3rd Regional Question

[moogboy]

Sorry for the confusion about districts/regionals. The distinction has never been clear to me.

Originally Posted by EricH

Whether or not there should be a limit to the number of events a team can attend other than the calendar limitations, and how a district system allowing more districts than the number counted should deal with a number of teams in eliminations who can't get points (and are presumably blocking out others who need the points to get to State/Region Championships), are currently wide open questions.

^This is more my question. I tend to think that if Bedford were my second regional and all or most of the teams competing in eliminations were ineligible for earning the qualifying points from it that I would feel a bit cheated, because aside from the awards (which I would never want to minimize), it would be akin to competing in only one regional.

Is my logic flawed? Am I insane? Should I just shut up and accept it? I am just curious and looking to understand it a little bit better.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by moogboy

^This is more my question. I tend to think that if Bedford were my second regional and all or most of the teams competing in eliminations were ineligible for earning the qualifying points from it that I would feel a bit cheated, because aside from the awards (which I would never want to minimize), it would be akin to competing in only one regional.

Is my logic flawed? Am I insane? Should I just shut up and accept it? I am just curious and looking to understand it a little bit better.

You raise good points which my team has only begun discussing. We are in MAR not FiM. When we chose our 3rd District event we were thinking mainly about being able to compete a 3rd time for only an additional $1K. We often have a tight budget and this is quite a bargain for an extra 12 matches.

Unlike your situation I believe we are the only team that is going into its 3rd district (unless others registered after I last looked). The 3rd one we signed up for fell between our other 2, and it still had 9 open spots when we played this past weekend.

Just setting the background, the potential ethical issues remain. We are currently 32nd in MAR and likely to reach the MAR championship, but there are many teams behind us that have played once and are competing with us at the final MAR event next week. It would obviously be to our advantage for the teams behind us to stay behind us; while it is very unlikely that 20 odd teams will gain enough points to pass us I can't say its mathmatically impossible. There may even be times in our 3rd event where losing may be more to our advantage than winning. This situation has cropped up before for some teams at some regionals, and was sometimes a factor in coopertition in previous seasons.

There is only one ethical way to handle things when you are in this position: play as hard as you can to win at all times. This is really the essence of all sport (and life): play hard, fairly, and honestly at all times. Ignoring that karma often comes back to bite those who don't play fairly, personal honor must always be valued above personal gain.

I don't think you are crazy, you have honest concerns. All you can do is go out and do your best, trust others will do the same, and let the chips fall where they may.
From Samurai to Klingons to GP Robotic Teams its a good day to die, as long as you do so with honor.
Sorry, got all geeky there for a minute.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by omalleyj

Unlike your situation I believe we are the only team that is going into its 3rd district (unless others registered after I last looked).

You are not the only team going to a third district in MAR, there are three: 303, 1279, 3314.

However this brings up an interesting point; there are only three teams attending a third district in MAR, but over twenty-seven in Michigan. Why? Is it because the third Michigan district is only $500 while it is $1000 in MAR?

Are there usually this many teams signed up for a third Michigan district?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

However this brings up an interesting point; there are only three teams attending a third district in MAR, but over twenty-seven in Michigan. Why? Is it because the third Michigan district is only $500 while it is $1000 in MAR?

It's a combination of fewer extra event slots in MAR combined with local teams' preference for going to out-of-district regionals that leads to less MAR teams doing local districts. I don't think price is the issue since teams are paying 5 times as much to compete elsewhere.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

It's a combination of fewer extra event slots in MAR combined with local teams' preference for going to out-of-district regionals that leads to less MAR teams doing local districts. I don't think price is the issue since teams are paying 5 times as much to compete elsewhere.

Not sure if its the extra slots, 9 were open at Lenape (a great event btw). I suspect its mostly playing 'for nothing', you can't qualify for the MAR championships. Teams with more resources may prefer non-MAR regionals We'll do them when we are able, we miss the friends we've made in NY, DC, etc..

But I am very surprised that more teams, especially rookies or newish teams don't take advantge of the extra experience. (and fun, and days out of school )

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by omalleyj

But I am very surprised that more teams, especially rookies or newish teams don't take advantge of the extra experience. (and fun, and days out of school )

I think the "days out of school" factor is more likely to keep teams from going to another competition than it is to encourage them to attend. District events do only eat up a Friday, but getting even one more day off work isn't always easy for mentors.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

However this brings up an interesting point; there are only three teams attending a third district in MAR, but over twenty-seven in Michigan. Why? Is it because the third Michigan district is only $500 while it is $1000 in MAR?

