Future First Championship News

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I agree you don't have to win an award or an event, or even get picked for eliminations. But, I think you do have to care about winning and you've got pick up some wins along the way (sometimes those wins are simply "We scored a point!"), which was the original poster's point.

I'm pretty sure leadership just requires a goal to lead towards. For some that may be winning in various forms. For others that might be the whole learning, inspiring, engineering thing. Karthik's Game Strategy presentation points out you have to have a goal to work towards and he pretty clearly notes that it doesn't have to be winning. It could be "designing a cool robot" or "having the best autonomous". Winning competitions is an obvious choice, but it's not the only one.

Unless you're defining winning as "achieving your goals". In which case I agree that winning is necessary for effective leadership. That's probably not the definition we're talking about here, though.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by T^2

In that case, let's take it to the logical extreme, and declare everyone a winner on Kickoff day. That would work, right?

No. Two championships cheapens the experience.

This is basically forced mediocrity.

My team was upset after we were selected in the second round and getting bounced in QF's after being in SF's the week prior (as third wheel) against a deeper talent pool.... knowing we were highly sought after by nearly all of the strongest alliances in the third round as certain picks. I had to explain to them why we did not want to be a third wheel as our ticket to the worlds we take where we are picked second round and its on us to win if we are able..they all understood, not sure how I explain the two championship model as not everyone can be a winner...hard work and innovation should count....entry should be earned and should be difficult. Rather sit as a second versus in as a third when your stats say you are a truly a second otherwise. I as a mentor knew going in we needed to win one of the regionals we registered for, we didn't and that's 100% on us to do better next year or gain entry with one of the two remaining non-competitive methods or as a long shot wildcard...it should be hard. With failure comes significant improvement.

This is making 1000's of kids third wheels...by design and its too easy. Its good enough championship x2...in 2017. The world does not operate that way. Where's the life lesson for the kids? Its tough out there and FIRST should reflect that challenge every chance they get rather than seeking "profit" and "mediocrity" that teaches nothing good, in an organization promoting non-profit and STEM.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by T^2

In that case, let's take it to the logical extreme, and declare everyone a winner on Kickoff day. That would work, right?

No. Two championships cheapens the experience. As has been said many, many times already in this thread.

I understand that two championships cheapens the experience for you. I would like to note that this is not a universal truth, as has also been said many times in this thread.

[the_godfaubel]

The negative part about this change to me, and likely many others, is the fact that the experience just won't be the same. Someone brought up that they would pretty much be seeing many of the same teams that they have been competing with for the prior two months. Where is the fun in that?

The exciting part about Championships, for me, was getting to collaborate and talk with teams from around the country and the world. With this change, you lose a lot of that. Being a college student and beginning my engineering journey, I now enjoy talking with teams about why they came to the design choices they made and how it could be used elsewhere to benefit society. I know for a fact that I was looking forward to seeing some teams at the Championships this year to ask about these very things. Under the new plan, I would not be to talk with some of the teams that I have on my list to talk to because of the "geographical boundaries" that would occur.

I really don't know why FIRST has decided to split the Championships, especially after the excitement of last year. Maybe they got too caught up in the Recognition part of FIRST and forgot that the teams were already doing a great job of spreading knowledge of STEM around the world.

[MarkMyWords]

This is now the longest non-game thread on Chief Delphi.

[Connor Mulkey]

The top-tier teams got to that level because they cared about winning the competition, and they strived to make themselves better in order to achieve that goal. If you look at the top teams in FRC and think, "Man, I want our team to be like that some day," then you better start caring about winning.

That competitive spirit is the single best kickstarter in making your team better, and it's why I believe so strongly in the integrity of this program's competition. The decision to split the championship in two compromises that integrity. It's detrimental to the success of the program, and that's why you've seen this magnitude of backlash here in this thread.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by the_godfaubel

Maybe they got too caught up in the Recognition part of FIRST

Maybe they got too caught up in the "profit" part of "FIRST the non-profit".

[bscharles]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I agree you don't have to win an award or an event, or even get picked for eliminations. But, I think you do have to care about winning and you've got pick up some wins along the way (sometimes those wins are simply "We scored a point!"), which was the original poster's point.

