Frank Answers Fridays: Expanded Championship Qualification

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'd be envious. When I was in FL It was a 1.5 hour drive to the nearest event. But a 5+ hour drive to the next one (once the SF regional came into existence, prior to that it was 7+ to get to Atlanta)

That being said, Utah regional is easily in the range of my car from you... so, by your metric it's close. (Vegas is JUST outside the range)

Thanks Andrew, it sounds like you have the perspective of the challenge that some of the teams in the "wasteland" face...

[pntbll1313]

Originally Posted by mwmac

However, I would posit that tripling the team population in any state within 3 or 4 years would raise serious concerns about team sustainability. Putting that aside, let's examine some facts as we consider your challenge. 23 years elapsed before Indiana reached the 60 team milestone. Idaho has taken 10 years to reach 19 teams. Applying Indiana's historic rate of growth would require almost 16 years for Idaho to add 41 teams, (that is an awfully long tunnel).

In Minnesota there have definitely been sustainability issues. Both with volunteer base and sponsorship dollars. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm wrong, but I think Minnesota went from 2 active teams in 2006 to over 180 in 2013.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by pntbll1313

In Minnesota there have definitely been sustainability issues. Both with volunteer base and sponsorship dollars. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm wrong, but I think Minnesota went from 2 active teams in 2006 to over 180 in 2013.

That's correct. And they did so in a, surprisingly, sustainable manner. I went through and checked teams that stopped competing in MN 2006 - 2010 (2 - 180)...

2006 Teams 2
2007 Lost 0
2008 Lost 0
2009 Lost 3
2010 Lost 3


I'm sure I could continue to count but the gist of it is that they haven't lost a ton of teams. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how successful these teams are for various measures.

[Boe]

Originally Posted by pntbll1313

In Minnesota there have definitely been sustainability issues. Both with volunteer base and sponsorship dollars. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm wrong, but I think Minnesota went from 2 active teams in 2006 to over 180 in 2013.

186 in 2014 I believe. Also before Green Machine and the Banner Bots in 2006 there was Team 10 The Red Knights from St. Louis Park who competed from 1998 to 2002. Everyone tends to forget that there was a team before 2006.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by pntbll1313

In Minnesota there have definitely been sustainability issues. Both with volunteer base and sponsorship dollars. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm wrong, but I think Minnesota went from 2 active teams in 2006 to over 180 in 2013.

Fantastic job on team growth and retention! Please note that the economic and population disparities between MN and ID could be, I believe, a key driver in an area's ability to grow/retain teams: 2009: MN GSP $323b vs ID GSP $54b; population: MN 5.4m vs ID 1.59m; population density: MN 67/sq mi vs ID 19/sq mi.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by mwmac

However, I would posit that tripling the team population in any state within 3 or 4 years would raise serious concerns about team sustainability.

To address this single statement, as I don't have much to say concerning sparsely populated area, which MN certainly isn't... Team sustainability is certainly a serious concern, for all regions. It doesn't matter if your region has had the same teams for the past 10 years, or if you added 50 new teams last year - there are so many reasons teams stop that you have to constantly be addressing sustainability and focusing on what the teams in your area need to keep going.

That said, rapid growth does not mean you have sustainability issues. MN is a great example:
Teams in MN by year (assuming I didn't miss any):

Year     2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014
New         1     1    14    38    30    26    27    23    29    14
Dropped     0     0     0     0     3     3     1     1     2     9
Total       1     2    16    54    81   104   130   152   179   184

As you can see, over the past decade we've had very rapid growth with very little attrition. It takes a lot of work to make happen, but the results are amazing!

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

To address this single statement, as I don't have much to say concerning sparsely populated area, which MN certainly isn't... Team sustainability is certainly a serious concern, for all regions. It doesn't matter if your region has had the same teams for the past 10 years, or if you added 50 new teams last year - there are so many reasons teams stop that you have to constantly be addressing sustainability and focusing on what the teams in your area need to keep going.

That said, rapid growth does not mean you have sustainability issues. MN is a great example:
Teams in MN by year (assuming I didn't miss any):

Year     2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014
New         1     1    14    38    30    26    27    23    29    14
Dropped     0     0     0     0     3     3     1     1     2     9
Total       1     2    16    54    81   104   130   152   179   184

As you can see, over the past decade we've had very rapid growth with very little attrition. It takes a lot of work to make happen, but the results are amazing!

