(Lack of) Value in the Regional Model

[cglrcng]

Kevin,

You noticed the same thing I noticed, and wrote about in 3 different threads yesterday. You approched it from the value to a team paying in the per match angle, wherein I looked at it from the angle of comparisons using QPA or other points values (and how it made all the data collected really squed and virtually worthless), to use in any real comparisons of bot to bot across all of the events, or all of FIRST.

We are both looking at the same thing as being wrong, only what had value to each is different....(I was going at it differently...The data value was important to me, and the teams money was to you). I looked at your posting and I fully agree, that both are equally are important!

I don't see anyone changing it this year, but the approach to the avail. data and how the existing rules of this game, and new QPA data collection and application to rankings affect alliance building & comparisons accross all of FRC and at your specific events competing at & switching from win/loss/tie to QPA seeding & round robin playoffs format affects actual attempted alliance building using the data collected alone affects that.

This must be recognized early by all teams, so they can compensate for that junk data. Using eyes more than the avail. data solves that issue I concluded.

Thank you for going about it differently (and choosing the $$$$ value per match angle of view), as it added more and made me look at the same problem from a different angle combining the 2.

Now, how do we get the built in huge disparity (8~13 Q Matches), depending on what event you attend), changed for the future?

Though simple solution, is YOU choose events you compete in very wisely I guess, until the disparity is changed to a level playing field (I don't even see how FIRST even begins to attempt to change it), short of assigning the events you can participate in (and I hope that is never an option), or changing the program format by adding or reducing days/time of the event program (I also don't see the show length being changed either), so it appears to me, the Q Rounds number fits the available robots/teams competing at that event, to the show schedule length, and some math formula to get each an even amount of Q rounds.

Can't change it this year of course...But, if you want more value per match, go to Waterloo where 13 Q matches are held and fewer robots (though ask anyone not on that steamrolling super scoring winning alliance, that left everyone else in the virtual and real dust today, and they will probably tell you they wish that they had driven to Virginia instead I'll bet).

They received more value per match for the entry $$$$'s (less for the robot build hrs. and $$$$'s spent), and a higher QPA average in the avail. record stats due to the QPA Inflation accross the board because a couple to few stellar stars added value to QPA of each team present, then had 13 Q Matches to add that value under the new existing format & rules.

Thanks for making me look at something differently that before this weekend I really never paid much attention to.

[rich2202]

FWIW: I heard that it costs roughly $60,000 to put on a District Event at a high school vs. roughly $250,000 to put on a Regional event at an arena.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by rich2202

FWIW: I heard that it costs roughly $60,000 to put on a District Event at a high school vs. roughly $250,000 to put on a Regional event at an arena.

District events (at least in MAR) are cheaper than that. According to this document the budget for all six 2014 MAR districts was $135,000, or $22,500 per event.

MAR got $111,000 from FIRST that year, and raised the other $345,000 through sponsors. So only only 24.3% of MAR's budget is from registration fees. Interestingly enough, 24.3% of the average cost of a district event is only $5,500. So MAR runs an entire district event with less than the registration fee of one rookie.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by cglrcng

Now, how do we get the built in huge disparity (8~13 Q Matches depending on what event you attend), changed for the future?

I think it's actually even simpler.

I suspect that Frank and his crew are aware of this thread. And I further suspect that they may be beginning to discuss how to deal with this.


Here's where the differences lie between the compared events: Cycle Time (and available time for the "show"). Just to compare Virginia and Orlando...

VA: 7-minute cycle time, breaking for just over an hour at lunch (1 hour, 5 minutes), ending at 5:20 PM and 11:34 AM with qual matches on Friday and Saturday respectively.
Orlando: 6-minute cycle time, breaking for one hour at lunch, ending at 5:45 PM and 12:11 PM respectively.

What that means is that Orlando used a faster cycle time, snuck in two extra matches before Friday lunch (ON TOP OF the 3 matches ahead of VA they already were with the faster cycle), added another 7 matches in before ending the day on Friday, and ran an extra 45 minutes or so on Saturday before quals ended to get more matches in.

Incidentally, Los Angeles, running a 7-minute cycle, did 99 matches with 6 teams, 9 matches/team average. Again, slightly longer day than VA, (L.A. ended Friday at a hair past 6 PM) but with a couple of "extra" teams.


So there is some room for variance built into the system. All you gotta do is go "hey, we need a tighter cycle time" and/or run a little longer, and hey presto, 1-2 more matches/team. It's not that hard. So it's a really simple fix, comparatively, and we don't even need to see it.

All HQ needs to do is to tell the FTAs to "maximize matches/team, and run long if you need to", and ideally give them a event size vs plays/team range that they're looking for (60+, 9 matches down to <40, 12 matches). CD might never see that directive. But if it's there, then there's a good chance it will be followed.

