Future First Championship News

[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.

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

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.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I'm also concerned by this attitude. Champs as the ultimate robot competition is depressing to me ...

It was hard to try to express the complexity of my take, and yes - I am concerned by this attitude (of my own) as well...but isn't there a part of all of us that feels this way? I'm certainly not advocating doing away with all of the "non-winning" championship invitations...but it is the group of "winners" that makes the event prestigious for a Rookie All Star, or another possibly less competitive team to be there. When 400 teams became a problematic size for championship, perhaps it was time to start being a bit more selective...not less.

After reading all of these posts - and there's tons of wisdom here - I've concluded that a much better solution would be to make districts universal (with notable exceptions of course), use the district championship as the premier event to share with more teams, and keep a single championship of around 400 teams - shared with FLL and FTC...because seeing what they do, and letting them see what we do is part of the magic.

[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.

[Loose Screw]

Originally Posted by efoote868

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.

I know of situations in FTC where this has happened. I don't remember (and want to call out) team names, but I remember some teams in 2013/2014 FTC that didn't qualify for super regionals in their area, so they paid their way to an event further away to compete and qualify for a different super-regional.

Right now the line of competitions for Michigan FTC is:
1 or 2 districts --> states --> super-regionals --> worlds.
Before super-regionals, only 1 team from states would move on to worlds; the Inspire winner. With the addition of super-regionals, my kids could compete with high-level high school teams, and learn from them. I have no doubt the same would be true for FRC.

I would like to see FRC (and FTC) lock teams into area events so they can't steal a spot from other teams by going to an outside event.

Right now, Michigan has the set up:
2 or 3 districts (only first 2 count towards states) --> states --> worlds.

As the program grows in every state, I would like to see:
2 or 3 districts --> states --> super-regionals --> worlds.

I believe this system works great for FTC, and my kids enjoyed super-regionals just as much as I have enjoyed worlds.

[Nemo]

Thanks for the FLL perspective above.

Why isn't FTC expanding? This year, while FRC gets a 50% increase from 400 to 600, FTC has stayed the same with 128 teams out of 4000+ worldwide.

[microbuns]

As long as they end up doing some sort of North vs South match with the champions from each, with the winner being officially recognized, I'd be happy. That kind of change isn't hard to tack on to what we've heard so far.

[Sunshine]

After sleeping on it last night I think I get it. Most of us believe that we strive to get to a world championship that corresponds with a FIRST convention. I think FIRST feels that they offer a convention (workshops, vendors, great learning experiences) that also offers a competition as a side show. Not saying that I agree with their analogy but understand their reasonings. They use the venue for team and student growth. They want as many as possible to experience the great learning experience. My deep feelings (if I express them again) would only add more redundancy to an extremely long thread.

My students and team always set lofty goals. They attempt the near impossible every year. It's part of the magic of FIRST. They take one step at a time to towards greatness. Watering down their expectations and possible achievements is unacceptable in my world. Giving free passes to teams to a world championship has always been a sore spot for me. I always hoped it would get better, now it appears to have gotten worst. I'm sure the brain trust at FIRST has great intentions and a long range plan to excel. Their procedures are puzzling to me but I will remain diligent and faithful to the cause. My goals have always been student focused and I believe FIRST has those same goals.

[Mr. Tatorscout]

Originally Posted by microbuns

As long as they end up doing some sort of North vs South match with the champions from each, with the winner being officially recognized, I'd be happy. That kind of change isn't hard to tack on to what we've heard so far.

I'm trying to remember, it seems to me that we have experienced a North vs South division before in this country. Fortunately, there's no longer any residual animosity...

[Siri]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Well it sure sounds like it. And to be clear I still prefer the expanded district system. This is nothing to quit over however and I think FRC is a bigger technical challenge. Again why haven't you done VRC/FTC exclusively prior to this? The reasons for choosing FRC are not lost in this development.

FRC doesn't come anywhere near a monopoly on technical difficulty (talk to Falcons about underwater robots...or, you know, watch the movie) or competitive experience (ever been to VEX?)

The reason I stick around as an FRC volunteer? I trust the program. Things like this...it's not even so much about the content, it's about the process. If you've been around long enough, you may remember the open letter for transparency for several years back signed by many if not most of the top players of the FRC community. People (and quite frankly, businesses), that put untold effort into the success of the program worldwide. You may remember the mass exodus to VEX when FIRST dropped IFI (FVC became FTC). This announcement, particularly as a gushing press release without addressing or even attempting to anticipate actual objections. This feels very much like IFI all over again.

Originally Posted by Kevin Kolodziej

The competition isn't even in the stadiums! The most impressive part of the Championship in its current form is getting to play in a huge stadium! Anyone who played on the pit fields in 2011 knows how much it sucked - now everyone gets that wonderfully uninspiring experience.

Bumping this because I hadn't even noticed this. Can people from the cities speak to these convention centers? Going back to 400 teams, is this going to be real "fields in the pits" feel again?

