Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?

[lemiant]

Originally Posted by Karibou

that would be a possible championship of 1225 or 1450 teams, respectively*.

At that point there would need to be overlap 1450 is greater than the number of teams currently in FRC

[mesamb1]

Originally Posted by lemiant

At that point there would need to be overlap 1450 is greater than the number of teams currently in FRC

2011 FRC at a Glance has the number of teams at 2075 teams.
http://usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Rob..._AtAGlance.pdf

[DSM33]

personally i love the district system. although that's all I've known while on an FRC team, i think it aids FIRST's goal to make FRC a full-blown high school sport and get an FRC team in every high school. it allows the game to be played in a high school gym which is a huge help to spreading FIRST. it makes FRC more available to high schools in general.
i think a big point being missed here is that the districts don't need to be drawn at state lines. Michigan worked out that way because of the high concentration of teams in the state and the system could be modified to accompany multiple states or just certain regions for convenience

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by lemiant

At that point there would need to be overlap 1450 is greater than the number of teams currently in FRC

Well, of course there would be overlap anyways, what with teams such as 1114, 2056, 359, & co. consistently performing top-notch And, as usual, there will be teams who decide not to attend due to financial or travel reasons. The numbers that I gave were purely theoretical and should not be considered realistic

[GaryVoshol]

Kara's numbers do raise a point. The Championships have been running out of room. If new events are added as regionals with guaranteed entry slots, we will someday have too many winners from regionals to invite to Championships, and that day may not be far off. If we ever near the goal of having FRC available in every high school in the country, there will be no way that every regional can advance 6 teams to the Championships. There will need to be a dual-tier championship qualifying scheme. Perhaps this is what Bill's Blog is contemplating, not for 2012 necessarily, but sometime in our near future. FRC will look more like FLL, where most teams can only aspire to qualifying for the first level of championships, equivalent to the MSC.

The biggest hassle in all of this is making travel plans. If you don't know you're going to the Championship until 2 weeks before it happens, you certainly can't get good fares.

[Katie_UPS]

Are there any hidden down-sides to districts? Is it awful to have to win a regional twice to go to champs? How exactly are robots picked for champs? (I understand 3 state champs, 3 chairman's, 3 EI's, and 3 RAS... but aren't they supposed to send 18 teams because they replaced 3 regionals? Who are the other six then? How are they picked?)

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

Are there any hidden down-sides to districts? Is it awful to have to win a regional twice to go to champs? How exactly are robots picked for champs? (I understand 3 state champs, 3 chairman's, 3 EI's, and 3 RAS... but aren't they supposed to send 18 teams because they replaced 3 regionals? Who are the other six then? How are they picked?)

First, it's not 3 IE's and 3 RAS's - it's 2 of 1 and 1 of the other, and I forget which is which right now.

That leaves 9 teams that still go. They are based on the point totals earned during the season - the 2 districts weighted 1/3, and the MSC rated 2/3.

What this does is give deserving teams - for example, a team that was a Finalist in MSC - a chance to qualify for the Championship.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

The thing I miss most in the District system is not getting to see out of state teams.

Originally Posted by Basel A

-While there is less interaction with outside teams, that results in more interaction with inside teams. When you see the same team at 2-4 events (even 5, possibly) in a season, there's more camaraderie. The end result is greater cooperation and fewer failing teams

Originally Posted by mesamb1

I would be curious to hear from the people who attend the New Jersey Regional and New York City Regional about how much diversity they see at their regional now.

I don't speak for my team here, just for myself.

The ONLY significant drawback to the district system is this lack of diversity. I highly cherish meeting teams from Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Turkey and several near and distant states. I see the kids getting a lot from it as well*. And as the world continues to get smaller in the professional world, understanding and accepting this diversity becomes more important at this stage.

All the other drawbacks are surmountable IMHO.

@Basel A: interesting take on camaraderie and reducing failing teams, that is something that had not occurred to me. Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by gblake

Amen - Concentrations of teams do not respect state boundaries.

Yes, and so Mid-Atlantic Robotics does not use state lines as boundaries.

*Like teaching Brazilian kids how to play Extreme Duck-Duck-Goose, even with a steep language barrier. Or hearing how schools work in Mexico. Or just seeing that people are essentially the same, no matter where they're from.

[Joe G.]

Here's a thought on the "closed" nature of the district system.

It wouldn't really make sense to open district events up to teams from non-district regions. The qualification systems are completely different, and an outside team couldn't qualify for championship from the district. Additionally, it would arguably deny teams from the district region another chance to gain points.

But is there any reason that teams from a district region couldn't travel to outside regionals (as some already do), and earn points for it? At a regional, they play the same game, and earn the same awards. The events are usually as big, or bigger. The opposing teams are usually just as good. A team that can do this should be able to work closer to a state/region championship event.

Taking this further, once multiple district regions are setup, cross-registration could occur. Michigan teams could compete in Mid-atlantic districts, and vice versa, earning points towards their home region. And as more regions add the district system, FRC comes closer to letting anyone compete anywhere they want.