I think we both have similar viewpoints on this. I may have misinterpreted the original poster's statement as winning meaning receiving a trophy or medal.

Teams should have goals that they set and try to achieve each year in order to make them the best they can be, and to do their best at inspiring students. But, I think for the purposes of measuring success, it should be based on their own standards, not the metric of being the best at a competition.


To some of the points about the number of winners vs cheapening the feeling of winning, I think FIRST is trying to figure out the best balance of this. Look at high school sports, how they are separated based on divisions. They choose to separate into divisions based on school size, and have different winners for each division. Even though there are multiple winners for a sport, they all feel the same sense of accomplishment.

[staplemonx]

• We mentor to inspire.
• We build to learn.
• We dedicate hours to achieve.
• We play to win.

That last two parts just became a whole bunch goofier.

• We dedicate hours to achieve.*
• We play to win.*

Why would any sport...and I believe FIRST is a sport, add an * to their winners?

I heartily disagree with change and recommend they look at the commercial successes of other sports, other competitions, other places where people dedicate themselves to achieve greatness and play with all of their soul to to be the best. Because that is where the love, the passion, the emotion, the character and the memories are born. Those are the moments that people strive to achieve and cherish for a lifetime. Those are the accomplishments that make people think they can be better and motivate them to do more.

Please don't add an * to FIRST.

[Sperkowsky]

if they really want to be more accessible they should do an east west format.

So think of it like this.

Have east championships for everything east of the mississippi and west championships for everything west of the mississippi. International teams could choose which one they attend.

Then have the world championships in st.louis with only 1 half of each teams from each divisional.

Its more expensive for the really good teams but they most likely have the funds to do both where as it is much cheaper for the bottom half teams.

[Lil' Lavery]

Not going to sift through 33 pages of responses on this issue, so apologies if this has been brought up before.

Do I agree with this change? No, I don't like it currently. My perception could change, and there have been plenty of other changes FIRST has implemented over the years that were met with varying degrees of negative reactions (alliances, districts, serpentine draft, etc) that are now staples of the FRC experience.

High school sports generally don't have widely recognized national champions. Even NCAA football has had split national champions, and only this year finally implemented a playoff system. While FRC obviously doesn't have the widespread appeal of those sports as cultural institutions at this point, I'm not convinced crowning a singular champion is essential to that. And it's not like the current system even does a particularly great job at having the "best" team win every year. The elite teams are aware of the amount of luck involved in the tournament. Match schedule, division placement, alliance selection, tournament match-ups and a slew of other factors have led to many of the consensus "best" individual teams being eliminated in Championship events over the years. The simple fact that it's an alliance-based tournament adds massive amount of uncertainty to the process of crowning the best teams.

I don't agree with this currently, but I'm not going to line up to throw tomatoes at FIRST just yet.

[1975Flyers]

I wonder if this will be the day that FIRST died? Time will tell.

[Carolyn_Grace]

This whole thread reads like the five stages of grief.

Denial (April Fools!)
Anger (how could they do this to us?!)
Bargaining (Let's make posters and shirts and call HQ!)
Depression (FIRST is going to die)
I'm confident that most people will find Acceptance in the end.

There's also a lot of cognitive dissonance happening.

Change is hard. Transitions are difficult. Especially when we aren't part of the decision making process.

[Advice]

Nevermind my post about getting the mentors out of a rut, now how do I keep my students interested? Just yesterday, we met to make our team goals for 2016.

I guess we need to set new goals...

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by KeeganP

S

A 600 team champs event is great, but I feel it may be too big -- especially when a good portion of the teams going to champs this year "qualified" though the waitlist, instead of through winning (or being a finalist, etc.).

This

In 2012 we got to championship by winning a regional, but so many teams get there by other means that it is easy for a first-time championship team to get overlooked and not taken seriously. I don't want to diminish anyone's experience, but when everybody wins, what is the significance of winning? It's starting to sound like rec league soccer...everyone sign up to bring a snack at one of the events, and when you get to championship...here's your trophy and here's your Capri Sun.