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

[dellagd]

Regardless, It generates more spots for Champs that is actually based on performance, So I think its a good thing.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

If you're going to make that argument, you should probably disclose that 829 was the #1 seed at two events last year, but didn't reach the finals at either event. You pretty clearly have circumstances that would impact your opinion on this matter. It's only natural you would favor a system that rewards qualification success.

Yes, 829 was a #1 and #2 seed but would not have received a wild card in either instance had the top unqualified seed been given a spot last year.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Sure, why not.

....snip....
Some immediate observations:
- Only one wild card spot was created prior to week 4
- Wild card spots went to non alliance captains 6/20 times, with a 2nd pick earning one just once.
...snip...

Great analysis.
It would seem that later season events would give you a slight edge as the event winner could be a multiple which would give you some additional chances of making it to the championship. While that additional slot may not seem like much, for a non-rookie team, it is essentially an additional 1 slot compared to the 5 non-rookies can compete for or a 20% advantage. For 6/20, it would be 2 additional slots relative to the 5 you can compete for or a 40% bump...

There are some teams that from the outside appear to strategically approach early season events. I wonder if now they will instead take on late season events as several of those late season events now have essentially an additional slot.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

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.

Can anyone see a bunch of teams left out in the cold try to jump on Chesapeake for a last chance regional situation? I think having MAR and MSC the same weekend diminishes that, but cash-rich teams in the northeast or deep south trying to put a quality robot in CMP could sneak into Baltimore.

2614 also won the RCA in North Carolina. Why couldn't FIRST retroactively reward a Wild Card to a team in Pittsburgh because of this? This could all become very confusing endeavor to understand. VAR was weaker than the tea they serve in the college cafeteria last year, but 384's EI and tournament wins would have allowed the alliance captain 346, one of three robots that kept the regional OPR average from flatlining, got left out in the cold and fell to like, 30th in the highly competitive DCR. I do support the idea of wild cards, and as I hinted earlier, this is a step in the right and expected direction.


Is the Wild Card system the one FRC deserves, or just the one it needs right now?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Can anyone see a bunch of teams left out in the cold try to jump on Chesapeake for a last chance regional situation? I think having MAR and MSC the same weekend diminishes that, but cash-rich teams in the northeast or deep south trying to put a quality robot in CMP could sneak into Baltimore.

2614 also won the RCA in North Carolina. Why couldn't FIRST retroactively reward a Wild Card to a team in Pittsburgh because of this? This could all become very confusing endeavor to understand. VAR was weaker than the tea they serve in the college cafeteria last year, but 384's EI and tournament wins would have allowed the alliance captain 346, one of three robots that kept the regional OPR average from flatlining, got left out in the cold and fell to like, 30th in the highly competitive DCR. I do support the idea of wild cards, and as I hinted earlier, this is a step in the right and expected direction.


Is the Wild Card system the one FRC deserves, or just the one it needs right now?

It is a gamble to register for an event with the goal of getting a wild card slot. It is a risk i wouldnt take and I doubt most teams will take because it is dependent on your competitors success months down the road.

Based on Karthik's information this isn't a game changer. I see this as FIRST moving away from the waitlist.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

In Texas, over the last several years... 118 Robonauts, 148 Robowranglers, 624 CRyptonite, and 1477 Texas Torque have dominated as Regional Alliance-WINNERS at Regionals and gone to the CHAMPIONSHIP. SOMETIMES winning multiple Texas Regionals in the same season shutting-out access (via a WIN) to CMP for the 5th-8th best Texas teams... is THIS _any different_ in your Canadian territory?!

No, but it is very different than the District Model, where 5th-8th are punching their tickets to CMP... even if they don't outright win a competition.

That aspect alone increases the competitiveness of the Texas teams sent to CMP. A group that includes the 5th to 8th best teams is more competitive than one that includes the 24th to 27th best instead.

Whether you think this is better (philosophically) for your region, is subject to debate.

There is merit to giving your region's weaker teams the opportunity to go to CMP, but with CMP slots becoming a rarer commodity, someone is going to be left out.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

That aspect alone increases the competitiveness of the Texas teams sent to CMP. A group that includes the 5th to 8th best teams is more competitive than one that includes the 24th to 27th best instead.

This is true... and I'm factoring that more into my thinking on this...

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

There is merit to giving your region's weaker teams the opportunity to go to CMP, but with CMP slots becoming a rarer commodity, someone is going to be left out.

THIS is true too, as my own team greatly benefited from being the 24th robot in our rookie debut in 2011 going on to WIN with 16 Bomb Squad and 148 Robowranglers... I don't think our present trajectory would be as steep if we didn't get the opportunity to experience the "rush" of the Regional-WIN and then the awesomeness of CHAMPIONSHIP competition...


I think I'm warming-up to this District Model thingy...

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

It is a gamble to register for an event with the goal of getting a wild card slot. It is a risk i wouldnt take and I doubt most teams will take because it is dependent on your competitors success months down the road.

Based on Karthik's information this isn't a game changer. I see this as FIRST moving away from the waitlist.

Maybe you wouldn't register at one event to try and get the wildcard spot, but I can see teams NOT registering at a different event because there is no chance of a wildcard slot.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Is the Wild Card system the one FRC deserves, or just the one it needs right now?

