Future First Championship News

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by zachrobo1

Out of the things I have seen in this thread, most people are opposed to this change because of the competition aspect. People like competition, and they want to crown a champion.

That's great, but does that line up with FIRST's vision? I don't think so. If you need a reminder, FIRST's vision is:

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

If that means making it more accessible to more students by making two championships, so be it. From what I've seen, FIRST really isn't very concerned with the drawbacks that this system has in regards to competition. They feel like Champs is a totally unique experience, and the more kids that go experience it, the better they fulfil their mission.

I get what you're saying but FRC is supposed to be the competitive level of FIRST.

I guess teams should be looking forward to more Recycle Rush type games if this attitude is what the GDC and FIRST staff have in mind for FRC now.

[zachrobo1]

Originally Posted by BigJ

I get what you're saying but FRC is supposed to be the competitive level of FIRST.

I guess teams should be looking forward to more Recycle Rush type games if this attitude is what the GDC and FIRST staff have in mind for FRC now.

Who says this model wouldn't be competitive? By no means do I think its the best choice moving forward, but on here it certainly feels like people are mostly concerned with the fact that there wouldn't be a definite winner for the entire competition.

Yes, it will suck that their won't be an absolute champion, but inside these events, the competition still exists.

[OAXACA]

I see both good and bad things with this.

1. I think it's great of FIRST to take into account all those teams who qualify for Worlds, but the expense is just to high to get STL. This year, we qualify for worlds, but the expense is huge. By having a venue in Houston, that makes things alot easier for teams in the neighbouring states.

2. I do see the argument that there should have been a venue on the west coast, the team count is higher on the 2 coasts.

3. One huge issue I have is that there will be duplicate awards passed out at both events. I understand that FIRST really isn't about winning and such. But by doing this, it kind of takes away from the award it self. Soon, every team you see at regionals will most likely end up at Worlds. Which might also put teams into the whole mentality, "We don't have to try so hard. There are going to be 1000+ Spots for championships, we're bound to get one".

4. I really hope that the winning teams at both championships can compete together for the true title of "World Champions".

I really do appreciate FIRST for trying to address the growth needs and I think it's swell that they're trying to come up with solutions for problems, But this wasn't the best solution for any problem.

There is my bit on it.

[Munchskull]

I am still at the point that I am hoping I will wake up to a bad dream.

[George Nishimura]

It is possible to justify moving to a two-venue championship (eg a stop-gap to deal with intermediary scalability problems). The two big problems from this announcement are:

1) How FIRST sees its programs (presumably including FRC):

Originally Posted by JVN

"One of the important things about FIRST and maybe what separates us from other sports is that we're an inclusive organization we're about not about picking a winner at the expense of others but celebrating everybody's accomplishments and success."

2) How FIRST is willing to make and commit to big decisions without testing the waters/asking for opinions from the community beforehand

Both those are "problems" not because they are inherently wrong or broken, but they form a "big picture vision" of the future of this program that at least a significant subset of the community passionately disagree with. With those priorities, this may only be the beginning of a series of decisions with similar goals and reaction.

[pabeekm]

Drawing from my own experience of going to champs for the first time last year, the drop in competitiveness is what scares me most. As was said earlier, this kind of change could very well reduce championships to a glorified convention. My team earning a spot to champs after our first regional win in 11 years was huge to us, and the most valuable part of it to me by far was the pride in seeing how we really could hold our own amongst the best teams in the world. Knowing that we earned our place defined my experience there and my desire to earn our way to champs again.

Inflating champs to such a huge size will mean qualifications will no longer be that world class level of competition; it will be downright saturated with underperforming teams. 600 really feels like pushing it to me, but 800+ is very obviously too far; there simply aren't enough competitive teams to fill even half that quota, and the minority of downright admirable teams will become drastically scattered across the events/ fields. I can’t imagine how disappointing it would be for new students go to the world “championships”, and witness that 20%+ of the robots in their division barely (or don’t) work, and less than five robots are really worth following; that just sounds like a weaker regional.

