[FRC Blog] Wild Cards 2013 and the Harlem Shake

[MagiChau]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...e-harlem-shake

Hello Teams,

I hope everyone caught up on some sleep over the weekend. Only a few more days until our first official events of the season, and as we say up here, I am ‘wicked’ excited!

Hey, remember Wild Cards? I talked about them in the FRC Blog way back in September. Teams can earn Wild Card Slots as described on the Championship Eligibility page.

Here are the criteria:

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.

Wild Card slots are filled in the order of:

1. Finalist Alliance Captain

2. Finalist First Pick

3. Finalist Second Pick

4. Finalist Backup Team

Wild Card slots are passed to the next team in the order specified above only if the team occupying that Wild Card slot has already qualified for Championship at an earlier 2013 Regional. The number of potential Wild Card slots created at each Regional is equal to the number of teams on the Winning Alliance who had already qualified for Championship at an earlier Regional in 2013.

Only teams on the Finalist Alliance are eligible for Wild Card slots. It’s possible for a Wild Card slot to go unused. Unused Wild Card slots cannot be replaced or backfilled.

The rules seem pretty straightforward, but it could be easy to lose track of where you are in the process of determining Wild Card status, so we’ve created a step-by-step worksheet to help you ‘play at home’ – or more likely, play at an event. We’ve made this as simple as possible. It looks involved, but if you follow it step by step, I promise you’ll get to the right answer regarding Wild Cards at any particular event. You can find the worksheet here.

Harlem Shake

You may have heard that our friends at AndyMark are hosting a Harlem Shake contest. We don’t know if the FRC Staff is technically eligible to win, but we decided to participate anyway, just for fun. Look closely – you may recognize someone you know very well. (Hint: He’s wearing the flippers!)

http://youtu.be/Ks0c4DzhF5c

I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by MagiChau

Harlem Shake

You may have heard that our friends at AndyMark are hosting a Harlem Shake contest. We don’t know if the FRC Staff is technically eligible to win, but we decided to participate anyway, just for fun. Look closely – you may recognize someone you know very well. (Hint: He’s wearing the flippers!)

http://youtu.be/Ks0c4DzhF5c

Holy Woody Flowers with a chainsaw...

[PayneTrain]

Ok, I know Frank said they wanted it to be as easy as possible to understand, but here is something I am hung up on...
What if your winning alliance somehow consisted of what also ended up being the RCA, EI, and RAS winning teams at the same event? Would you just have 3 dead slots? That is not clear at all. It seems like they would go right to the 3 finalist robots, but I really do not know.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Ok, I know Frank said they wanted it to be as easy as possible to understand, but here is something I am hung up on...
What if your winning alliance somehow consisted of what also ended up being the RCA, EI, and RAS winning teams at the same event? Would you just have 3 dead slots? That is not clear at all. It seems like they would go right to the 3 finalist robots, but I really do not know.

I don't believe so, based on the wording:

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.

Therefore, if they qualify twice at the same Regional, I don't think a space will be created if they didn't already qualify at an EARLIER Regional.

Also, if a team does in fact win a Regional and either RCA, EI, or RAS at the same Regional, AND already won a previous regional, it sounds like only one Wild Card will be available, not two.

[Racer26]

They should reword it so it is "Any TEAM already qualified to championship on a merit based slot earning a 2nd merit based Qualifying slot to Championship immediately opens a Wildcard slot to the Wild Card pool at the regional the 2nd slot is earned at."

This would mean that if a TEAM earns two spots at the SAME event, a wildcard is created, and any subsequent slots they earn ALSO create wildcards.

Using 2012/2013 in Canada as an example,
GTR East, Wk 2:
1114 wins Chairman's
1114/2056/1219 win Regional Winner
2809 wins Engineering Inspiration
4334 wins Rookie AllStar
610 earns wildcard slot as Finalist Alliance Captain (thanks to 1114's double score).

Waterloo, Wk 4:
2056 wins Chairman's
1114/2056/4372 win Regional Winner
771 wins Engineering Inspiration
4069 wins Rookie AllStar
1503/2852/244 all earn wild card slots because of 1114/2056's combined 3 slots that they don't need.

GTR West, Wk 5:
1241 wins Chairman's
2056/4001/2200 win Regional Winner
1305 wins Engineering Inspiration
4001 wins Rookie AllStar
3161 and 2634 earn wildcard seats as 2056 and 4001 each have an extra, and Finalist #2 (1114) is already qualified.

