(Lack of) Value in the Regional Model

[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!