[DSM33]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Taking this further, once multiple district regions are setup, cross-registration could occur. Michigan teams could compete in Mid-atlantic districts, and vice versa, earning points towards their home region. And as more regions add the district system, FRC comes closer to letting anyone compete anywhere they want.

but what separates this from the current regional system? i feel like that would be the same system taking place now (aside from Michigan) with just the addition of a local State Championship. i think the point of the district system would be to grow teams in a local environment so that teams could grow and thrive and increase the competitive nature of FIRST

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by DSM33

but what separates this from the current regional system? i feel like that would be the same system taking place now (aside from Michigan) with just the addition of a local State Championship. i think the point of the district system would be to grow teams in a local environment so that teams could grow and thrive and increase the competitive nature of FIRST

-An additional tier to go through for qualifying for championships, which in turn helps fine-tune the number of teams that qualify, allowing FIRST to keep championships at a reasonable size.

-Lower cost, district style events, giving teams more play time for the same price.

-More events, allowing teams to keep travel costs down if they wish to.


The fact is, most FIRST teams do not travel longer distances than they need to in order to compete, and stick to relatively local regionals, because its cheaper and easier. This wouldn't change, under a looser district system. The vast majority of Michigan teams would stick to Michigan, and the vast majority of mid-Atlantic teams would stay in the mid-Atlantic region. If a team wishes to, they can go outside their region and meet teams from far away, addressing the main complaint about the current system in this thread. I just don't think enough teams would leap up and run away from home to break the sense of community the district system creates.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Karibou

If I'm interpreting that correctly...
Any trophy award? From Chairman's to Coopertition? I usually try to not immediately shut down an idea in a thread of serious discussion, but that one simply doesn't work logistically. That would be 25 teams per event at max, assuming that no team gets two trophies (e.g. no team were to win a judged award and be a finalist/winner, and the highest rookie seed was not a finalist/winner and did not win a judged award). There are currently 49 regionals (which includes MSC), 58 if all of the MI districts were to count in addition to MSC. Multiplied by the 25 awards, that would be a possible championship of 1225 or 1450 teams, respectively*.

Now, if it were to be specific trophy awards, and the championship was enlarged, it might work. However, you open up a giant can of worms when deciding which awards make the cut. Just engineering awards? Just non-engineering ones? Mix of engineering and non-engineering? Which ones do you choose? (and that's not a rhetorical question)


*if any of those numbers are wrong, please correct me. I scrolled down pages and counted, so they may be off by a bit.

the awards that win a trophy would be reduced... to maybe 10-5 or so

[EricH]

I don't know about reducing the trophy awards. So, I'll propose this system:

Blue Banner awards go on--RCA, Event Winner. No points are assigned.

Other awards get points based on perceived value: RAS, EI, RI get something about 30 points, the "engineering" awards get something like 20, other awards get 10 or so. Making eliminations is worth 10 points by itself; 20 for the finalists. (Someone else can do the exact numbers; MI does this as part of their points values, but do different points values. FIRST also used to do something like this, back before 2004, but I don't recall the details.)

Then, you take the points earners and either cut the field in half or take anybody above a certain value (or average value, or other similar item), and those teams get the Championship bids.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by EricH

I don't know about reducing the trophy awards. So, I'll propose this system:

Blue Banner awards go on--RCA, Event Winner. No points are assigned.

Other awards get points based on perceived value: RAS, EI, RI get something about 30 points, the "engineering" awards get something like 20, other awards get 10 or so. Making eliminations is worth 10 points by itself; 20 for the finalists. (Someone else can do the exact numbers; MI does this as part of their points values, but do different points values. FIRST also used to do something like this, back before 2004, but I don't recall the details.)

Then, you take the points earners and either cut the field in half or take anybody above a certain value (or average value, or other similar item), and those teams get the Championship bids.

that would also work... sounds complex but then again it is a complex problem.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Craig Roys

You do not need to do a State/Regional Championship in order to benefit from the district model...by that I mean if you don't have a high enough concentration of teams for a state or regional championship then don't. However, teams could still benefit from playing more smaller competitions for less.

Say there's only 40 teams in a particular region; would you rather play one regional for $4-5k and get around 8-10 matches and maybe eliminations; or would you want to play two events against the same teams for the same amount of money and get 24 matches (12 per event) plus any elimination matches? Maybe you've got 60 teams in a particular area; then you could put on three 40 team competitions where all the teams register for any 2 of them. I'm sure there are many other ways to organize something around this idea.

The whole idea is more matches for less money. More time competing with the robot you spent 6+ weeks working on. If FIRST is going to continue to grow, it has to become more affordable for teams with more ROI. I'll admit that I was a little bit skeptical when the FiM system was initially introduced, but I can't see ever going back. Our first 3 years as a team (2006-2008) we averaged between 12 and 13 matches per season from our initial investment. In our past 3 years (2009-2011) we averaged between 33 and 34 matches per season from our initial investment (which, I believe, was less than the initial registration cost for the first 3 years). If you take out eliminations since those aren't guaranteed matches; then we averaged around 9 matches per season for the first 3 years for our initial registration vs a guaranteed 24 matches per season now from our initial registration. Even if there were no State Championship, I would still prefer this model because it gets you more playing time for less money.

Matches per event has almost nothing to do with the district system. Basically every strategy to increase matches per event that FiM used can be applied to a traditional regional without changing to a district system. FiM districts just end up running a much tighter and longer schedule (for more total matches) than any equivalent sized (or smaller) regional. The matches per event can, and in my opinion should, be increased under the traditional regional method.

The argument for more events at the same cost is valid, though.