[cadandcookies]

Kevin, I completely agree with you-- the disparities between large and small regionals, and especially regionals and districts, are becoming painfully obvious. I hope you're successful speeding up the transition to districts in Wisconsin-- maybe that will help push Minnesota in the right direction too.

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Originally Posted by EricH

VA: 7-minute cycle time, breaking for just over an hour at lunch (1 hour, 5 minutes), ending at 5:20 PM and 11:34 AM with qual matches on Friday and Saturday respectively.
Orlando: 6-minute cycle time, breaking for one hour at lunch, ending at 5:45 PM and 12:11 PM respectively.

SNIP

All HQ needs to do is to tell the FTAs to "maximize matches/team, and run long if you need to", and ideally give them a event size vs plays/team range that they're looking for (60+, 9 matches down to <40, 12 matches). CD might never see that directive. But if it's there, then there's a good chance it will be followed.

Thanks for the data. This is one of the things I'm after. Who decides cycle time (I believe its the FTA) and how is it decided? I've been involved with events in the past that ran a 7 minute cycle until lunch on Friday and switched to a 6 minute cycle for the remainder since everyone by that point should know how the field operates. I figured Orlando had a shorter cycle - after experiencing the log jam of the field this weekend, I'm really surprised they achieved a 6 minute cycle and were pretty much on schedule. We were continually being hounded to move faster while stuck behind 2 other robots exiting the field as they reconfigured to transport config. I think this year's game is an anomaly for scheduling because of the transport config and I hope that those words are never mentioned in an FRC manual ever again.

One other thing that occurred at WI - the quals finished pretty much on schedule and alliance selections commenced immediately after. Selections were finished at about 12:15 with playoffs scheduled to 1:30 according to all published schedules. It was announced that playoffs would begin at 1:00 instead, thus reducing planning time, nourishment time for drivers/pit crew, and potentially causing guests who were told "come for the playoffs at 1:30 - they're the best!" to miss out on some action. Not a big deal, but I'd rather play more quals later than start elims earlier.

While I had not intended for this thread to become a "praise districts" thread, I'm glad to see there are facts coming out on both sides.

Rich2202: I don't know about districts, but the cost of a regional event is completely funded by the regional planning committee and none of the cost is covered by registration fees (I am on the WI planning committee). I heard at one point that district events DO get a portion of the registration fees (or rather, the district as a whole does to then use as it sees fit), but someone more knowledgeable than can probably clarify.

[Jacob Paikoff]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kolodziej

Thanks for the data. This is one of the things I'm after. Who decides cycle time (I believe its the FTA) and how is it decided? I've been involved with events in the past that ran a 7 minute cycle until lunch on Friday and switched to a 6 minute cycle for the remainder since everyone by that point should know how the field operates. I figured Orlando had a shorter cycle - after experiencing the log jam of the field this weekend, I'm really surprised they achieved a 6 minute cycle and were pretty much on schedule. We were continually being hounded to move faster while stuck behind 2 other robots exiting the field as they reconfigured to transport config. I think this year's game is an anomaly for scheduling because of the transport config and I hope that those words are never mentioned in an FRC manual ever again.

Emphasis Mine

Running on schedule is a relative term, what the match results don't report is what time that match actually took place. Orlando ran 6 minute cycles so that everyone could get 10 matches. Friday morning matches ended at 12:45 and both Friday afternoon and Saturday morning ran about 30 minutes long. Despite the extended time I am glad that we committed to getting everyone as many matches as we could.

I agree with everything that's been said about the positives of districts. This is my first year in the district system and I really like it so far. I've been talking it up to everyone as I have been at regionals this season.

[tStano]

I am a senior on Kevin's team. I've driven at Northern Lights, Midwest, Championships and Milwaukee. I have never attended a district event.

What I really would like to understand and don't is what exactly happens to the money from registration fees for regionals.

Originally Posted by Kevin Kolodziej

The cost of a regional event is completely funded by the regional planning committee and none of the cost is covered by registration fees (I am on the WI planning committee).

I understand that building/transporting the field costs money and hiring staff costs money, but my understanding is that regionals are almost completely volunteer-run. I understand the kits cost money, but there's less and less useful material in there every year. This year, there were precious few pneumatic components(they were available in FIRST choice, but my understanding is that that stuff is donated). And its also my understanding is a lot of that KOP stuff is donated as well... most of the vouchers, 8 denso throttle motors, IGUS bag, etc.

I understand the new control system costs money, but I can buy one on andymark for 770$, not 5000$. And even after that, the second event cost is 4000$ extra, you can't even think about including the kit in that, and that money appears to go straight to FIRST.

