PNW District Ranking System Website

[Navid Shafa]

I'm excited to direct you to the new Live PNW District Leaderboard Website:

http://district.firstwa.org/

The FRC Leaderboard was created for the 2014 FIRST Robotics Competition by Paul Malmsten and Alex Herreid.

I'd like to start by giving them a huge thank you! The site looks beautiful and already has point rankings up including Auburn Mountainview!

They've been working very hard on this the last few months and it's going to be a huge benefit to the community.

Please check out the site and remember to send any corrections or feedback to:
scorekeepers[a t]firstwa[d o t] org

[Rosiebotboss]

That looks awesome!

I do have a couple of questions, will it be "real time"? As in updated similar to FRC Spyder? After each match or just weekly?

What happened to teams #33 to XXX? The list stops at 32, are you going to add the rest of the list?

I passed it on to the Ops Comm at NEF. Who do they contact for including NEF teams?

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

That looks awesome!

I do have a couple of questions, will it be "real time"? As in updated similar to FRC Spyder? After each match or just weekly?

What happened to teams #33 to XXX? The list stops at 32, are you going to add the rest of the list?

I passed it on to the Ops Comm at NEF. Who do they contact for including NEF teams?

It will be updated during the event. Not quite live, but check it around lunch and after today is finished.

The teams on the list right now are the ones currently competing at the Auburn Mountainview District. As more teams play, more will be added.

NEF is familiar with it, chances are this could be applicable to other districts too!

[alectronic]

Hey Dana,
As written below, our version of "real time" is not quite like "Spyder" because we can't use Twitter results, those aren't official. It is "real time" in the sense that for most users, it will be up to date "all the time", but it's more like every 10 minutes or so.
Because the system is largely automated, it doesn't know what district a team belongs in until they have an associated "win loss tie" record. As such, the only teams in PNW that have that are ones that play this week. Each week, when schedules are generated, any teams that are new that week will show up in the rankings.
As for other districts, our email address is scorekeepers[a t]firstwa[d o t] org. We are happy to answer any other questions on there as well.

[Navid Shafa]

After seeing some brutal play this week, I was curious to see how many PNW teams are doing 3 districts. Turns out there are 18 teams currently registered for 3 districts

Spoiler for List of teams:

360
948
1318
1425
1510
1540
2046
2517
2522
2557
2811
2928
2990
4030
4060
4512
4911
5295

[Tyler2517]

I think the teams doing 3 districts will have a upper hand but the chance for a huge knock out blow at the same time. The wear on the robots (especially those with spring driven shooters will be exstream) and damage could be a problem. But driver practis could be a worth while things and a chance to master strategy.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Tyler2517

I think the teams doing 3 districts will have a upper hand but the chance for a huge knock out blow at the same time. The wear on the robots (especially those with spring driven shooters will be exstream) and damage could be a problem. But driver practis could be a worth while things and a chance to master strategy.

I disagree, If a team qualifies for district champs after their second event, chances are they have a functional robot. If so, I'd rather forego extra practice rather than risk inducing unnecessary wear and tear or incur any damages.

[Jeffrafa]

I was actually more surprised by how many spots weren't filled by teams in a 3rd play, 18 out of 153 teams is just under 12%, leaving 38 vacant spots across the 10 events. Initially the PNW district events appeared to fill and max out quickly, but when all the dust settled not a single event was completely full.

At $1000 registration, the 3rd play is a bargain compared to the typical costs associated with attending an extra regional - and when you consider that it gains you 50% more on-field driving and game strategy experience before district championships, it should be a real asset to the team, second only to building a practice bot.

Even more puzzling for PNW is that there are 2 teams that are STILL only registered for 1 district event - maybe they have special circumstances that make attending a 2nd too difficult, but its a shame to only claim half of what the registration fee paid for. I sure hope its not just a matter of confusion with the new district model.

As far as robot robustness, it is definitely a concern with the amount of play a robot sees in a competition season under the district model. Assuming a team attends 2 districts, district champs, and world champs (and makes it to semifinals at each), they will play over 60 competition matches. Regardless of a 3rd play it is vital that robots are built to handle this extra wear, through robust construction, good serviceability, preparedness with spare parts, and preventative maintenance.

It can be pretty apparent when working with Michigan teams at championships - they are generally well ahead of the average team for drive and strategy experience, although a few of the robots seem to be past their prime by the time they make it to champs. Overall it shows that the extra play time, and the opportunity for every single team to iterate between events brings the average level of competitiveness way up. I can't wait to see what the first PNW District Championship is like.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Jeffrafa

2 teams that are STILL only registered for 1 district event - maybe they have special circumstances that make attending a 2nd too difficult

They are both from Eastern Washington, one is from Moses Lake the other from Yakima. I have suspicions that traveling is improbable for them, or they couldn't get kids out of school. One of them is going to Central the other to Eastern.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Jeffrafa

I was actually more surprised by how many spots weren't filled by teams in a 3rd play, 18 out of 153 teams is just under 12%, leaving 38 vacant spots across the 10 events. Initially the PNW district events appeared to fill and max out quickly, but when all the dust settled not a single event was completely full.