Are there usually this many teams signed up for a third Michigan district?

I believe part of why there are so many teams this year is because there are over 200 teams in Michigan this year, but only just (205 or 206 I think). So if every team gets 2 district events with 40 teams each, that leaves those 5 or 6 teams outside the traditional 10 districts we've had in the past. So Bedford was added relatively last minute to accommodate the teams that needed it, but since there were so few it allowed a lot of space for extra teams to sign up for a third event.

This is much more than usual, in the past there have usually been 10 or less teams that got a third event.

Hopefully that all makes sense and somewhat answers your question.

[MrJohnston]

Under a completely different line of thinking....

We have a huge team - 89 registered online and active and anotehr 20 or so that kind of hang out with us. Of those, we only have 6-10 seniors, so we are anticipating a lot of growth next year. We are discussing the possibility of participating in a third regional event next year (or districts, if go go that route) with the idea that we'd use different students (primarily sophomores and freshmen) as our drive team, pit crew, etc. as a way to get more kids involved. We are not looking at it as a a way to improve our chances at making nationals, but, rather, as a way to encourage more kids to participate.

[shewejff]

I share the same concerns as moogboy about teams playing in their third event, particularly the massive number at Bedford. From seeing what happens at these later events in years past, our team didn't even consider going to Troy, Livonia, and especially Bedford. The "home" event that is selected for us has been a later event the last few years, and we don't even consider going to it.

Yes, filling in those empty slots "increase[s] FRC team participation". The problem is that the teams that are going to a third event are typically better than your average Michigan FRC team. They're frequently the more well established teams that also have better than average robots. To back up this point, I looked at the 26 third event teams competing at Bedford. On average, they scored 30 points towards going to MSC at the events that they have already played. Michigan teams earn an average of about 24 points towards MSC at each of their events. Those third event teams are higher caliber teams that now have two events of practice and tweaking their robots under their belts. They're going up against "average" FRC teams with only one event of practice. I'd be curious to see the average number of points that the 14 second event teams get at Bedford. I'd bet that they are going to get much lower than average of 24 points.

I don't really know a good solution to the problem. I understand that having an event with 14 teams isn't acceptable. If there was a better way to distribute the open spots across all the events, that would be optimal (e.g., all events capped at 36 teams). The only problem is that you don't really know exactly how many Michigan teams there will be next year so an exact cap amount isn't known immediately, but a reasonable approximation wouldn't be that hard. It would mean that teams can't go to third events (they can still go out of state), but it would make it more fair for the teams at the later events.

At the very least, teams shouldn't be eligible for awards at their third event. Every award the third event teams win also sucks away points from the second event teams. Judging by the awards that the third event teams have already won at their first two events, it wouldn't surprise me if only a small handful of awards (if any) are won by the second event teams at Bedford.

[moogboy]

Originally Posted by shewejff

I share the same concerns as moogboy about teams playing in their third event, particularly the massive number at Bedford. From seeing what happens at these later events in years past, our team didn't even consider going to Troy, Livonia, and especially Bedford. The "home" event that is selected for us has been a later event the last few years, and we don't even consider going to it.

Yes, filling in those empty slots "increase[s] FRC team participation". The problem is that the teams that are going to a third event are typically better than your average Michigan FRC team. They're frequently the more well established teams that also have better than average robots. To back up this point, I looked at the 26 third event teams competing at Bedford. On average, they scored 30 points towards going to MSC at the events that they have already played. Michigan teams earn an average of about 24 points towards MSC at each of their events. Those third event teams are higher caliber teams that now have two events of practice and tweaking their robots under their belts. They're going up against "average" FRC teams with only one event of practice. I'd be curious to see the average number of points that the 14 second event teams get at Bedford. I'd bet that they are going to get much lower than average of 24 points.

I don't really know a good solution to the problem. I understand that having an event with 14 teams isn't acceptable. If there was a better way to distribute the open spots across all the events, that would be optimal (e.g., all events capped at 36 teams). The only problem is that you don't really know exactly how many Michigan teams there will be next year so an exact cap amount isn't known immediately, but a reasonable approximation wouldn't be that hard. It would mean that teams can't go to third events (they can still go out of state), but it would make it more fair for the teams at the later events.

