**FIRST EMAIL**/2013 Championship Registration/2013 FRC Season Dates and Deadlines/As

[Michael Blake]

***CLARIFICATION***

Mr. Lim... certainly the FRC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP is AWESOME and _desirable_ to compete at, BUT I believe entry should feel-exclusive and be _tough_ to obtain... NO LESS than it is in the 2013 Regional format.

IF in the District model, teams that you say are CMP-caliber but don't normally qualify because they don't WIN their Regionals NOW get to go to CHAMPIONSHIP _regularly_... HOW does that help with the team's development to excellence?!

In the District Model by broadening the amount of teams in a bounded geographic-region that can go to CMP, aren't you LOWERING-the-bar of entry?

HOW does that do any good for students in their quest to problem-solve to excellence/competitiveness... to strive to be #1?!

[waialua359]

Geez, with all this talk about district models and how they'll be popping up in more and more regions, that sure leaves the rest of us at greater disadvantage every year.

**We better start doing more than 2-3 regionals per year......otherwise, they'll be none left to compete in away from home, and way less chances to meet/play with other teams and qualify.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Geez, with all this talk about district models and how they'll be popping up in more and more regions, that sure leaves the rest of us at greater disadvantage every year.

**We better start doing more than 2-3 regionals per year......otherwise, they'll be none left to compete in away from home, and way less chances to meet/play with other teams and qualify.

You know, Glenn... ANOTHER thing that _kills me_ on this District Model is that ONLY Texas teams are proposed to be able to compete in the Texas District?!


Aloha... hope all is well !! ;-)

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

In the District Model by broadening the amount of teams in a bounded geographic-region that can go to CMP, aren't you LOWERING-the-bar of entry?

No to the no.

In 2013 there are 4 Texas Regionals, which is a grand total of 16 spots to worlds, pending the same qualification rules for worlds. Assuming that a team manages to grab a couple of those spots, let's assume that the number of teams representing from Texas is roughly 10.

Now, under the pre-district, pre-wildcard system, the 6 open spots go to anyone. Doesn't matter the quality of the team, or the team's robot.

In the wildcard system, the 6 open spots go to members who either played in finals or their backups, which we can say is drastic improvement.

I'm not 100% sure how the district system works, but if you say that the top 16 teams in points go, I still see that as a drastic improvement over the older model.

- Sunny G.

[Lil' Lavery]

The district model does not lower the bar to entry at Championship. If anything, it raises it.

The amount of qualification spots available to a district is based on the amount of spots available at the regionals encompassed in that district. Michigan had three regionals prior to their district system, and thus was allocated 18 (3 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MSC winners, 10 points-based) qualification spots at Championship. MAR had two regionals, and thus was allocated 12 spots (2 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MAR Winners, 5 points-based). 16 spots seems low for Texas, given that there are now four Texas regionals (Dallas, Alamo, Lone Star, Lubbock), each qualifying six teams for Championship. If it were based off of the FiM and MAR structure, there should be 24 teams (4 Chairman's, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 Texas winners, 15 points-based) qualifying out of a Texas district system.

So right off the bat, 16 teams is already more selective to qualify for Championships than Texas would have been. But more to the point, it definitely shifts the competitive spectrum up. Currently multiple winners open spots to the FRC "general population" on the waiting list. That waiting list has no indication of quality, other than the teams on it can afford another event (and thus probably aren't struggling to exist at all). If you were to somehow quantify robot performance (and I'm not going to get into a OPR debate right now), I'd wager that the expected value of a team on the waiting list is lower than the expected value of a team qualifying via the point system (or the wild card system for that matter).
Additionally, currently you're qualifying four winners who were a second round selection at their regionals. These robots are, in large, not on par with the Texas elite teams. You're already opening the door to a number of teams who are lower on the competitive scale. In a district system, only one second round pick qualifies via winning the district championship, and that team is miles ahead of the second round selections who win most regionals. While neither 1640 (2nd round pick MAR) nor 830 (2nd round pick FiM) reached the eliminations at Championship, they posted a combined 12-5 record in their divisions and clearly belonged at the event.
Beyond that, while the amount of Chairman's qualification spots remains the same, the amount of qualifications from Rookie All-Star and Engineering Inspiration decreases. While Rookie All-Star can be impacted by robot performance, EI is not. I'd wager again if you were to take the expected value of robot performance from the additional RAS and EI winners and compare it to the spots garnered by the point system, the point system would be higher.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Geez, with all this talk about district models and how they'll be popping up in more and more regions, that sure leaves the rest of us at greater disadvantage every year.

