, or RAS for qualifying? Again, absolutely horrible idea. These are the awards that recognize teams who are achieving the actual goals of FIRST.

So what do we do? A year or two ago I had a long discussion with my father about this, and basically what came up with as a solution was similar to the Michigan district model, but without the "walled off enclave" of not allowing teams to travel around. So here's our idea:

The new model of FRC competition structuring would have three tiers, Tier 1 events are "District" level events with maximum of 30-40 teams, Tier 2 events are "Regional" events with 50-70 teams, and the Tier 3 event is the Championship.

Your initial registration of $5000 can be used to apply to two Tier 1 events or one Tier 2 event. Tier 1 events are held in Weeks 0-4, and are all Bag-N-Tag. Tier 2 events are held in Weeks 3-6. Using a points-based system similar to Michigan, winning various awards at the Tier 1 events qualifies you for a spot at a Tier 2 event. Additional Tier 1 events cost $2500 to register, and additional Tier 2 events cost $4000 to register.

Eligibility to play at Championships is only available to those who win one of the six traditional spots at Tier 2 events (or have automatic entry, or won a lottery spot back in open registration in the fall).

What this allows is for:

• The "one regional and out" teams can now attend two smaller events for the price of one.
• Teams who like "traditional" regionals have the option to only register for Tier 2 events.
• This reduces the number of events giving berths to the Championship.
• This eliminates all the problems that would arise would a "let's draw an arbitrary invisible line on a map to decide what events you can and can't attend" if the Michigan district model was exactly cloned elsewhere. There are always going to be teams near the border who get screwed, and I've never liked the "no outsiders" rule.

I am a fan of this type of model if revamping the geography and organization of the tournament system is on the table.

If it turns out that we have to stay within the confines of the existing regional qualification system for now, then it isn't very productive to simply say that it's an awful idea to take away any of the existing qualification slots.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by meaubry

Future CMP idea –

Here is an idea to consider.
Create 4 smaller regional championship events that would be held on the final week of the regular season, that would establish the teams that would meet at the Championship event, 2 weeks later.

I feel FIRST will eventually have to go down that road, maybe not in the next four years.

I feel this this championship event problem has already been solved in sports. If you look at all large sports in high schools, they are all tier based systems with a State championship. Its the best way to filter down teams to a championship.

The district model will be adopted in California, the question is when. Another regional is probably going to be added next year. Though the biggest concern is the "closed-borders." That problem has also been solved by sports. There are all-comer track meets, where pretty much anyone can sign up until they reach capacity. High school track and field in California is still tiered with league, sectionals (regional) and state.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to switch some states (provinces) to district set up. Those like California, who have a lot of out of state teams, can run all-comer regionals. By no means would the district system force a California team to compete in California. A few high schools in California are in fact part of the Nevada interscholastic federation due to being closer to Nevada schools.

Also not every state needs to adopt district style events. Not every California sport goes to a state championship, some are only done at the regional level.

Determining how teams should qualify from each state is something I going to have to think about longer.

[GaryVoshol]

Expanding the District model wouldn't necessarily have to be done along state borders. That happened to be a convenient size unit to use for Michigan in terms of number of teams and number of regionals replaced. Future championship events that lead up to the World Championship - they could be called Conference Championships to distinguish them both from the CMP and from regionals - might be multi-state and might divide some states. For example, a Pacific Northwest Conference might consist of WA, OR and BC. New England might be a Conference. MN and WI could be another.

If there are more Conference Championships set up, there could be a method set up so that teams could choose events outside their immediate area on a space-available basis. Perhaps they could even choose what Conference they belonged to.

The biggest problem with a District/Conference/Championship model is what to do about areas that don't have a high enough density of teams to support multiple district events within reasonable travel distance. There would have to be some accomdation for outlying areas like HI and Isreal which can support just 1 event now. That doesn't even consider other countries outside US and Canada that may have only 1 or 2 teams.

In addition to team density, there has to be a big enough volunteer base to support the districts. Michigan has enough FIRST-crazed people that volunteer in key positions (like FTA, referee, lead queue) in multiple weeks. In places like OK and MN that have a huge number of 2 and 3 year old teams, are there enough people with some history and experience to volunteer in key roles?

It's a big task, but if FRC expands to "every" high school as has been envisioned, there eventually needs to be a plan to accomodate 5 to 10 times as many teams as we currently have.