I’m particularly irked coming from NC, because it’d be nearly impossible for my team in future years to see real world class competition anywhere other than a competitive championship (IRI will never ever be in the budget, and NC is turning into its own district next year). Plus, transportation to champs would still be nasty.

Besides the actual competing aspect, there will be a lot less for teams to learn from at champs. For example, my team is using this year at champs as a building opportunity to focus on learning from others how to improve our infrastructure/ sustainability. If champs were split in two, such an effort would be much less fruitful, because half the teams who know best about that stuff (mainly powerhouse teams) would simply not be there.

[epylko]

When I saw this announcement yesterday I was more disappointed with the locations than the splitting of the regional. As others have said, adding Houston doesn't do anything for travel for us. Detroit will cut travel time in half if we decide (and can afford) to go there.

I understand the disappointment many people feel with the split. I think they probably should have started this in 2016 instead of 2017 for one reason - the sooner they start, the sooner students who have experienced the single championship model "age out" of the competition. In 4 years, there will be no students who know the "single championship" model and "dual championships" will be the new normal.

I think dual championships might drive some different team dynamics and attitudes as well. If this change eliminates the goal of "world champion" and "win at any cost", I can envision how that might change the goal of gracious professionalism for the better.

[TechGirlOnFire]

This thread is expanding much faster than I can read it. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes if I'm repeating ideas.

My thoughts as I've read through:
1) Having Super-regionals and then a Championship event adds at least one, probably two, and possibly even three weeks to the competition season (Having back to back competitions that you have to qualify for and can't plan for ahead of time is simply not feasible).
The length and intensity of competition season as it is now - at least in the district model- already stretches a lot of student's resources. With a super-regional model, we'd be running into graduation season for many people by the time champs rolls around. We'd also be looking at more mentor and volunteer burnout. Not to mention that smaller super-regionals won't be able to offer the full CMP experience, see my next point.

2) People seem to be mostly upset over a lowering of the level of competition and not being able to find out which is the best robot in the world. I'm obviously pretty alone in this sentiment, but to me, World Champs is a lot more about the gathering of the teams to learn from one another. I get a lot more out of volunteering, attending the conference talks, and perusing scholarship row than I do watching the Einstein matches. Obviously, the finals are ridiculously exciting, but for overall benefit, it's the rest of the week that I'm there for.

I know that a lot of people will argue at this point that it's the drive to be the best in the world that inspires them, but... I really don't think that that ultra-competitiveness is in the spirit of FIRST.
Mostly I want to yell at people to put the rulers away, that finding out who has the biggest --, ahem, the best robot is not the overall goal of this program. (In case you haven't heard, it's Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). From the tone of the announcement, I think I'm on the same page as FIRST here.

3) The stated reasons for this change is

We continue to witness substantial growth of interest in our mission, our programs, and our annual Championship. Far beyond what we can currently accommodate, a growing number of young people are eager to participate and compete in our iconic, international celebration; yet due to space limitations, and sometimes travel costs, only a small fraction of teams can participate in the FIRST Championship.

I know the travel costs thing is dubious at best. Having North/South events is dumb when compared to East/West, when considering the distribution of teams. But, as numerous people have pointed out, if FIRST is releasing locations and dates, they're already pretty set in stone. Can't do anything about that.
But the other point? I think that's valid. It's no denying that FIRST is expanding, and there are a lot more kids and teams that should benefit from the CMP experience than are able to currently go. The system as it is is already pushing the accommodation resources of a major city to the breaking point. You can't get any more teams to CMPs without splitting it up.

tl;dr:
*The 'solution' of adding super-regionals will extend the season, ultimately leading to student, mentor, and volunteer burnout.
*Champs is about a lot more than who has the best robot
*FIRST is expanding and Champs needs to as well.

