Wild Card 2013

[PayneTrain]

I also think not giving Wild Card berths to 1st wins from pre-qualified teams is a little bit silly. We will have eight fewer pre-qualified teams next year, what's the harm in allowing finalists behind any team that won the event and is already going to Championship?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I also think not giving Wild Card berths to 1st wins from pre-qualified teams is a little bit silly. We will have eight fewer pre-qualified teams next year, what's the harm in allowing finalists behind any team that won the event and is already going to Championship?

It would certainly make this rule easier to explain to parents at events.... I've had to explain the wild car system far too many times this year.

It'd be a lot easier to say, "Anytime a team loses in finals to a team already qualified for champs".

[Racer26]

@dodar: simple.

There is a priority list of who the wildcards go to. It starts as it should with the finalist alliance. It should not matter if the wildcard was generated by a team winning CA or EI or RAS, the first wildcard generated at a given event goes to the finalist captain. I'm just suggesting additions to the list beyond Finalist Backup Bot, and suggesting that it not simply be just wins that generate a wildcard, but rather, any qualification beyond a team's first.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Racer26

@dodar: simple.

There is a priority list of who the wildcards go to. It starts as it should with the finalist alliance. It should not matter if the wildcard was generated by a team winning CA or EI or RAS, the first wildcard generated at a given event goes to the finalist captain. I'm just suggesting additions to the list beyond Finalist Backup Bot, and suggesting that it not simply be just wins that generate a wildcard, but rather, any qualification beyond a team's first.

Exactly, how do you justify giving the WC spot generated by the RAS/EI/CA to a robot performance team rather than the teams that would have won those awards had those other teams not won it?

[Racer26]

Again, easy.

Think of it as though the wild card they generate is from their non-RCA qualification.

You can't qualify extra RAS/CA/EI teams. That would devalue those awards.

Besides, the number of teams that double qualify with 2x EI in the same year or RCA+EI can probably be counted on one hand.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Again, easy.

Think of it as though the wild card they generate is from their non-RCA qualification.

You can't qualify extra RAS/CA/EI teams. That would devalue those awards.

Besides, the number of teams that double qualify with 2x EI in the same year or RCA+EI can probably be counted on one hand.

Im not talking about multiples of the same award or combos of non-winning awards; Im talking about a team that had already qualified by any means that won RAS/EI/CA, how do you justify giving it to teams that say didnt submit for the RA at that event when a lot of other teams did that didnt win and arent signed up for CMP? Thats the conundrum that is given when having this conversation.

[Racer26]

I guess I just don't see it as a problem. The team was awarded for the non robot award. If winning said award earned the team a 2nd CMP qualification so be it. Qualifying teams on non robot awards sends them so they compete for those awards at the cmp level.

If they were already going either on robot merit or something else, then give the extra seat to a team on some measure of robot merit, thereby improving competitiveness at cmp.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I guess I just don't see it as a problem. The team was awarded for the non robot award. If winning said award earned the team a 2nd CMP qualification so be it. Qualifying teams on non robot awards sends them so they compete for those awards at the cmp level.

If they were already going either on robot merit or something else, then give the extra seat to a team on some measure of robot merit, thereby improving competitiveness at cmp.

Once again, playing devil's advocate, how do you short change that 2nd place Chairman's team though? They worked hard enough that, if that double qualify team hadnt been there, they would have won RCA and qualified for CMP.

[Racer26]

I don't see it as being shortchanged. You can only submit for RCA at one event. Therefore, nobody is going around scooping up more than one. If you chose to submit at a particular event, you knew who you were up against.

The double qualify team won fair and square.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I don't see it as being shortchanged. You can only submit for RCA at one event. Therefore, nobody is going around scooping up more than one. If you chose to submit at a particular event, you knew who you were up against.

The double qualify team won fair and square.

Then why can you say that teams that double qualify through on field merit deserves to open up WC slots?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by dodar

Then why can you say that teams that double qualify through on field merit deserves to open up WC slots?

Because there are 400 competitors for the world championship, and a very limited number of judging spots for the CCA. If you think of the RCA not as a vehicle to get teams in the dome and instead as a way to find the most qualified CCA team it will all make sense. By definition the second place CA team can't possibly be a bigger contender for the CCA than the winning team, at least in theory. The same is in no way true for finding the World Champion winning alliance.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Racer26

My goal with such changes is to have each event qualifying 6 teams not otherwise qualified. Yes I realize this quickly means a bigger Championship. I'm OK with that. It's easy to solve, by having 2 side-by-side fields for each CMP division. Basically doubles match throughput, allowing for more matches/team with more teams, without the sound pollution and additional volunteers needed to run an 8 division CMP.

It's not just match throughput. Where do you put the extra pits (and fields)? It's tight in here. It does take lots of extra volunteers--almost everyone for the 4 extra fields, plus more inspectors, judges, and crowd control at least. Not to mention extra FedEx donations, all kinds of supplies, and any number of other things we don't know about.

I'm all for equalizing the wildcard system across all events, but it needs to be scalable.

That said, I'm not sure what to do beyond the status quo. The only absolute way of regulating invitations is to rank teams for a set number of open slots. Districts already do this, but it's not impossible to implement in the regional infrastructure. Point rank the teams, but you still have to decide what events to count (1st only, average 1st and 2nd), and when invites go out, etc.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Siri

It's not just match throughput. Where do you put the extra pits (and fields)? It's tight in here. It does take lots of extra volunteers--almost everyone for the 4 extra fields, plus more inspectors, judges, and crowd control at least. Not to mention extra FedEx donations, all kinds of supplies, and any number of other things we don't know about.

As far as I understand it, we were only using 1 of several halls in the building housing the pits. I know thats how it was in Atlanta. Additionally, it seems to me from that map that there's a bunch of extra space in the FLL pits (the gaps between them, specifically).

No matter which way you slice it, you either have to start qualifying less teams to CMP or make CMP bigger, as the program is already filling CMP to capacity, and each year a couple more regionals come online. If that means that CMP's current home can't hold us, then so be it.

You can't chop the 6 teams that qualify from a regional (the winning alliance should go, and celebrating RCA/EI/RAS winners is critical to FIRSTs mission), which means the only answer from that front is to migrate more regions to the district model, but it still doesn't solve the problem. Its not fair to district model adopting regions to kneecap their number of available CMP berths relative to regions where the traditional regional model is used, so IMO, the ONLY viable option is for the big show to get bigger. For the big show to get bigger, it needs more space for pits, more volunteers, and more fields, for more match throughput (since we all know <9 matches per robot is just unacceptable.)

To me, 4x doublefield divisions is less of a strain on the system than 8x single field divisions. You can get away with fewer volunteers (note: this may vary by game [in 2013 for example, field reset were often used to help with scoring]) for field reset, scorekeeping, refereeing, and more.

[dodar]

2 fields per division would be the same strain as 8 fields...

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by dodar

2 fields per division would be the same strain as 8 fields...

Worse in that it would be much harder to scout 2 fields.