New Championship Layout 2015

[BSV]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Yep. This whole 'Olympic Village' feel means we need dedicated, all-program opening and closing ceremonies where the whole FIRST Family is together and celebrating the season. From an FRC perspective it shouldn't change much, but I think it'll make a world of a difference in making FLL and FTC feel included.

Our FLL team (first time at champs) had a tremendous time sharing the pits with FRC/FTC/Jr.FLL (wandering around, meeting people, trading swag), so in that sense I think that the non-FRC teams are going to really miss out on the whole massive scale of the thing as well as seeing the incredible FRC teams that they can aspire to be like. The schedule is so busy that they would never have been able to visit the FRC pits were they not in the same building.

On the other hand, if they are able to double or triple the number of FLL and FTC teams invited, then it is an all-around win, so long as there are other ways to keep the programs connected.

[SpaceBiz]

This might seem crazy, but hang with me on this

A lot of people seem to be anticipating 8 divisions. I don't personally think there is enough space to host 8 separate events because of the fact the noise from the neighboring events would become a problem.

Someone mentioned earlier that we could run two fields side by side... but then you have seating problems, and if you assume 150 per division, getting to know all of those teams becomes hard and makes scouting too hard. (Although it would be more fun)

Ultimately this is the solution, but it would need to be done so there is more separation between the two fields.

Change last years divisions..... to leauges. (insted of curie division it gets referred to as curie leauge)

The two fields making up the curie leauge are now referred to as divisions of the curie leauge.

Right Curie Division, Left Curie Division

East Curie Division, West Curie Division

Upper Curie, Lower Curie

Red Curie, Blue Curie

(you see how there are many more possibilities)

The teams play a total of 10, 11, 12, or 16 matches before elimination.(depending on rank and new selection for worlds) 10 Against their own division and max of 6 "mid selection" against the other.

The first round of the selection process occurs before the "mid selection" matches. (The number one and two teams for the elim. alliances will play together for the six interleauge matches before elim.)

The next 8 ranked teams get to play two games of the 6 while the next 30 only get one. The selection process than resumes, as if the matches never occurred.(followed by an extra round of selection for an alternate team in the event of a malfunction) Although unlikley, a team that did not make mid selection matches can still be selected in the alternate seed.

The only significance of mid selection matches is that record for these matches determine the elim seeding, not the pre selection seed of the alliance captian.

The divisions than play a elimination bracket determining the team that makes Einstein (Two teams from each leauge)

In Einstein, the two divisions making up the leauges play each other first, leaving only one from each leauge for the semifinals.

I know I said team instead of alliance like 20 times, and I know there is probably a good reason why this won't work, but it is good to switch things up, to keep them interesting.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

This might seem crazy, but hang with me on this

I like the idea of alternating plays between adjacent fields. The audience gets (almost) non-stop action, teams get more plays, and to some extent you can re-use volunteers (ex. non-head refs and field reset). Still certainly more than 1x the number of volunteers you need to run 4 fields, but hopefully less than 2x. Keeping the number of teams per division down is also good for letting more teams make elims, albeit with a shallower pool of talent in each division. Observation: With ~64-75 team divisions at a World Championship, you run the risk of having very watered down eliminations unless you eliminate the serpentine draft (even if it is just for this event).

The idea of playing a bunch of extra inter-league matches between two separate alliance selection periods...not a fan. Teams would have some really mixed incentives during the intervening matches, and it adds complexity without addressing any real problem.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Observation: With ~64-75 team divisions at a World Championship, you run the risk of having very watered down eliminations unless you eliminate the serpentine draft (even if it is just for this event).

I disagree. In Archimedes this year there were EASILY 10-15 more teams that had eliminations-caliber robots that weren't on any alliance for eliminations- and that's with every team picking their own backup robot. so that makes 32+15 or 47 teams in the division with eliminations-caliber robots.
47/100= 30/64-35.25/75
30-36 teams in the division with eliminations-worthy robots. That sounds just right to me.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by SpaceBiz

...if you assume 150 per division, getting to know all of those teams becomes hard and makes scouting too hard. (Although it would be more fun)

The difficulty of scouting and getting to know teams should not be a primary concern when deciding how the new setup will work. The 3v3 matchup already makes scouting "too hard" for many (most) of the teams out there, but I would be rather annoyed if 3v3 matches were changed to 2v2 just because of this. "Getting to know" all of the teams in your division at championships is near to impossible already, and if anyone has done this, they still have 300+ other FRC teams to get to know.