Finally, to get to the constructive bit, here's my suggestions:
1) Get as many teams as possible into the district model before 2017.
2) If you absolutely must know who has the best robot, have a smaller event during the summer. Or, you know, there's always IRI.
3) As an alternative to everyone just dealing with the horror of multiple world champions, split the two events into FLL/FTC and FRC.

[nuggetsyl]

In 2017 first is turning world champs into regional champs. So why can't teams get that same inspiration at a District champs model?

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by TechGirlOnFire

*The 'solution' of adding super-regionals will extend the season, ultimately leading to student, mentor, and volunteer burnout.

The people talking about having a super-regional always seem to assume that teams would continue to sign up for two regional competitions before the super-regional. I'm wondering how many teams that actually qualify for and go to the Championship event through winning an event just participated in one regional.

Seems to me that the powerhouse teams sign up for 2, maybe 3 regional competitions to increase their odds for an invitation. What if to qualify for a super regional, you just need to make it to the semi-finals or win an engineering award at one regional? Then teams would still compete in their same 2 events per year prior to a championship.

[BrennanB]

These are just my own initial thoughts. Not of my team and or members. More things to consider for you.

I'm going to pull some information from FLL, and some people are going to hate on it because to some degree FLL and FRC aren't comparable, but hang with me. It's to get perspective.

I see people talking about percentages of teams that qualify for worlds, 14-20% of all the FRC teams in first qualify for champs. For FLL, ~85 Teams qualify for world championships. There are over 25,000 FLL teams. That means a whopping 0.0034% of FLL teams qualify for the World championships...

But. That's not even the best part of it. Not every region receives a qualifying spot. Regions are given spots based on a random lottery system. So you could be the best team in the whole world, and not qualify.

Oh wait, there is more... You can only attend one regional in your allotted area. That regional is only one day long where you get maybe 2 practice matches, and 3 matches that actually count. 3 matches. One day. If you have a bad day, sucks.

But wait! FLL is cheaper, we aren't paying thousands of dollars to participate. FRC is complex, serious, and sophisticated. We aren't playing with toys.

If you fall into this category go watch this, this, this. and this

It's hard to understand the amount of time that these teams put into their robots to package and have them preform as well as they do. I would even argue per individual basis, it is harder to be on a world champion FLL team than a world champion FRC team. Between all the time spent fundraising for the "thousands of dollars spend on competitions our" and all nighters on our robots, FLL kids put at least the same amount of time a typical team captain of an FRC team would put in, if not more. (at high levels of play)

So what? What's the point in all of this?

FLL kids are still incredibly inspired, and incredibly inspiring. And they have way worse odd than FRC teams. These kids are not ignorant, and really do care about their projects. They are doing phenomenally well with frankly, a terrible qualifying system. FRC teams can't complain with a 14% qualification rate compared to a 0-0.0034% qualification rate. Imagine going into a competition knowing that no matter how well you do, before you even start you have no chance at qualifying.

You don't need to go to championships to be inspired.

FIRST is solving a non-existent problem of teams qualifying to champs. Inspiration will occur and lives will be changed regardless.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So then. What is the solution?

Instead of degrading the quality of FIRST Championships, increase the quality of district championships.

Don't make champs meh to the top tier teams that are doing a huge part of the volunteering, mentoring, team starting, event planning, and FIRST message spreading for us all.

Make districts a bigger deal. MSC has TV coverage, that's awesome! Find a big venue! Emulate champs to a larger degree.

Oh, and as much as it is the "all the best robots coming to the same place to compete"

I think the real magic is the "the whole world coming to compete in one place"

If the whole world isn't there, it completely loses the magic for me. Having just the winners play together isn't enough. You can talk to people freely, half the people walking on the street are from a team and it's awesome! To be having half of the world cut off from that is... Well meh.

I would much rather see a smaller percentage of teams qualify to maintain the atmosphere and quality of the event. Simply put, splitting the championships sucks.