At $1000 registration, the 3rd play is a bargain compared to the typical costs associated with attending an extra regional - and when you consider that it gains you 50% more on-field driving and game strategy experience before district championships, it should be a real asset to the team, second only to building a practice bot.

Even more puzzling for PNW is that there are 2 teams that are STILL only registered for 1 district event - maybe they have special circumstances that make attending a 2nd too difficult, but its a shame to only claim half of what the registration fee paid for. I sure hope its not just a matter of confusion with the new district model.

I can't wait to see what the first PNW District Championship is like.

We were quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that more teams are not attending a 3rd event. Fewer teams are playing at a 3rd district event than played the more expensive 2nd regional. I sent out a couple of emails encouraging teams to attend a 3rd event but of those people who responded their concern was the time from school and work that was the deciding factor.

The two teams that have chosen to only attend a single event made a conscious choice, they were mad aware of the fact that they were entitled to attend two events.

I too an excited to see how the first PNW championship plays out.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Mr V

We were quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that more teams are not attending a 3rd event. Fewer teams are playing at a 3rd district event than played the more expensive 2nd regional. I sent out a couple of emails encouraging teams to attend a 3rd event but of those people who responded their concern was the time from school and work that was the deciding factor.

You'd be asking teams who did 1 or 2 events last year to now do 4, or potentially 5 with District and World Championships. We did 4 events last year; 3 back-to-back regionals and then a championship. Even if we picked closer venues and didn't have Thursday's at events, I'd personally rather not do 4 like this again if possible. I can’t imagine adding a fifth. Not only was this hard on students and mentors with time away from work/school, we had very little time in between to prepare.

Also our robot saw some major wear and tear before we even hit championships. Seeing how grueling that alone was last year, and with the kind of damage we already witnessed in week 1 this year, most teams won't be prepared for this.

On top of this, it starts to get expensive fast. For PNW teams in the I-5 corridor, they could have the luxury of attending 3 districts relatively close to home. Travel costs become practically a non-issue for these teams and lodging costs are irrelevant (These teams can now essentially do 3 for less than the price of 2 last year). For a minority of teams however, attempting to do 3 becomes more expensive. A second or third event, not including District or World Champs require additional travel and lodging expenses.

I definitely like the idea of an extra event in theory, but I understand why many teams wouldn't opt to do so. After thinking a while, I see only 3 main motives to register for an additional event:

1) For teams who don't build a practice robot, one of the benefits is additional practice time.
2) An additional 6 hours of unbag time to work on the competition robot.
3) A third event offers an additional opportunity to present Chairman's and in turn to qualify for the District Championship.

Although the rationale behind these decisions can be justified, I still see them as somewhat self-indulgent ones at that. Due to the way the District point system works, a team competing again for their third event hurts teams who are attending as one of their two qualifying districts. Points are not attributed to this third team’s record and are essentially removed from the system. i.e. If a team participates in eliminations or wins any awards, they are then taking away the opportunity from other teams to earn points towards the District Championship qualification system.

In my opinion, there is a significant difference between going to three regionals and three districts. Going to three regionals with the wild card system, your choices and sacrifices essentially affect only your team. As much as we all love to play robots, not every team has the choice to go to a third event in either setup, should they also be affected by the choices that other teams make? If I were hellbent on attending a third event in the current regional/district structure, I would choose to attend two districts and a regional instead.

Just my $0.02

These opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my team and or any of my other affiliations.

[Jeffrafa]

Originally Posted by Mr V

We were quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that more teams are not attending a 3rd event. Fewer teams are playing at a 3rd district event than played the more expensive 2nd regional. I sent out a couple of emails encouraging teams to attend a 3rd event but of those people who responded their concern was the time from school and work that was the deciding factor.

The time away from school and work does accumulate, especially if you are planning on attending world championships, but the two-day events are designed to mitigate that, and the local events make for a huge savings on travel.

I am curious to know what percentage of teams from the PNW have never attended a second regional - I hope and suspect that this year will be a real eye opener for them in regards to the opportunity to make continuous improvements between events. A big part of development is reflecting on what worked, what didn't, and how it can be improved - this process starts as early as during prototyping, but it can be difficult to do in a formalized manner early on. Following an event is a great opportunity to reflect on how things turned out, draw inspiration from other teams, and develop a plan for improvements - having a second chance at another event can give a tremendous amount of motivation to the team to improve.

From the beginning our team made it a priority to attend 2 regionals - with the idea that we would see twice as many robot designs each year, and we would have the chance to make improvements. Every single year we would experience a dramatic improvement at our second regional, sometimes after significant rebuild and modification on Thursday.

The growth of more regionals in the PNW has made it easier to attend two, and there are many teams who are known for consistently doing this, but I suspect there is a huge percentage of teams who have never had the opportunity to go to two events. It is great that districts gives more matches and two chances for one registration fee. It will be interesting to see how teams evolve between events and over the next few years.