**We better start doing more than 2-3 regionals per year......otherwise, they'll be none left to compete in away from home, and way less chances to meet/play with other teams and qualify.

If, as expected, the district model comes to the west coast soon, you should expect to see YYC (Calgary), SLC (Salt Lake), PHX (Phoenix) and DEN (Denver), on your boarding pass.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The district model does not lower the bar to entry at Championship. If anything, it raises it.

The amount of qualification spots available to a district is based on the amount of spots available at the regionals encompassed in that district. Michigan had three regionals prior to their district system, and thus was allocated 18 (3 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MSC winners, 10 points-based) qualification spots at Championship. MAR had two regionals, and thus was allocated 12 spots (2 Chairmans, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 MAR Winners, 5 points-based). 16 spots seems low for Texas, given that there are now four Texas regionals (Dallas, Alamo, Lone Star, Lubbock), each qualifying six teams for Championship. If it were based off of the FiM and MAR structure, there should be 24 teams (4 Chairman's, 1 EI, 1 Rookie All-Star, 3 Texas winners, 15 points-based) qualifying out of a Texas district system.

So right off the bat, 16 teams is already more selective to qualify for Championships than Texas would have been. But more to the point, it definitely shifts the competitive spectrum up. Currently multiple winners open spots to the FRC "general population" on the waiting list. That waiting list has no indication of quality, other than the teams on it can afford another event (and thus probably aren't struggling to exist at all). If you were to somehow quantify robot performance (and I'm not going to get into a OPR debate right now), I'd wager that the expected value of a team on the waiting list is lower than the expected value of a team qualifying via the point system (or the wild card system for that matter).
Additionally, currently you're qualifying four winners who were a second round selection at their regionals. These robots are, in large, not on par with the Texas elite teams. You're already opening the door to a number of teams who are lower on the competitive scale. In a district system, only one second round pick qualifies via winning the district championship, and that team is miles ahead of the second round selections who win most regionals. While neither 1640 (2nd round pick MAR) nor 830 (2nd round pick FiM) reached the eliminations at Championship, they posted a combined 12-5 record in their divisions and clearly belonged at the event.
Beyond that, while the amount of Chairman's qualification spots remains the same, the amount of qualifications from Rookie All-Star and Engineering Inspiration decreases. While Rookie All-Star can be impacted by robot performance, EI is not. I'd wager again if you were to take the expected value of robot performance from the additional RAS and EI winners and compare it to the spots garnered by the point system, the point system would be higher.

Sean, THANKS for this excellent explanation... AND it all makes sense to me...

So _you do_ feed to CMP MORE competitive (on the field) teams by reducing the amount of Rookie All Stars and Engineering Inspiration and replacing them with high point accumulators in the District Model.

IF you overlay this model you explained JUST on Texas (assuming the caliber of teams remains pretty-much the same)... won't some Texas teams, maybe a good amount, REGULARLY qualify for CMP in District Model when they don't _regularly_ qualify under the 2005-2012 Regional format?

NOT saying this is good/bad... just trying to understand this quantitatively...

BTW... the 16 teams in the Texas District was told to me months ago before Lubbock was announced, so I think you're right about the increase to 24 teams.

[Bongle]

The new wild card system is an improvement, but it's only half-fair. Not sure how to make it better though.

An elimination tournament is good at determining who the best competitor is, but is pretty poor at determining who the second-best competitor is. The final pits the winner of the "left" elimination tournament against the winner of the "right" elimination tournament. You can say that the two teams are the best alliances of the "left" and "right" sides, but you can't say that the finalist alliance is better or worse than any of the teams in the winning alliance's branch, since you have never really compared them. In fact, it is possible that all the alliances in the winner's elimination bracket were better than the finalist alliance.