2013: any seats earned by 1114 2056 or 4334 generate wildcard slots as they're already merit-based qualified teams because they were an Einstein alliance in 2012.

Whether or not they change it, I can see this meaning A LOT more Canadian teams will get to go to CMP on Merit slots, since 6 to 8 of Canada's slots are typically eaten up by 1114 and 2056.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Holy Woody Flowers with a chainsaw...

I thought that was an odd expression...but holy Woody Flowers with a chainsaw, I recognize that person! Suddenly, beating Titanium at GKC doesn't seem too bad...I just have to seed second and be a finalist. I think. It's do-able.

[Patrick Flynn]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

They should reword it so it is "Any TEAM already qualified to championship on a merit based slot earning a 2nd merit based Qualifying slot to Championship immediately opens a Wildcard slot to the Wild Card pool at the regional the 2nd slot is earned at."

I think it is not worded this way on purpose, they do not want this to happen. The ruling states at an earlier regional in 2013. This would mean that no team could open up more than one spot at any given regional.
Sure it may not open up the most spots to wildcard teams, but most likely they didn't want this.

[PayneTrain]

It's also a reprieve for the DC Regional and others that are notorious for being Blue Banner pillaged.

I know what the blog said, I just don't understand why they are saying they are introducing the system but not making it truly comprehensive. This system makes it seem like FIRST wants to send 6 bots from every regional, but either

a) the way they worded it makes it sound like they aren't, or
b) they actually don't want to include a provision for the other 3 merit slots that can be won at the same regional as the 3 tournament winners, which makes the process seem half-done.

[Team23pitboss]

You may have heard that our friends at AndyMark are hosting a Harlem Shake contest. We don’t know if the FRC Staff is technically eligible to win, but we decided to participate anyway, just for fun. Look closely – you may recognize someone you know very well. (Hint: He’s wearing the flippers!)

http://youtu.be/Ks0c4DzhF5c

Woody is wearing flippers... 2014 WATER GAME!

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Patrick Flynn

I think it is not worded this way on purpose, they do not want this to happen. The ruling states at an earlier regional in 2013. This would mean that no team could open up more than one spot at any given regional.
Sure it may not open up the most spots to wildcard teams, but most likely they didn't want this.

I could see why they maybe wouldn't want to do the 2012 Einstein bit of what I'd said, but I don't really see why they don't want to ACTUALLY qualify six teams at each regional, beyond that doing that alone gets mighty close to the 400 team cap at CMP.

[Patrick Flynn]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I could see why they maybe wouldn't want to do the 2012 Einstein bit of what I'd said, but I don't really see why they don't want to ACTUALLY qualify six teams at each regional, beyond that doing that alone gets mighty close to the 400 team cap at CMP.

I think the reason behind this is that it would be quite easy to chose what regional to go to based upon what teams are going to be there. I mean who wouldn't want to go to 1114 and 2056 first regional where 2056 is submitting for CA, and 1114 has the CCA there is a good chance, that the two of them would claim 4 awards here, two winners, EI, and CA the two of them would only need 1 of these award spots. 2056, not having the automatic bid assuming this isn't counting the 2012 Einstein teams. This largely increases my chances of getting a spot at champs.

Bottom line I think they want to give out more spots for top competing teams but they don't want teams trying to beat the system to get spots to champs

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Using 2012/2013 in Canada as an example,
GTR East, Wk 2:
1114 wins Chairman's
1114/2056/1219 win Regional Winner
2809 wins Engineering Inspiration
4334 wins Rookie AllStar
610 earns wildcard slot as Finalist Alliance Captain (thanks to 1114's double score).

In this situation 610 doesn't qualify. 1114 had not earned a spot at championships at an earlier regional yet. Double qualifying at the same regional doesn't matter.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Gregor

In this situation 610 doesn't qualify. 1114 had not earned a spot at championships at an earlier regional yet. Double qualifying at the same regional doesn't matter.

You must have missed that I was suggesting an alternate wording and using those events as an example.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Patrick Flynn

...1114 has the CCA so there is a good chance...

Just remember, now that 1114 has won CCA, they cannot win Chairman's Award for the next five years:

Hall of Fame members; i.e., teams that have already earned the Championship Chairman’s Award, are ineligible to resubmit for consideration for five (5) years. Teams that earned the Chairman’s Award at the Championship prior to 2008 are eligible to participate in 2013. Teams that earned the Chairman’s Award in 2008-2012 are ineligible in the 2013 season.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

You must have missed that I was suggesting an alternate wording and using those events as an example.

Sorry, misread it.