I think it's the one it needs right now. Here's why:

Back in 2009, the wild card was implemented in Michigan's district system--but it wasn't called that. It was more of: "Michigan gets 18 slots at Championship. They will fill them with their state winners, RCA, EI, RAS, and enough other teams from the top of their state rankings to fill out 18 slots." In 2012, MAR got the same scenario: 12 slots to fill with their top teams.

As districts expand to more areas (and the rumblings are that there will be at least 2 if not more new district areas in 2014), this system will be going into place in more and more places. The Wild Card is going to prepare teams for this transition. Once FRC is entirely districted, the Wild Card will probably disappear.

The other thing it does is eliminate one of the "favorite" CD discussions that happens every few years about how multi-event teams aren't being fair because they go to multiple events and take slots away from teams in a region that should really go because... If it's a later-season event, then there is definitely a chance that the wild card will be in play, and a reasonable chance that it is used.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by EricH

The other thing it does is eliminate one of the "favorite" CD discussions that happens every few years about how multi-event teams aren't being fair because they go to multiple events and take slots away from teams in a region that should really go because... If it's a later-season event, then there is definitely a chance that the wild card will be in play, and a reasonable chance that it is used.

I think this is still my main question about the system: why is it (seemingly arbitrarily) limited to such specific cases, and why does it so heavily favor later events, or setups in which winning teams happen to win RCA/EI/RAS and then RW but not vice-versa? Transparency would be really great here, IMO.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by EricH

I think it's the one it needs right now. Here's why:

Back in 2009, the wild card was implemented in Michigan's district system--but it wasn't called that. It was more of: "Michigan gets 18 slots at Championship. They will fill them with their state winners, RCA, EI, RAS, and enough other teams from the top of their state rankings to fill out 18 slots." In 2012, MAR got the same scenario: 12 slots to fill with their top teams.

As districts expand to more areas (and the rumblings are that there will be at least 2 if not more new district areas in 2014), this system will be going into place in more and more places. The Wild Card is going to prepare teams for this transition. Once FRC is entirely districted, the Wild Card will probably disappear.

The other thing it does is eliminate one of the "favorite" CD discussions that happens every few years about how multi-event teams aren't being fair because they go to multiple events and take slots away from teams in a region that should really go because... If it's a later-season event, then there is definitely a chance that the wild card will be in play, and a reasonable chance that it is used.

The Wild Card would not necessarily disappear, I believe, but will evolve into an at large pool in conjunction with the evolution of CMP to qualify-only and the evolution of traditional regional competitions to state/super-regional multi-competition structures.

In the post before my Dark Knight reference, I talked about for the nth time about the structure I find ideal for this utopia where the rivers flow golden with district events and empty into a tranquil sea of merit-only slots for CMP.

If by preparing you mean "making teams realize the added stress on merit qualification and not fastest-finger qualification will stick around" and by "go away" will evolve into the at large pools we see in MAR and FiM, then we're on the same page.

And I guess with the Wild Card idea afoot now CD can only deal with people making 10 threads about the remaining topics of: mentor-built robots, adults on the drive team, elitism in FIRST, the GDC didn't think ______ through and now we might as well dissolve as a team, and all the other topics that fill me with all kinds of ...

Originally Posted by Siri

I think this is still my main question about the system: why is it (seemingly arbitrarily) limited to such specific cases, and why does it so heavily favor later events, or setups in which winning teams happen to win RCA/EI/RAS and then RW but not vice-versa? Transparency would be really great here, IMO.

I fear we won't even sniff a deeper answer until kickoff when the manuals are published.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

If by preparing you mean "making teams realize the added stress on merit qualification and not fastest-finger qualification will stick around" and by "go away" will evolve into the at large pools we see in MAR and FiM, then we're on the same page.

That's what I was getting at. There will be more wild cards in future--but they will be the district qualification pools when the transition is complete.

[Alpha Beta]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr.../blog-09-24-12

FRC Blogged - Wild Card Slots II and Ask and Expert Call Postponed

Blog Date:
Monday, September 24, 2012 - 14:57
Wild Card Slots II

My post Friday generated a relatively large number of comments. Rather than answer them individually, let me provide a little more insight here.

The purpose of the new system is to provide broader distribution of merit-based slots in situations where single teams win more than one Championship qualifying award over the course of several Regionals.

With the limited number of slots we have for Championship, we had to make some difficult decisions regarding how many specific situations we could cover while still notifying teams quickly of their eligibility for a slot and ensuring we could keep the team count to 400. Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not we covered all the right situations, or if we should be trading waitlist slots for merit-based slots, or if this provides appropriate consideration to teams attending earlier regionals, but I see this as a step in the right direction starting where we are, right now.

Also, let me put what I said in the earlier blog regarding pre-qualified teams in another way. Pre-qualified teams, by definition, have qualified for Championship before the season has started. There is no case in which qualifying for Championship before the 2013 season starts has any effect on this system. So, if you have a question in your mind that starts ‘For Wild Card slots, what if a pre-qualified team….’, stop, and tell your mind that pre-qualification, with respect to this system, has no relevance. Only performance within the season itself matters.

In addition, as noted in my blog, District teams are eligible for Wild Card slots when they go to traditional Regionals, just like everyone else is. Finally, teams given Wild Card slots will have the same shipping rules and privileges as all other teams going to Championship.