The finalist team can be said to be the best of their branch of the elimination tree, but there's no way of telling if they're better than any of the teams that the regional winners defeated on their way to the final.

So now everyone will really want to be on the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, or 7th alliance I guess

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

What do you think about the adoption of Wild Card Slots for the 2013 FIRST Championship for Regional Finalist teams?

I like it. Last year we won two regionals, facing 1208 in the finals of both. They made it to champs on an open registration, but in this system would have earned a wild card spot at the St. Louis regional. A tremendous boost to groups of regionals which have a large number of teams in common.

If a team who wins a Regional in 2013 – in other words, if a team who is a member of the Winning Alliance – has already qualified for Championship at an earlier Regional in 2013, a ‘Wild Card’ slot is created at the Regional which they just won.

I wish each regional could ensure 6 unique qualifiers, but that is not how Frank's teaser reads on the blog. For example when we won both the regional and EI in Kansas City last year (a week 1 event) it would have been nice to give the wild card to 935, the finalist captain. They later went on to win the Dallas West regional and qualify for champs anyway... but would have then created a wild card opportunity at the Dallas West which would have gone to 2468 I believe.

Wild Card slots are filled in the order of Finalist Alliance Captain, Finalist First Pick, Finalist Second Pick, and Finalist Backup Team. Wild Card slots are passed to the next team in order only if the team occupying that Wild Card slot has, itself, already qualified for Championship at an earlier Regional in 2013.

Last year a great team could have avoided the coop bridge, affecting the rankings of their partners and opponents, and be content to be another team's top pick. The wildcard system gives preference to the finalist captain over the finalist first pick and could encourage teams to fight more for that captain's spot.

At some regionals the top alliance is considered so dominant that other teams might perceive they are fighting for the finalist captain position, and the wild card spot. This could lead to top 8 teams declining invitations to be someone's top pick if there is likely only one wild card spot up for grabs at a regional instead of two. I'm thinking in particular of the team slated to be the #6 alliance captain refusing the #4.

Looking forward to hearing the details of this system.

PS. It would be interesting to have someone post a list of all the multiple qualifiers from last year and track who the wildcards would have been.

I'm kinda confused - does this mean my team can still "pre-register" to be on the waiting list for champs?

[scottandme]

The district model ends up sending higher quality teams to CMP, no question.

As explained earlier - MAR replaced 2 regionals.

Before (PHL and NJ Combined):
2 Chairman's
2 Engineering Inspiration
2 Rookie All Star
6 Winners - (2) alliance captains, (2) 1st round picks, (2) 2nd round picks

After (MAR):
2 Chairman's
1 Engineering Inspiration
1 Rookie All Star
3 Winners - (1) alliance captain, (1) 1st round pick, (1) 2nd round pick
5 Next highest by qualifying points

It's pretty clear that the district model sends a significantly higher quality of team (on-field performance) to CMP. I seem to recall an EWCP cast where someone from the Michigan system said that they designed the system to emphasize on-field performance.

1. There are now fewer spots for RAS and EI. RAS may be a competitive team, but there's no guarantee of that, especially at a Regional with a small pool of rookie teams. EI isn't a robot award, so no guarantee of quality. The RAS from a district of 100 (MAR) or 200 (MI) should be better than one from a regional 1/2 to 1/4 the size.

2. Regional/District winner spots cut in half. Teams qualify to attend the Region Championship, leading to a much more competitive event. The MI and MAR region championships were both significantly more competitive than the next best Regional (higher match scores, higher average OPR, etc). The teams that eventually win this event should be of higher quality than would emerge from a traditional Regional (this year: 341,25,67,469 - enough said). The 2nd round pick robot is much more likely to be competitive as well (24th best robot out of 100-200 teams vs 24th best robot out of 40-60 teams).

3. (5) spots based on seeding points from 2 district events AND the region championship. This ends up being all of the very good teams who weren't lucky enough to win the region championship event (but very likely won a district event).