*** I come from a a back to back qualifying FLL team
*** During my participation with FIRST, I have been on a team that has qualified 6/9 years I have participated.

[LeelandS]

Food for thought:

In 2008 (I picked an arbitrary year), 340 teams attended champs, out of 1499 who competed. That means the percentage of teams who attended the event was 22.6% of all teams. So almost a quarter of teams who competed in 2008 attended the event.

3 years later, in 2011, this had decreased, to 17.1%. 351 teams attended champs, while 2053 teams competed. In a 3 year span, FRC saw a near-600 team growth, but only 19 slots opened at championship. This trend continued further, into last year: 2014.

In 2014, 397 teams attended the championship event, while a whopping 2696 competed overall. That translated to 14.7% of competing teams qualifying for champs.

The point I'm driving at is, a smaller and smaller chunk of teams get to experience championships every year. People keep driving at, championships are going to be less inspiring because all the best teams aren't going to be at a single one. But what's more inspiring; seeing a "watered down" championships, or not seeing champs at all? For me, at least, as a former student turned mentor, champs was about the energy. The passion. The electricity. I don't remember a single match from when I was student at champs. But I remember being with my team, I remember running around the stadium. I remember seeing signs and decorations, hearing guest speakers celebrate us and what we do. It was the time of my life. Just being there set me down the road to where I am now. A mentor, a volunteer. A guide to these students. Words can't express how proud I am of that.

That brings us to 2015. Almost 3000 teams are competing this year, 2892. We've already been told that we will be hosting 600 teams at this event. 600/2892 = 20.7%. The highest percent we've had attending since 2008. Which is a great step forward. After an 8% decline over 7 years, we gain 6% back in one year. But what are we sacrificing to accomplish this? We are literally packing two championship events into one arena. 8 Division, two Einsteins. I'm not a logistics person, but that seems like a lot for a single venue to hold. FIRST is growing, and with that, it is becoming harder and harder to provide as many students as possible with an experience like mine. We're already packing 2 champs into one building, so doesn't the next logical step seem to be expanding?

Consider this: In 2017, we'll say 800 teams attend champs, 400 per event. let's ballpark the team count that year at 3500. Just an estimate. 800/3500 = 22.8%. Boom. We're back to where we were 7 years ago. FIRST will have more than doubled in size but we are still providing the same percentage of teams with the championship experience. Diluted? Yes. But to students who have never gone before, inspiring all the same.

I am as hardened a competitor as anyone else. My students constantly tell me to take a chill pill. But I can't. Competition is in my blood and I love pushing and driving my team to improve and do better. Yes, I would love a centralized event where the elite teams can play-off. Maybe with some relaxed rules. Some corn dogs and goats. But hey, that can't be possible, right? Oh.

Competition is exciting for me. But if we start depriving kid's learning and experience in FIRST for the sake of competition, then what have we really become? Everyone asks me if what I do is like Battlebots. And I proudly tell them no. But if FIRST is all about competition, then isn't it the same? I'm in the program to help kids learn and grow as people; a lot of people are in that same boat. And if we are going to accomplish that goal, then we need to get kids exposed to an event with the passion and energy of a world championship.

[JohnSchneider]

Splitting FRC into 2 events does more damage to its integrity as a sport than anything else possibly could. This absolutely cannot be the case if they want people to take it seriously.

[Joe G.]

As we try to improve the quality of our team, we spend a lot of time looking at the teams who have built effective programs, and what makes them tick. And a common trend, perhaps above all others, is a relentless pursuit of being the best in the world. It builds dominant, inspiring robots, and it builds quality experiences for students.

Not exactly thrilled that the motivation that drives the programs which move FIRST forward has been taken down a couple notches.

Whatever happened to that "super regional" model which was floating around for a while? I imagined that these events would rise to a prestige and experience quality level near that of the championship, while maintaining a central goal to work towards?

[Wetzel]

Who is going to be the first team to be a true World Champion in the 2 championship era by winning both?