A comment about alliance selection in off season events

[MARS_James]

I have had a very long week so sorry for the late response

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I see the off season events as a different type of event than the Regionals and World Championships.

We agree here like I said in my original message offseason are more laid back and fun so we are on the same page.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

And I see FIRST and FRC as MUCH different than the NFL, NCAA or even the National Federation Of State High School Associations. To put is simply we are NOT playing a sport like any other.

I still agree with you though I am unsure what part of my message brought this on.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

The primary purpose of FIRST is to build enthusiasm for STEM and related educational activities. The primary (or even secondary) purpose is NOT to promote competition or entertainment. Focusing solely on competition rules and winning competitions can go to far and detract from the primary purpose of FIRST. First and foremost, we MUST always encourage as many students (and mentors) as possible to participate in an activity that directly leads to improved STEM education which in turn will lead to improve economic outcomes not only for the involved students but also for the national and global economy.

Once again no disagreement, still curious as to why I am being paraphrased the credo of an organization that, according to our delphi profiles, I have been involved with more then twice as long as you have.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

If you're not on board with that concept yet, I suggest digging much deeper into the principles of FIRST and why Dean Kamen started this program.

Fixed how to spell Dean's last name for you. Trust me I get this concept, and I have been awarded for it multiple times by FIRST, I apologize if some people see my response thus far, or further on as personal attacks or belittlement but I do not like to be demeaned or patronized especially relating to what a group that has shaped my entire adult life means.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

That said, that means that we need to consider during the off season how might we increases the involvement and enthusiasm of potential new participants. Many students and even teams are new to FIRST in the fall before the Kickoff. Why not change the rules or at least the informal agreements about alliance selections as one way?

I think here is where I will stop agreeing with your statements and begin directly disagreeing. Offseason events are NOT official events. Offseasons are independently run events that vary wildly from each other. IRI changed (or fixed) major rules about this game, Panther Prowl added a end game, TRI had a very different way of doing alliance selections, you will never get ALL offseasons to agree to any rule unless explicitly stated in the manual, and even then an event can change the rule. I will come back to this later as I get further into my response but I need to tackle a few more parts before coming back.

You bring up that we need to think of ways to increase involvement of future participants: At our offseasons we had a majority rookie drive team for our second robot, and many other Florida teams also ran with new students, to show them how exciting not only watching but actually competing with a robot can be. One could actually argue that your idea of inclusion has a bigger implication on the regular season, so following your idea of getting more teams to compete, MORT and MORT Beta, as well as Goodrich and More Martians, should gracefully bow out every year of competing in eliminations as they are quite literally taking up a shot for someone other team to attend Championship.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I like the rule of not being able to draft your 2nd robot unless none other are available

Now we get into a logistical/logical problem my team this year built triplets alongside 1251, two competition robots and a practice robot. We took the practice robot to offseason events, should both our teams be unable to select that practice robot or only 179 because we paid for it to be there?

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

A second approach is to have a rule that if a team was in the Top 8 going into the last match and they lose, then they can't be drafted in the first round, or alternatively, by the top 4 alliances. That will eliminate any real benefits from trying to game the rankings.

What if they legitimately lose? Should a team be punished for being outplayed, breaking down, or just legitimately not syncing with a randomly selected alliance? Or are we now working under the assumption that every team who is in the top 8 near the end of a competition is legitimately one of the top 8 robots at the competition, because anyone who has seen these events play out know that that is not true.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think we need to keep in mind the spirit of what we're trying to achieve in FRC. We're not trying to build the De Le Salle football machine. We're trying to educate the best engineers, scientists and other professionals and technical workers that we can.

And here is where I come back to my point above, one of the first things I learned when working on a real world engineering project in a real company is that engineering is a business, now that seems like common sense but sometimes people forget that. If you are going to make a product you are constantly competing to make it better, cheaper, prettier, lighter, and/or cooler then the guy(or company) next to you. Why do I bring this up? because as I said all these off seasons are different and run by different people, if they want to change the rules let teams decide if they want to pay to be there, I even said as much in my original comment. For example if any rules were applied to a second robot to make it different from a normal robot, I wouldn't bring it, I don't want the new students to get confused as to what will happen come the real season, and I don't want to deal with explaining to my students that despite their hard work they have to be segregated and applied different rules to them.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. Individual teams can't make the decision at these events on how they select alliances that will best promote the goals of FIRST. It's the prerogative of FIRST, regional directors and event organizers who work with FIRST. It's as though you're saying that each NFL team should get to choose what rules they want to play by.

Are you kidding me? Are you honestly suggesting that teams when making alliances should think about what promotes the goals of FIRST? There is a very good reason as to why their is 2 awards independent of the tournament that veteran teams can receive for the promoting the goals of FIRST and they are announced AFTER the winners, because they are more important. And yes believe it or not each NFL team does get to choose at least what conditions they play by, or have you not noticed that we have stadiums and domes?

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I won't get into the debate since I think pretty much all points have already been stated multiple times but I don't think FIRST should be setting the standards for off seasons. Those are individually managed by offseason coordinators and therefore they should be able to play with whatever rules they want. NFL may make rules for football, but that doesn't mean me and my friends are going to play by exactly those rules.

+1