The district model guarantees 7 excellent robots (2x winners, 5x points), and 1 very good robot (2nd round winner) to championship (8 of the 12 spots). Two traditional regionals only guarantees 4 good to excellent robots going to championship (4 of the 12 spots).

If you want a perfect example, look at 118 this year. They had one of the best robots of the year, yet it took them 3 regional events to earn their bid to championships. If Texas was a district model they would safely qualify every year, either via region championship win or by points.

As far as I see it, the only downside of the district model is not knowing if you qualify until week 7, and the logistical issues that come with that. Flying to CMP is basically out of the question at that point. We would have qualified via points at the MAR championship, but since we won Montreal we had already booked our flights and hotel rooms, and avoided that nightmare.

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Sean, THANKS for this excellent explanation... AND it all makes sense to me...

So _you do_ feed to CMP MORE competitive (on the field) teams by reducing the amount of Rookie All Stars and Engineering Inspiration and replacing them with high point accumulators in the District Model.

IF you overlay this model you explained JUST on Texas (assuming the caliber of teams remains pretty-much the same)... won't some Texas teams, maybe a good amount, REGULARLY qualify for CMP in District Model when they don't _regularly_ qualify under the 2005-2012 Regional format?

NOT saying this is good/bad... just trying to understand this quantitatively...

BTW... the 16 teams in the Texas District was told to me months ago before Lubbock was announced, so I think you're right about the increase to 24 teams.

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

I'm kinda confused - does this mean my team can still "pre-register" to be on the waiting list for champs?

Yes they can, but the teams will only be offered the chance to go to champs from the wait list AFTER all the competitions are done.

The only way I can see this being better is taking all the empty slots and offering them to the next highest seeding teams in every regional that have not qualified for champs yet. However it would be tough because In what order do you go in for regional's until the rest of the spots are all gone (if that makes sense)?

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The new wild card system is far from being perfectly fair, but show me a system that is fair. I can't believe anyone would actually object to that change, as it's clearly more "fair" (in terms of allocating spots to deserving/succesful teams) than the previous system. I don't see how anyone could argue that it's not an improvement over previous years.

And I'd hardly categorize attending an event where you have to compete against a team good enough to earn multiple bids to championship as "lucky."

You can't imagine? I know you have a better imagination than that Oh and I never use the word fair.

My biggest objection is not to giving those extra spots out on a merit basis it's more about giving it to the runner-up alliance, I just don't think that would be the best way. How are they really anymore deserving of the spot than any other alliance that the regional winner defeated? They just had better timing.

I would much rather see them reward teams that did well during the qualifying part of the tournament. That would at least give some extra emphasis to doing well in qualifying.

Heck I would prefer they eliminate the automatic rookie seeds and give those spots out on a merit basis also.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by IndySam

You can't imagine? I know you have a better imagination than that Oh and I never use the word fair.

My biggest objection is not to giving those extra spots out on a merit basis it's more about giving it to the runner-up alliance, I just don't think that would be the best way. How are they really anymore deserving of the spot than any other alliance that the regional winner defeated? They just had better timing.

I would much rather see them reward teams that did well during the qualifying part of the tournament. That would at least give some extra emphasis to doing well in qualifying.

Heck I would prefer they eliminate the automatic rookie seeds and give those spots out on a merit basis also.

I see where you are coming from because we can all look back and say, "Well the finalist at my event wasn't that great", but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to go. Under the old system, teams who had the money had the opportunity to go regardless of their performance on the field. That doesn't make those teams less deserving to go to the Championship. Regardless, making it to the finals is still an achievement we all recognize.

Looking back at GSR over the years here are the finalists.I know GSR is week 1 but its the event I have the most knowledge in so this is mostly fictionary.

2012: 1519, great robot they qualified at their second regional(NCR). 2614 would have received 1519's spot but it would have gone to 1771 due to 2614's win in Pittsburg. 2791 or 885 could have received the slot if 1519 hadn't taken it.
2011: 131, great robot that year.
2010: 1922 was the finalist but won in Boston a few weeks later. I think the slot would have been given to 2648 they have been one of the NE teams that deserves to qualify for CMP. 2648 had a very good machine and an amazing team behind it.
2009: Team 40 would have gotten the slot. Amazing robot that year thankfully they made it in through the waitlist.
2008: 1512 also good. 58 (probably the best non hurdling and non lapbot of 2008) or 1517 would have received it if 1512 had passed.
2007: 1073 also good. 1474 or 501 would have received the slot if 1073 had passed.
2006-past: I remember the players but not who was the captain.