At the very least, teams shouldn't be eligible for awards at their third event. Every award the third event teams win also sucks away points from the second event teams. Judging by the awards that the third event teams have already won at their first two events, it wouldn't surprise me if only a small handful of awards (if any) are won by the second event teams at Bedford.

Thank you for coming up with that data! I have been meaning to do something similar, just for myself.

Also, I strongly support the no awards for third event teams thing you just mentioned. I'm not sure if that's something that could be requested or what? I know that my team wants to start grooming younger students in the interview process, maybe we could ask to be interviewed but not considered? I'll bring this up to my mentors at the first opportunity.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by moogboy

Also, I strongly support the no awards for third event teams thing you just mentioned. I'm not sure if that's something that could be requested or what? I know that my team wants to start grooming younger students in the interview process, maybe we could ask to be interviewed but not considered? I'll bring this up to my mentors at the first opportunity.

While this is commendable on your part, I don't know if the judges would even allow you to not be considered for awards. But training younger students is definitely a good idea for a third event. We are also going to Bedford as our third district, and I really hope to completely switch around who does what.

One way I'm looking at is that students who did well throughout the season will get "rewarded" at Bedford. For example, I'll be sending a new student down for alliance selections so that they can get the experience, and I'll be picking who that is based on who the best scout throughout the season was. And we might move a student who has worked really hard and dedicated a lot of time to this season into the pit crew.

So while the third district does have its downsides, there are a lot of good ways to use it to better your team.

[moogboy]

Originally Posted by P.J.

While this is commendable on your part, I don't know if the judges would even allow you to not be considered for awards. But training younger students is definitely a good idea for a third event. We are also going to Bedford as our third district, and I really hope to completely switch around who does what.

One way I'm looking at is that students who did well throughout the season will get "rewarded" at Bedford. For example, I'll be sending a new student down for alliance selections so that they can get the experience, and I'll be picking who that is based on who the best scout throughout the season was. And we might move a student who has worked really hard and dedicated a lot of time to this season into the pit crew.

So while the third district does have its downsides, there are a lot of good ways to use it to better your team.

Of course, and as a co-president I'm looking to leverage the time in as many ways as possible to benefit the team. Giving younger guys more responsibilities and shifting around some roles to help meet some unfulfilled wishes is definitely part of the plan.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by shewejff

At the very least, teams shouldn't be eligible for awards at their third event. Every award the third event teams win also sucks away points from the second event teams. Judging by the awards that the third event teams have already won at their first two events, it wouldn't surprise me if only a small handful of awards (if any) are won by the second event teams at Bedford.

By my count there are 13 awards in FiM that are worth points (14 in MAR). If only 14 or so teams are eligible for these awards then there is a near 100% chance of earning one. That is ridiculous. The awards would be basically meaningless.

Using that system a team attending Bedford as a second district would have a huge advantage over teams that did not.

Giving away free points is not the answer.

[EricH]

I would say this:

If any team, for any reason, declines an award or to compete in the eliminations, that is their call. This does include the reason being that the event is their third district event. As long as they choose that as a team, and make it known to the appropriate parties (judges, refs, MC possibly), I don't think anybody would have a problem with that. (And it has happened before. I can think of two separate cases.) The team could even promote another team for the award, if they wanted.

However, I do not think that it should be required for any team to do so, regardless of number of events played. Doing that, as noted, creates a huge issue with points advantages.

[shewejff]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

By my count there are 13 awards in FiM that are worth points (14 in MAR). If only 14 or so teams are eligible for these awards then there is a near 100% chance of earning one. That is ridiculous. The awards would be basically meaningless.

Using that system a team attending Bedford as a second district would have a huge advantage over teams that did not.

Giving away free points is not the answer.

Bedford is a pretty crazy situation with only 14 second event teams competing, so I'll agree with you that this isn't a fantastic recommendation for that event. When you look at a more typical late season event like Livonia and Troy, I still think it would make a good change.

That being said, I have a feeling that even if you gave 2-5 points to all 14 of the second event teams at Bedford, they may may still have a hard time hitting the 24 point average.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not advocating that any third event teams this year purposely ask judges to not to give them awards or decline alliance selections or anything of that sort. I personally think that the FiM rules for next year should be changed to eliminate third events, and if that's not possible, changed to not allow third event teams to get awards.