[M. Lillis]

Kind of off topic, but still in line with the discussion: why wouldn't they adopt an IRI style draft for elims at CMP? It would make it way more competitive if the draft order was 1-8, 1-8, 8-1. The 8th seeded alliance would still have a shot, seeing as so many good teams don't make elims.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by M. Lillis

Kind of off topic, but still in line with the discussion: why wouldn't they adopt an IRI style draft for elims at CMP? It would make it way more competitive if the draft order was 1-8, 1-8, 8-1, 1-8. The 8th seeded alliance would still have a shot, seeing as so many good teams don't make elims.

Because it already WAS 1-8, 1-8 (no picked 4th team), and blowouts were common in QFs. Trust me. If they liked it as that, they wouldn't have changed it. "Still have a shot" as in "you still have a shot at having a world high score set against you"...

The year after they made the change, you guys benefitted by being able to be part of a very good #8 alliance, and take it all the way to a World Championship. I don't think that would have been the case two years prior, even with the same game and same robots.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I disagree. In Archimedes this year there were EASILY 10-15 more teams that had eliminations-caliber robots that weren't on any alliance for eliminations- and that's with every team picking their own backup robot. so that makes 32+15 or 47 teams in the division with eliminations-caliber robots.
47/100= 30/64-35.25/75
30-36 teams in the division with eliminations-worthy robots. That sounds just right to me.

You will inevitably lower the bar across the board, meaning with a division that is inherently weaker (if you are adding any more teams to CMP, I'm going to wager the new average ability of a robot at the 400+n level will be lower than the average ability of a machine at 400 teams). Just like with the new college football playoff where there will be a 5th place team that wants to get in instead of a third place team, you could argue that any number of robots "could have made eliminations" if you are lowering the overall average ability of teams in the division.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

You will inevitably lower the bar across the board, meaning with a division that is inherently weaker (if you are adding any more teams to CMP, I'm going to wager the new average ability of a robot at the 400+n level will be lower than the average ability of a machine at 400 teams). Just like with the new college football playoff where there will be a 5th place team that wants to get in instead of a third place team, you could argue that any number of robots "could have made eliminations" if you are lowering the overall average ability of teams in the division.

I don't think a drastic lowering of event quality is inevitable in the slightest. The assumption your post rides on is that we're letting the 1st through 400th best teams in the world into Champs. We're not. It's really more like 1st through 150th, then a more random distribution with a concentration near the bottom for rookies and weaker second picks. If we allowed more teams into the Championship that were in the middle tier, it's possible that the average strength of a team in a division could go up.

Also, what Kevin was saying is that there were another 10-15 teams that were almost identical in performance to those picked - these are teams that, if picked, could have won. He is not arguing that any team "could have made eliminations" if the bar was lowered - he's saying for a bar at its current height, fewer teams are making it into elims than there are teams which can clear the bar, so to speak.

[R2D2DOC]

Hello,

Please see attached. . . . Just an idea. Gotta fit eight fields in there !!

Thanks

[M. Lillis]

Originally Posted by R2D2DOC

Hello,

Please see attached. . . . Just an idea. Gotta fit eight fields in there !!

Thanks

I don't think that would work well for spectators. Fields will definitely have to be where the pits were this year (think: 2011). Also, they could just use Einstein for divisional matches and just give it a once over before actual Einstein matches are played. It would eliminate one extra field.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by R2D2DOC

Hello,

Please see attached. . . . Just an idea. Gotta fit eight fields in there !!

Thanks

That would be bad for spectators. An end view isn't very good. Also, field 3 would be blocking the tunnel between the convention center and dome.

[BBray_T1296]

Wouldn't 8 fields (whether 8 divisions or dual fields) create roughly 2x more traffic in the tunnel, down the robot lanes, and everywhere else? Is there capacity for that? Einstein would be a nightmare as well, just because 500/600/800 teams are there instead of the typical 400 all fighting for seats, even if Einstein were in a more practical spot. Many, many more teams sounds like a logistical nightmare to me

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

Wouldn't 8 fields (whether 8 divisions or dual fields) create roughly 2x more traffic in the tunnel, down the robot lanes, and everywhere else? Is there capacity for that? Einstein would be a nightmare as well, just because 500/600/800 teams are there instead of the typical 400 all fighting for seats, even if Einstein were in a more practical spot. Many, many more teams sounds like a logistical nightmare to me

There's the possibility of adding some robot lanes through the other lower entrance to the dome, but that would mean moving more humans to the upper entrances. For Einstein, depending on layout, it might be best to have a couple of the field screens staying up and on to provide a better view for teams sitting near those fields. (Call it last two to finish have to delay getting their screens down, just to make it easy.)

[caboosev11]

I would thnik that they're just trying to make things a bit less "cramped." However, even so, this could mean a larger size playing field.