I apoligize for any errors in the above list. A few alliances I am usure who the captain was. The list was based the team who the Wild Card fell on always said yes. It is very cool to see who this would have effected down the road!

While the system isn't perfect an underlying theme is that any of GSR's finalists or benefitors had capable robots or great robots that didn't compete at CMP. I do know of other teams that would have benefited from this new system who were great robots that deserved to attend but didn't make it.

In the end, neither system is perfect but this new system attempts to fill slots of pre-qualified robots through other good teams at the same event. Geographically the same number of teams should qualify from each regional under the new system. I think it is great for teams who go into a regional knowing another great team competiting has already qualified and if they win the slot is still available instead of going to the team who clicked submit quicker months earlier.

What is interesting is when it says, "It’s possible for a Wild Card slot to go unused, and unused Wild Card slots will not be replaced or backfilled."

What does this mean? I remember back to the North Carolina Regional in 2010. Of the three event winners (1086, 1902, and 48) 1086 and 1902 had already qualifed along with two of the finalists (1519 and 1772). Already there is an unused Wild Card because no backup bot was used, but if 1741 (the third robot of the finalists alliance) hadn't been able to use their Wild Card slot, would those two slots from NCR 2010 just go mute and not be "replaced or backfilled" by waitlisted teams?

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

PS. It would be interesting to have someone post a list of all the multiple qualifiers from last year and track who the wildcards would have been.

30 Teams were multi-qualifiers for champs in 2012 according to the 1114 database. 2056 alone qualified 4 times and would have created 3 (edit = 2) wild cards. In total these 30 teams took 69 slots (or in other words an additional 39 slots.)

Not every multi-qualifier would have created a wild card since several people double qualified in their first event. (Maybe the GDC will have those create a wild card as well.) What seems odd at the moment is that a team who double qualifies in their first event and then wins a 2nd event only generates one wild card (1986), while a team who qualifies at an early event and double qualifies at a second event would generate two wild cards (340). Instead of 39 wild cards, this group would have only generated 22. Edit: Ignore the gray. Only 19 wild cards. Still odd that a team who earns RCA at their first regional and is a part of the winning alliance in their second regional generates a wild card, but the reverse order would not.

Below are all the multi-qualifiers.

16	KC (RW), IL (RW), DA (RW)	
48	PIT (RW), PIT (RCA), WI (RW)	
148	IL (RW), DA (RW)		
181	MD (RW), CT (RW)		
233	FL (RW), FL (RCA), MA (RW)	
234	TN (RW), TN (RCA)		
246	MA (RW), MA (RCA)		
281	SC (RW), SC (RCA)		
340	ROC (RCA), OH (RW), OH (RCA)	
359	HI (RW), TX (RW)		
384	VA (RW), VA (EI)		
971	SAC (RW), SJ (RW)		
987	CA (RW), NV (RW)		
1114	ON (RW), ON (RCA), WAT (RW)	
1311	GA (RCA), NC (RW)		
1477	STX (RW), LA (RW), LA (EI)	
1507	ROC (RW), OH (RW)		
1540	OK (RW), OK (RCA)		
1592	FL (RW), SFL (RW)		
1714	DMN (RW), DMN (EI)		
1717	CA (RW), CAF (RW)		
1983	WAS (RW), WAS (RCA)		
1985	MO (RW), MO (RCA)		
1986	KC (RW), KC (EI), MO (RW)	
2046	WA2 (RW), WA2 (RCA)		
2056	ON (RW), WAT (RW), WAT (RCA), ON2 (RW)
2169	DMN (RW), DMN (RCA)		
3990	QC (RW), QC (RAS)		
4001	ON2 (RW), ON2 (RAS)		
4226	MN2 (RW), MN2 (RAS)

Now to go figure out who the wildcards would have been.