Was there any particular reason for the large drop in 2014? Or is it just coincidence?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Year     2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013  2014
New         1     1    14    38    30    26    27    23    29    14
Dropped     0     0     0     0     3     3     1     1     2     9
Total       1     2    16    54    81   104   130   152   179   184

Dunno if your "New" numbers are correct but the "Dropped" numbers jive are exact with my counts.


The thing that concerns me is the lack of success that MN has had on the larger stage. While that isn't exactly the best metric for team quality it's, I believe, an important metric to look at and analyze. Have regions that've grown slower had more competitive success? Have there been regions that've grown the same way but have had more competitive success? How has "team churn" related to competitive success?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Was there any particular reason for the large drop in 2014? Or is it just coincidence?

I don't think there was a single big reason, just a number of small ones that added up. To give you an idea of the breakdown of the teams that dropped... 1 would have been in their second year, 1 in their third, 2 in their 4th, 3 in their fifth, 1 in their 6th, and 1 in their 7th. It's not like we had a bunch of rookies who just didn't come back.

Maybe the biggest was the explosive growth we saw in FTC last year - some FRC teams from smaller schools dropped down to FTC, seeing it as a better fit for their school/finances. We just about doubled the number of FTC teams last year, and from what I hear we might be doubling again this year! The rapid growth of this program means more local area events and support, which makes it a much more attractive and viable program for many schools.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The thing that concerns me is the lack of success that MN has had on the larger stage. While that isn't exactly the best metric for team quality it's, I believe, an important metric to look at and analyze. Have regions that've grown slower had more competitive success? Have there been regions that've grown the same way but have had more competitive success? How has "team churn" related to competitive success?

I don't know about other regions, but the big stage is pretty hard to get onto! Looking simply at Einstein appearances, MN has had 0 in the past decade (I'm not going to go back to team's 6 or 10 to see how we did in the 90's). However, we can also look at Einstein appearances based on team age - 1816 is currently our oldest team. Before that, we had 1623 through 2008. Simply put, a majority of Einstein teams are older than MN teams. From what I can tell looking through the past few years, at least 75% of the teams on Einstein have been older than the oldest active MN team!

Looking at it on a division elim's level would take more time, but we have made strides the past couple of years with multiple teams making it into division elims (and in 2013 making to division finals!). From a quick glance, I would say this past year close to 50% of teams in division elims were older teams than any MN team.

It's hard to judge competitive success when the upper levels of the competition are dominated by older teams. Even though my team has been around for 8 years, we still have things to learn, and ways the team wants to grow and change. Maybe that never changes, but the older a team gets the more stuff they get figured out, and the more experience they have to rely on. Of course, there are always exceptions. There are always going to be young teams that show up out of nowhere and do great, and there are always going to be old teams that seem to fall apart from one season to the next. But I don't think that has anything to do with regional growth.

[Lil' Lavery]

Perhaps I'm missinthing here, why do teams from these sparsely populated areas feel the district model will actually be better for them? If anything, it will increase their travel costs further. A district structure isn't going to ensure they have a local event to attend. Districts in Michigan were first introduced in 2009, and 2014 was the first year there was a district event in the upper peninsula. For areas with low team populations (Idaho and West Virginia, for instance), it's incredibly unlikely that they would gain multiple district options within a close range. The end result is that teams will then have to travel long distances two or three times per season, rather than just once. While certain teams in these regions already do that, most in Idaho do not (and it was a 50/50 blend among West Virginia's four teams this past season).

While Indiana is showing you don't have to have the 100+ team population to start a district system, the four active teams in West Virginia or the fourteen active teams in Idaho is not enough to cut it under any FRC competition structure we've seen so far. Lumping these areas in with neighboring districts still forces significant travel, and now more than one time per season. Until there's team population growth in these areas, new events are unlikely to be created there regardless of the system used.

[nicholsjj]

MN has had some pretty good big events in the last three years. 2826 had a top 5 robot in 2012 and they were Division Finalist as the one seed, and IRI champion. 2175 was a division finalist in 2013 losing to the world champs and they preformed well at IRI this year as an alliance captain.

[Boe]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

MN has had some pretty good big events in the last three years. 2826 had a top 5 robot in 2012 and they were Division Finalist as the one seed, and IRI champion. 2175 was a division finalist in 2013 losing to the world champs and they preformed well at IRI this year as an alliance captain.

Wave Robotics is a Wisconsin Team. Also to my knowledge 4 minnesota teams have been division finalists 1816 (2007), 2175 (2013), 2169 (2013, as second seed captain), 3747 (2011)