Future First Championship News

[jlmcmchl]

Originally Posted by Kpchem

I'd completely forgotten about this! I remember seeing this when it was first released and I loved the concept, even if the regions seemed to be too large in some places.

What happened to this, and has it ever been discussed that this wasn't the plan (until now)?

On the Contrary, this seems to be a step towards Super Regionals; FIRST is introducing the North and South Super Regional as Championships for now. There's just not enough teams that would get a berth from super regionals to justify a championship smaller than both of them.

Once FRC has expanded to justify the addition of the East and West Super Regionals, they will add those, and reinstate a true championship.

Change hurts, and I my own concerns about the system for the time being, but I'm excited for the path they are taking towards a more scalable system.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by jlmcmchl

On the Contrary, this seems to be a step towards Super Regionals; FIRST is introducing the North and South Super Regional as Championships for now. There's just not enough teams that would get a berth from super regionals to justify a championship smaller than both of them.

Once FRC has expanded to justify the addition of the East and West Super Regionals, they will add those, and reinstate a true championship.

Change hurts, and I my own concerns about the system for the time being, but I'm excited for the path they are taking towards a more scalable system.

Where are you getting your info? Inside guy?

Because in my opinion it would have made more sense to actually start the super-regional structure instead... and have the framework in place for future growth always under 1 championship. Not multiple championships....

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by jlmcmchl

On the Contrary, this seems to be a step towards Super Regionals; FIRST is introducing the North and South Super Regional as Championships for now. There's just not enough teams that would get a berth from super regionals to justify a championship smaller than both of them.

Once FRC has expanded to justify the addition of the East and West Super Regionals, they will add those, and reinstate a true championship.

Change hurts, and I my own concerns about the system for the time being, but I'm excited for the path they are taking towards a more scalable system.

I feel that FIRST could make a super regional system with 600 teams without much a problem...

[mwmac]

I was eagerly awaiting the release of division assignments for 2015 when this news broke. Now I am waiting to see how the 2017 Championship assignments will work in our favor monetarily. Will the trailer get dragged to Houston (1939 miles) or Detroit (1963 miles) vs. St. Louis (1626 miles)? Already counting the money Tators will save with this change...

BTW, can't wait to see the design for the FRC World Championship Participant Trophy that will be coming in the KOP for 2017.

Very surprised that First HQ did not try to gauge public sentiment to such a sweeping change....

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by mwmac

BTW, can't wait to see the design for the FRC World Championship Participant Trophy that will be coming in the KOP for 2017.

My favorite post in this thread so far

[jlmcmchl]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

I feel that FIRST could make a super regional system with 600 teams without much a problem...

The post specifically said that they would be expanding champs to be over 100% larger than 2014 by 2017.

So, for the previous version of champs to exist, they would at minimum be required to being 200 teams from each super regional, at most 50% of each. Assuming 4 divisions, that would leave you with 96 teams in eliminations with 3 alliance members each. If you're assuming a champs model with 300 teams, you would need to send 3/8 of each super regional, 150 teams. 35% of those teams would have never seen eliminations. In Michigan this year, for every three teams in playoffs, there will be one more team sent to worlds (Note: Not all teams in playoffs make it to worlds, but most do).

It's also a large increase in cost; that's an additional 2 rather expensive venues to add to the bill in reservation, years before using them.

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by jlmcmchl

The post specifically said that they would be expanding champs to be over 100% larger than 2014 by 2017.

So, for the previous version of champs to exist, they would at minimum be required to being 200 teams from each super regional, at most 50% of each. Assuming 4 divisions, that would leave you with 96 teams in eliminations with 3 alliance members each. If you're assuming a champs model with 300 teams, you would need to send 3/8 of each super regional, 150 teams. 35% of those teams would have never seen eliminations. In Michigan this year, for every three teams in playoffs, there will be one more team sent to worlds (Note: Not all teams in playoffs make it to worlds, but most do).

It's also a large increase in cost; that's an additional 2 rather expensive venues to add to the bill in reservation, years before using them.

