[FRC Blog] 2015 FIRST Championship (and beyond) Eligibility

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by waialua359

HOF teams can now generate a wild card spot.
Does this mean that at every event we attend (most likely 3), we generate a wild card each time?

Only if you win the event.

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Only if you win the event.

Or get Engineering Inspiration

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

Or get Engineering Inspiration

Another nice part is that if they're finalists they don't eat the wildcard spot from their alliance partner either.

[waialua359]

OK. I just reread and get it.

In the recent past,
we won the 1st event, no wild card generated.
we won the 2nd event, it generated a wild card because we won the 1st event.
we won the 3rd event, it generated a wild card because we won the 2nd event.

Based on this year's rule,
if we win the 1st event, now a wild card is generated for being a HOF team.

[AlexD744]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I am not so sure about the RAS change though, I get why but how would you feel if you were a Rookie Team and get the Rookie Inspiration Award, and then there is no Rookie All Star, it is almost like the Regional telling you: "Aren't you cute playing in the sandbox, now stay off the jungle gym that is for the big boys" . Like I said, I get why just I think there are going to be some hurt feelings from rookies

EDIT:
Interesting to note that under the new system the entire finalist alliance at both Orlando and South Florida in 2013 would have qualified for championships

I've been on several judging teams, and sometimes there are only a few rookies at an event and none of them meet the criteria that the award describes. However, the precedent is to give out all the awards possible (except judge's award), so that's what happens. I don't see this new standard affecting a lot of places, but I think it'll be good to have a 'from the top' standard in the rare cases that it's needed.

Awesome note about Florida finals though, hopefully that continues as 744 seems to have gotten good at making finals lol

[JVN]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Based on this year's rule,
if we win the 1st event, now a wild card is generated for being a HOF team.

The word "earned" makes me wonder about this. It depends on how you squint at it. In the past we were told that being pre-qualified didn't count as having "earned" a spot to Championship. Is that still true?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by JVN

The word "earned" makes me wonder about this. It depends on how you squint at it. In the past we were told that being pre-qualified didn't count as having "earned" a spot to Championship. Is that still true?

As an example, if a Hall of Fame team (who is pre-qualified for Championship before the season starts) ends up on the Winning Alliance, that will now generate a Wild Card slot for the Finalist Alliance.

So according to the blog, pre-qualified teams do create spots.

[jvriezen]

I mostly like the changes but have an observation:

It seems simplistic to get one waitlist chance in the hat per year not attending champs. Consider that you get 1 chance in 2015. If you don't make it, ignoring more non-wait list slots the next year) your chances of getting selected off the wait list doubles to two chance the following year. However, if you still don't make it, your chances only increase by 50% (from 2 to 3) the next year. As each year passes, your odds go up by a lesser percentage. Combine that with increasing numbers on the wait list and your chances might actually go down at some point. Should the scale between years not attending and chances given be non-linear? I'll admit, I'm biased, as our team has never been to champs (come close several times!) since our rookie 2008 year.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by JVN

The word "earned" makes me wonder about this. It depends on how you squint at it. In the past we were told that being pre-qualified didn't count as having "earned" a spot to Championship. Is that still true?

Wondering as well.
The whole pre-qualified example really caught my attention.

To be honest, with championships increasing to a 600 capacity, I would much rather see all winners and finalists being eligible and not having to go through all of this trouble. This keeps it consistent for all regionals.

As mentioned earlier, going to a later regional or to a regional where more pre-qualified teams are present, will have advantages.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

Is he talking about Hall of Fame teams losing their auto-bid, or just saying that the current system will be in flux? I'd hate to see that happen, but that was my impression from reading it.

Other than that, excellent changes overall, especially with wild cards.

I think if he was talking about this, he would have said it. Frank doesn't beat around the bush. I would interpret this statement as a blanket statement that the qualification criteria overall may see changes.

Originally Posted by cjl2625

I like the new wildcard rules.
So if you are an original and sustaining team, attend 3 regionals, win all of them, and also manage to win a Chairman's and an EI, do you generate a total of 8 wildcards?