It seems to me that it doesn't cost FIRST much more to run a regional than to run a district, so why are teams being charged more for them? I suppose it creates an incentive to go to districts, which works in some areas but not in others. What happens to the Turkish teams I meet at Midwest after the last affordable North American air hub goes to districts?(not saying the last affordable hub is Chicago, but the plan seems to be districts everywhere)

From what I've gleamed from team budgets, much of the travel budget isn't registration, but is instead travel and lodging. Sparsely populated areas with no events nearby can afford one travel event, and thats it. How can we expect them to afford to travel twice under the district model?

[brrian27]

I've never personally competed in districts, so I may be a bit biased. However, I loved the regional model when I competed in high school. My first year we only went to the Orlando Regional and did not make eliminations. The great venue in Orlando helps make it a special and inspiring event. It made it seem like a big deal and helped inspire me to want to be a big part of our team and perform on big stages.

Having smaller events may make sense economically or logistically, but they need to retain their inspiration, or else we're missing the point.

[George Nishimura]

Honestly if I was in the US/Canada I would agree that the value proposition from Districts (from the outside, never experienced it myself) seems higher.

However I (and like a growing handful of other teams) am not, and while I predict that districts are indeed the future, I hope you find a space for the outlier teams. We love competing in the US.

As an aside, we send ~35-40 people every year to a regional and there was only 8 guaranteed matches at NYC. Luckily I don't do any team finances, but I am definitely a proponent of more matches at events!

[JonA]

The way that value is calculated for this discussion is naive but I get the point. Sometimes a little hyperbole helps. It does lead many questions to be asked: What value is placed on the kit of parts and support from FIRST? What is the value of the time spent traveling? What value is placed on the quality of the competitive field and competitive match play? What value is placed on seeing, interacting, and playing with people and robots that are not in your area? What value is placed on turn-around time between matches to make a fix?

Clearly, it does not cost $5000 for a kit of parts and one fractional slice of a competition. It costs way more than that, especially in more expensive markets. These fees go to support all aspects of supporting the teams and competitions. It costs $4000 to go to a second regional because a second regional is a luxury and it costs a lot to support the infrastructure of the FRC system so the $4000 (from those that can afford it) subsidies the cost of all competitions that you attend, kit of parts, and the entire infrastructure. True, the money does not go to the Regional Planning Committee to put on the events...but it does go to things like creating the field, supporting the field, transporting the field, paying the engineers and support staff at FIRST, sending that staff to run and support your regional, your local Senior Mentor, and other costs of running FRC. So, it confuses the trees for the forest when it comes to saying that the registration money doesn't go to the regional...in my opinion.

Ahh...cycle time: my understanding, as a former scorekeeper, is that the cycle time is recommended by FRC but some leeway is afforded to FTAs to pick within a range. I am sure that many things go into this type of decision but I am not going to speculate. I will say that there is a sizable risk in picking a lower cycle time just like there is sizable risk in failing to allocate slack and buffer time in a project schedule.

Many people have mentioned the trade-offs between the Regional and District models. The comments from Lij2015, bobby5150, Sunshine, PayneTrain, Lil' Lavery, Bruceb, and Alan Anderson include most of my feelings on the matter. The one additional issue I see (that is a problem in some areas with regionals and many of the districts) is that there is a lot of inbred characteristics in the robots where there is not a lot of cross-breading due to limited outside influences. Take "west coast drive" as a thought experiment. How long did that take to spread across the country...long enough that it was unique to a subset of teams from a geographic location and that it was called "west coast drive." Mix it up, get new ideas, get inspired, be challenged.

Let's talk about those judges...since that is apparently something Kevin wants to get at. I am going to talk about the Wisconsin Regional Judge corps here but this is mostly the same all around FIRST. It must be recognized that there has been a shortage of judges in many areas around the US this year. Based purely on public observations, the Wisconsin Regional apparently lost many veteran judges just a short time before the competition. This resulted in there being 2 fewer judges that in previous years.

The judge break-down by responsibility is pretty easy to see...if you can see the whole competition at once. If you have been in the Chairman's presentation room, you see that there are 3 judges in there. From the award presentation you can see that there are 2 Dean's List judges. You can also see that there is a Judges' Advisor and a Judges' Assistant. You can see that there are no judges dedicated to watching matches this year in Wisconsin. This leaves 12 judges to judge the remaining awards.

From watching the judges in the pit in the morning (especially on Friday), you can see that there are 4 sets of three judges and it can be calculated that each set must interview 15 of the 60 teams. By listening to the questions they ask, you can see that this group of three is a survey team, each with different responsibilities. These three judges that your team see survey 15 teams between 8:30am and 12:00pm and with opening ceremonies that leaves 3 hours or about 10-12 minutes per team per day. That team sees the same teams again on Saturday but for a more brief interaction. In the afternoon, you may see a second set of judges for varying lengths of time and this set will be from one to four members. You can hear that this set of judges has a very specific set of questions that they are asking. If you are very good or very lucky, you will see more than one addition set of judges. Then, after early-afternoon, judges are very scarce and then they return sporadically. I am sure that we all know what they are doing during that time.