But why have worlds that big? Why not just start the super regional system small with ~200 teams per super regional, and then have like 30 per super regional make worlds. Money is already an issue, no need to make the worlds large just to be large.

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

But why have worlds that big? Why not just start the super regional system small with ~200 teams per super regional, and then have like 30 per super regional make worlds. Money is already an issue, no need to make the worlds large just to be large.

I think getting FIRST back to it's roots in/around Manchester would be pretty cool and have FIRST HQ open to tours/etc (I don't know if you could do that with like 120 FRC teams ...)

[JABot67]

Two points:

First of all, I think that a major gripe a lot of people have about having two championships is that there would be two world championship winning alliances. I think this could be resolved by having the winning alliance from Houston hurry on up to STL or DET the next week to battle it out in an actual final series. This could address a lot of people's concerns about having more than one winning alliance. Most of the Houston crowd, however, would have to watch the finals from home.

Second of all, I'd just like to echo the sentiment that there is a difference between being at THE World Championship, and being at one of the two world championships. At THE World Championship, you know that you are really getting the big picture. All the qualifying powerhouse teams and VIPs and FIRST-supporting celebrities and CEOs and politicians are there with you. When you hear Dean talk between matches on Einstein, you know that competition season is coming to a close for everyone.

It's going to be hard for me. I can't wait for the time when someone starts to talk about 2017 Einstein and I have to interject and ask "Which one?".

Also, I imagine that the STL/DET teams are going to watch HOU Einstein and know what strategies to employ. Seems weird that one championship will have an effect on the strategy of another championship.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2017cmp1
http://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2017cmp2

^ Can't wait for these events to happen! ^

[AquaMorph]

This is how I see this announcement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYmHYQPaHaw

[JohnSchneider]

Solution: regional winners and their wildcards go to Detroit. Everyone else to Houston, with double qualifiers going to Detroit. Treat Detroit as the world championship and Houston as an exhibition championship.

More people to championships. Actually increases the competition level at the main event. Think NCAA vs NIT.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

Solution: regional winners and their wildcards go to Detroit. Everyone else to Houston, with double qualifiers going to Detroit. Treat Detroit as the world championship and Houston as an exhibition championship.

More people to championships. Actually increases the competition level at the main event. Think NCAA vs NIT.

I'm not a huge fan of this idea. My team has qualified via Chairman's for the past three years, and while we're not usually competitive in St. Louis with the robot, that doesn't mean that we don't want to play with the best robots in the world. If the idea is to keep Chairman's as the most prestigious award in FRC, separating the Chairman's winners out seems like the wrong approach.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

I'm not a huge fan of this idea. My team has qualified via Chairman's for the past three years, and while we're not usually competitive in St. Louis with the robot, that doesn't mean that we don't want to play with the best robots in the world. If the idea is to keep Chairman's as the most prestigious award in FRC, separating the Chairman's winners out seems like the wrong approach.

Didn't Include chairman's because otherwise the second chairman's award lost a lot of its integrity. Send chairman's to Detroit though. Doesn't matter. The split needs to be made by some Performance metric. Not by geography if you want to save the integrity of the awards

[scooty199]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

Solution: regional winners and their wildcards go to Detroit. Everyone else to Houston, with double qualifiers going to Detroit. Treat Detroit as the world championship and Houston as an exhibition championship.

More people to championships. Actually increases the competition level at the main event. Think NCAA vs NIT.

Was thinking the NCAA and NIT thing.

Actually crazy outlandish solution.

Let's come up with conferences (districts) for the different areas for FIRST.

Winning Alliance at DCMPs get automatic bids, as do chairman's and EI.

Make a bunch of these conferences, have a good set of teams, and then the rest fill in by rankings or at large bids.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by scooty199

Was thinking the NCAA and NIT thing.

Actually crazy outlandish solution.

Let's come up with conferences (districts) for the different areas for FIRST.

Winning Alliance at DCMPs get automatic bids, as do chairman's and EI.

Make a bunch of these conferences, have a good set of teams, and then the rest fill in by rankings or at large bids.

I'm pretty sure that's been the idea for years....