You would generate five or six. 3x regional winner, 1x CA, 1x EI. If you won EI at both of your other events, there would be a sixth wild card.

Originally Posted by Patrick Flynn

I'm wondering if there is anyone out there that will take these new rules into consideration when picking alliances?
Would anyone decline to stay on the opposite side of the bracket from a powerful 1 seed? Will competitions now be a battle for the finals with winning the event not being as important?
What does everything think?*

*i don't want to debate the ethics on making this decision.

It was an issue before, and I honestly think it will be slightly less of an issue now. The creation of additional wild cards and the inclusion of pre-qualified teams means that the first pick of an alliance now has a much greater chance of attending the Championship. If you play through various wild card scenarios from last season, you'll see that the first pick of the finalist alliance gets invited far more often.

Take for example this year's FLR. Say through some miracle, the 341-2791-4930 alliance made it to the finals against the other side of the bracket, 3015-340-3044. Under the old rules, if the 340 alliance won, one wildcard would be generated through 340's prior CA win, which would be "spent" on 341, a prequalified team. Under the new rules, not only would that wild card be passed down to 2791, 340 would generate a second wild card by winning EI at Finger Lakes. (This wild card would be "wasted" as 4930 had already won Rookie All Star)

There's also more opportunity to qualify at earlier events. Take TVR, a first event for nearly every team attending. When 20, 1126, and 229 won the event, no wild cards were generated. However, under the new rules, 20 would generate a wild card upon winning, allowing team 250 the chance to attend the Championship.

I'm very happy with this change.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

This is very true, our alliance at Chesapeake this season would have gone to the Championship even if we had lost in the finals since the other alliance all had already qualified at previous events.

Not quite true. Our alliance captain and second pick had qualified through winning and R.A.S, respectively, at previous regionals. Under the new rules, 1741 would have qualified from 1629's Win+RCA. Had the Finals matches gone the other way, 2 wildcards would have been generated in both systems. The only difference is that 1629's RCA would have pushed the wildcard down to your 2nd pick robot.

[Bryce Paputa]

Last year Michigan had 10.3% (329 out of 3195 according to the first website) of of all teams, and I saw some semi official prediction somewhere that predicted much more growth next year. If we get to the point where 10.7% of all teams are in Michigan, then all 64 teams at MSC would qualify for worlds under this blog's rules. Even if the percentage stayed the same and 60 or so qualified, I could see this as being an issue. The obvious solution is get a bigger state championship, but EMU's convocation center probably can't hold any more teams. Are there any larger possible venues? Maybe two separate state championship events? I guess we'll see pretty soon when they release the dates for registration.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by waialua359

To be honest, with championships increasing to a 600 capacity, I would much rather see all winners and finalists being eligible and not having to go through all of this trouble.

That's assuming that each division would have 100 teams.
I wouldn't be surprised to see each division with 80 teams in 2015 with an increase in the number of matches played.

This allows for an eventual increase to 100 teams per division over the next few years to accommodate growth.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Bryce Paputa

Last year Michigan had 10.3% (329 out of 3195 according to the first website) of of all teams, and I saw some semi official prediction somewhere that predicted much more growth next year. If we get to the point where 10.7% of all teams are in Michigan, then all 64 teams at MSC would qualify for worlds under this blog's rules. Even if the percentage stayed the same and 60 or so qualified, I could see this as being an issue. The obvious solution is get a bigger state championship, but EMU's convocation center probably can't hold any more teams. Are there any larger possible venues? Maybe two separate state championship events? I guess we'll see pretty soon when they release the dates for registration.

Where'd you get 3,195 FRC teams last year? It was my understanding that there were just under 3,000 for the 2014 season. And even if Michigan grows more next year, other geographic areas might grow as well.

[Knufire]

The search page on usfirst.org (http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-on) has some inconsistencies, teams that never competitive, things like that.

Navid Shafta of GameSense/1983 has this spreadsheet up that seems to have more accurate numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...H_E/edit#gid=0

MI was 10.22% of FRC in 2014, having 277 of 2710 teams. This would be 61 spots with a 600 team championship.