My experience is that this break-down of splitting the field and surveying first is fairly common. If you see a different set of judges...they are likely there about a specific award or set of awards. The Wisconsin Regional is quite large, as regional competitions go, so there is simply no way that every judge can see every team. My experience as a judge has been that it was extremely fast paced, we were always very busy, and we were under a lot of time pressure. I personally interviewed 36 separate teams of the 60 present and visiting 20 of those teams many times. This is more than most judges at this competition get around to seeing. As far as the insurmountable task of doing going through 41 Chairman's Award presentations and written submissions, I have no idea how they do that. They have the submissions ahead of time...so I suppose that helps...but still. Wow.

In the end, I think that the Wisconsin Regional is a fairly well run event that handles an insane number of teams and has been at max capacity for a while. Yet, I don't think Wisconsin is ready for a district model as the team density is simply not high enough and the travel times would be crazy for a lot of teams. The district progression in the upper-midwest mirrors that of the recognition of statehood in the region. Michigan and Illinois are taking away teams from the Wisconsin pool as they go district just like they took away territory from Wisconsin as they applied for statehood. Hyperbole...sure. False comparison...maybe. South-east Wisconsin, north-east Illinois, and north-west Indiana would be a great district. Just have to figure out how to get some good Michigan teams in there too. Lake Michigan District? Or...Lake Michigan Region?

I don't ever see there being an FRC where there is only the district model without some major changes. The logistics just don't bare it out and I think that would result in dead-zones devoid of teams where there was not critical mass. Clearly there are growing pains and we have all felt them. We need to work together to improve the opportunity and experience for students in all systems and models.

Let's make all the regional, district, and state competitions the best they can be!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

Honestly if I was in the US/Canada I would agree that the value proposition from Districts (from the outside, never experienced it myself) seems higher.

However I (and like a growing handful of other teams) am not, and while I predict that districts are indeed the future, I hope you find a space for the outlier teams. We love competing in the US.

My usual proposal when this comes up is that the "outliers" (as you so rightly termed them) should be given an opportunity to join--or rather, be included in--the district that their "home" regional will be in. For you guys, I believe NYC is the typical option; Chile and Colombia tend to show up in Los Angeles. IIRC, Idaho was asked about this when the PNW district formed.

I suspect that as time goes on, district events will become the "standard" event, and it'll be less of an issue that "such-and-such group of teams can/can't play in this area".

[George Nishimura]

Originally Posted by EricH

My usual proposal when this comes up is that the "outliers" (as you so rightly termed them) should be given an opportunity to join--or rather, be included in--the district that their "home" regional will be in. For you guys, I believe NYC is the typical option; Chile and Colombia tend to show up in Los Angeles. IIRC, Idaho was asked about this when the PNW district formed.

I suspect that as time goes on, district events will become the "standard" event, and it'll be less of an issue that "such-and-such group of teams can/can't play in this area".

The issue with that is every season we'd have to attend two events separated by at least five days, and a successful season would include up to four trips to the US (or three with the first being quite long).

I understand that a whole system should not be compromised for the exceptional cases, but there probably exists at least a temporary solution. For example, keeping a few strategically located regionals would mimic the current hybrid solution and work for the "short-term".

The best answer would be our local event, but the reality is even if "local" was Europe (which can be very not local), we are a still far from a European regional let alone a European district. I don't know if Australia or Mexico have the teams to make a district work either, if they don't, regionals seem like they'd have to persist.

[Ross]

I for one love the district model, the kids get two competitions and get to go into the second feeling confident. I do have issues with the Director of the organization we are a part of, for the past two years she tells me that she misses Manchester and that the district events just don't have the same feel. She used to attend the regional event but comes for like one day to a district. When I explained this year after doing OK at our two district events that the Regional Championship was a possibility her first response was "No" she was not willing to spend the additional $4000 for us to go, eventually letting us fundraise with a solid "NO" if we qualify for Worlds. We already have a Zero budget, so every year its a fight.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Ross

I for one love the district model, the kids get two competitions and get to go into the second feeling confident. I do have issues with the Director of the organization we are a part of, for the past two years she tells me that she misses Manchester and that the district events just don't have the same feel. She used to attend the regional event but comes for like one day to a district. When I explained this year after doing OK at our two district events that the Regional Championship was a possibility her first response was "No" she was not willing to spend the additional $4000 for us to go, eventually letting us fundraise with a solid "NO" if we qualify for Worlds. We already have a Zero budget, so every year its a fight.

Schools can be such a pain sometimes.