Originally Posted by AndrewPospeshil

[*]Speaking of vagueness, why would FIRST announce this plan with a seemingly small amount of information fleshed out? They've determined the broad scope of the event, but a lot of the finer details haven't been revealed/worked out. Now granted they might be looking for some community input before determining things like 2 Champion alliances, 2 WCAs, etc, but I feel like FIRST is pretty good at gauging what's good for the community without it's input (Aerial Assist, district model). I feel like they've revealed only the least appealing information - although that may be intentional, ripping off the metaphorical bandaid)

(emphasis mine) I agree with most of this, but the phrase "FIRST is pretty good at gauging what's good for the community without it's input" seems off. Particularly with the example of Districts, which is the exact opposite of FIRST working for community good without input. (Districts were a grassroots initiative in Michigan that FiM pushed to HQ. MAR picked it up, again grassroots, making MAR and pitching to HQ.)

Originally Posted by TechGirlOnFire

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

TechFire, you're already in Districts. District Champs equals a Super Regional in the model discussed on this thread: it doesn't extend our (MAR's) season at all.

[Conor Ryan]

i heard rumors that Minute Maid Field is for the Fantasy FIRST Finalists.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Siri

FRC doesn't come anywhere near a monopoly on technical difficulty (talk to Falcons about underwater robots...or, you know, watch the movie) or competitive experience (ever been to VEX?)

The reason I stick around as an FRC volunteer? I trust the program. Things like this...it's not even so much about the content, it's about the process. If you've been around long enough, you may remember the open letter for transparency for several years back signed by many if not most of the top players of the FRC community. People (and quite frankly, businesses), that put untold effort into the success of the program worldwide. You may remember the mass exodus to VEX when FIRST dropped IFI (FVC became FTC). This announcement, particularly as a gushing press release without addressing or even attempting to anticipate actual objections. This feels very much like IFI all over again.

You see what giving a preliminary plan for handling the expansion of the program gets them? This thread. If they had announced way earlier that this was the first step in making FIRST able to handle so many teams prior they would have had backlash, and yet the more you think about it the more you realize something like this was probably necessary eventually. The adding of more and more tiers to the FRC event structure is not infinitely sustainable and something else has to be done. It's just that they went for the harder sell first.

If you really think the excitement of a regional or championships is actually diminished by this than you really do care more about being the sole victor over literally everything else. Why? because the rest is still there! I think they knew exactly how we would feel initially and personally I think that the idea that this is bad is wrong. And besides being the best 3 of 3000 isn't all that bad compared to best 6 of 3,600 or 4,000 anyway.

And if you trust VEX just as much than why have you not saved the money and gone all in there? It's because the FRC challenge and community has it's own value that has been worth it along side vex, underwater, ftc, whatever. I'm arguing that A. this does not diminish any of that value and B. I'd rather the do expanded districts first before split championships but if they think this is a better first step than I can support that.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by jman4747

realize something like this was probably necessary eventually.

Nope it isn't. It's only "necessary" if you want to keep this 20% average of teams making it to champs, which as we have seen with FLL isn't necessary for the program to be incredibly successful.

This just kills the atmosphere of the event.

Mediocrity isn't really okay...

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Nope it isn't. It's only "necessary" if you want to keep this 20% average of teams making it to champs, which as we have seen with FLL isn't necessary for the program to be incredibly successful.

This just kills the atmosphere of the event.

Mediocrity isn't really okay...

Okay well excuse me for getting a wait list spot and diluting the competition with my crappy lite robot you selfish...

Any way, back to facts. #1 it won't be "20 percent" of teams as time goes on and there are more total teams competing. #2 FIRST has found a way to hold a 600 slot championship and I think it's fine for them to invite extra teams so they can make sure they know how to handle that many in the future as more qualifying events spring up. #3 having a larger field means a bigger event. I think the size and participation that newcomers see when they first visit a championship or regional is part of the sell.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by 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.

+10

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Okay well excuse me for getting a wait list spot and diluting the competition with my crappy lite robot you selfish...

Any way, back to facts. #1 it won't be "20 percent" of teams as time goes on and there are more total teams competing. #2 FIRST has found a way to hold a 600 slot championship and I think it's fine for them to invite extra teams so they can make sure they know how to handle that many in the future as more qualifying events spring up. #3 having a larger field means a bigger event. I think the size and participation that newcomers see when they first visit a championship or regional is part of the sell.

Its not about you or your team and the numerous wait-list spots with the 50% expanded field of 2015 (FIRST created that with 20% or 600 going this year) ... its about sensible growth and geographical "fairness" that reflects the world and FIRST'S mission statement. Common sense is needed.

North/South was settled 150 years ago. FIRST has an obligation as a non-profit to make sensible moves that benefit its customers, not just grab more entry fees, bolster Andy Mark and hotel chains in two cities , with outrageous package pricing and weaken the competition level into two semi-events with no chance to see the best teams in one arena starting in 2017.

Thats in essence the root of the questioning going on here.. it does not add up to any good future move for newer teams like us nor long-standing established teams... it shakes the foundation of FIRST equally. Hence this thread. Hope someone decides to do a change that what was presented a day ago.