BTW: I love the district ranking website, as well as the new splash screens at events with upcoming match listings and robot highlights. It is great to see that the PNW is not only adopting the district model, but making improvements to it in our first year. Thanks so much to all those involved in these efforts (building up two competition fields for the district is no easy feat either, excellent work in that regard as well). Looking forward to our first event in Oregon City this weekend.

[Jeffrafa]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

Due to the way the District point system works, a team competing again for their third event hurts teams who are attending as one of their two qualifying districts. Points are not attributed to this third team’s record and are essentially removed from the system. i.e. If a team participates in eliminations or wins any awards, they are then taking away the opportunity from other teams to earn points towards the District Championship qualification system.

In my opinion, there is a significant difference between going to three regionals and three districts. Going to three regionals with the wild card system, your choices and sacrifices essentially affect only your team. As much as we all love to play robots, not every team has the choice to go to a third event in either setup, should they also be affected by the choices that other teams make? If I were hellbent on attending a third event in the current regional/district structure, I would choose to attend two districts and a regional

Two things come to mind in relation to this:

First, don't forget that third plays serve an important role in statistically evening out the playing field across the districts. Ideally, every single spot would have been filled so that all events were the exact same size. Smaller districts make for an unfair advantage for teams attending those events as part of their first two, already it has been shown that teams attending smaller PNW districts (like Mt Vernon or Corvallis) experience an opportunity advantage over the largest events equivalent to nearly 7 points in the district model. To mitigate this disparity, events must be as close to the same size as possible. They can either choose to be extremely strict about what events a team gets to attend (not sure what they would do short of assigning events to teams), which defeats letting teams pick convenient events, or they can let teams optionally enroll in a 3rd play, to help fill-up smaller events*. Although in a way 3rd plays are 'removing' points from the system, in the process they are making the other teams chances at those points more equal to the other larger district events. Without the 3rd plays, there would be an even greater disparity, as the same number of points would have been given out to an even smaller group of teams at the smallest events. (7 of the 29 teams attending Corvallis are 3rd plays).

Second,
The wild card system, although nice for regionals, was new just last year and is incompatible with the district model. It helps keep repeat regional teams from hogging spots that another team at the regional could have earned. There is a separate problem though that district-based teams competing in regionals outside their district were stealing spots from regional-only teams, with no recourse for the regional team to have a chance at a spot through the district. Since the district slots are based on the district's representation in the overall team total, district teams earning regional bids was unfair. So as of this year, any district team that chooses to attend a regional and wins a slot to championships at the regional not only consumes the regional ticket, but also consumes one of the finite spots slated for the district. ( See Regional Participation, bottom of page 3).

It does get to be a lot of events (and a lot of weekends consumed), when you consider the whole gamut from 2-3 districts through championship. The real shame is that at the end of the district championship, any of us who qualify will have to decide with a weeks notice if we can afford to arrange flights (at ~$500 each) and last-minute hotels to attend. We don't have the luxury like Michigan has of hopping on a bus and driving 8 hours to St Louis, a much more affordable travel option. I expect many district slots will trickle down the ranks to get filled by teams willing and able to go (after so many events already, I wouldn't be surprised if some go unclaimed)


*Actually, as I think about it they tried to do a little of both. If you followed the registration process closely, you probably noticed that the events were initially capped around 28 teams. Part of this was reserving spots for rookies, but another part was to make sure no event got significantly bigger than what they expected the smallest event to be (after all, they were initially planning the district venues to support up to 40 teams) As we worked through 2nd round pick and into 3rd pick, they slowly freed up more spots, until settling on the 36 team cap. In the end the disparity remained because fewer 3rd plays signed up than anticipated.

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by Jeffrafa

*Actually, as I think about it they tried to do a little of both. If you followed the registration process closely, you probably noticed that the events were initially capped around 28 teams. Part of this was reserving spots for rookies, but another part was to make sure no event got significantly bigger than what they expected the smallest event to be (after all, they were initially planning the district venues to support up to 40 teams) As we worked through 2nd round pick and into 3rd pick, they slowly freed up more spots, until settling on the 36 team cap. In the end the disparity remained because fewer 3rd plays signed up than anticipated.

We capped at 30 to begin with for this exact same reason. In the future I can see us setting the cap higher because we hit 30 really quickly in some events and the waitlist shuffle was time consuming. 40 really is the magic number in terms of match turnaround and points distribution, and we're going to keep pushing towards that.

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

We capped at 30 to begin with for this exact same reason. In the future I can see us setting the cap higher because we hit 30 really quickly in some events and the waitlist shuffle was time consuming. 40 really is the magic number in terms of match turnaround and points distribution, and we're going to keep pushing towards that.

If/when inter-district play is introduced then maintaining consistent event size across Districts becomes important. The difference between going to the smallest 2 events in PNW and the largest two in MAR is just over 12 points! That's more points than almost 30% of teams scored in the inaugural New England district event.