Future First Championship News

[artK]

In FIRST, a huge number of people have the philosophy of "in order to level the playing field, raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling". This is why people who suggest that FIRST make rules about limiting resources (because a powerhouse team has a good robot) get a lot of flak and a negative reputation in the community.

A lot of this discussion about people disliking the Championshplit probably stems from the fact that FIRST has lowered the ceiling, and the floor. I suspect that a lot of the backlash is from the ceiling being lowered.

Personally, I thought at first that 8 divisions would be a silly idea, but as I think about it more, while it would lower the ceiling for a division win, the expansion would allow more teams to see the best, learn from them, become more competitive, and it would (theoretically) get back to a point where a division win then would be just as much as a division win last year. Had the 2015 championships been the model for the future, the lowest a division ceiling could be would be the ceiling this year, and this year is looking pretty good.

Running the Championshplit would lower the ceiling of all major awards to an irreversible low, and the lowering from 8 divisions would only compound the lowered ceiling. The ceiling would be so low that division champions would go from 12 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 in under 5 years. The ceiling being that low would reduce the inspiration to the floor, and the floor would rise much slower than 8 divisions ever would. This is why I dislike this idea.

[Rangel]

I think BrennanB was totally spot on. And not just that, why is FLL and FTC still a side child? I really am in favor of them getting vastly more qualification spots. Though teams may still be inspired be and their best to win their FLL region competition, I'm sure they would love a chance to compete with the best of the best at worlds. I'm not too familiar with FTC so I can't speak on their experience in competition but I'm sure both programs would love and deserve to have way more spots at worlds. And if people want a current solution to both problems right now, I'll bring up what I brought up before. Make one venue FTC/FLL champs and one venue for FRC champs. Imagine how many more teams could qualify through FLL and FTC by doing this and how many more matches all their teams would get with drastically increased space for more fields. Everyone's talking about FRC like it's the only program that inspires people but its not. We take up so much space that FLL and FTC had to be booted from the dome just so we can still have them around. They deserve their own championships where they are not the side childs especially since they have to be victorious over way more teams than an FRC team. Getting to worlds is much much harder for those teams but seem to think FRC is the immediate problem.

[OZ_341]

One practical problem that I see should be so obvious to anyone that has tried to put on a very large event or to anyone that has ever tried to keep any two complex endeavors identical.

Over time, these two "Championships" will not be the same experience. Eventually one "Championship" will be regarded as "Better" that the other. There will be "Haves" and "Have Nots". Teams will start to invent reasons why they should be allowed to attend the "better" Championship and FIRST will allow this to happen for special circumstances.

If you consider all of the factors involved such as competitiveness, chemistry of attending teams, weather, flight costs, logistics, food, quality of the volunteer base, sponsorships, sponsor activities, special events, celebrity appearances, local sightseeing, etc., there is no way the experience will be the same.

I will not venture to guess which will be the better Championship and its not an appropriate discussion to have here. However the fact remains that one Championship will eventually be perceived as better than the other. Its just in the nature of things.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

The point here is that Championships isn't the place to deal with this growth. (which by the way isn't even one of the reasons they gave us for expanding champs)

The growth will show up at championships as the number of teams and subsequently regional/districts increases and more total teams will thus qualify for worlds.

The district model has limits to how many tiers can be reasonably added and then this or similar would become necessary for the championships anyway. What this year has shown is that FIRST may be able to have two 600 team events which means a while before there are enough districts to necessitate tearing.

Perhaps they calculated that the tiers would eventually be more expensive and doing this first allows for the program growth to bring more funding over time to help pay for that? There are too many things we don't know about how hard FIRST is to run and we shouldn't throw them under the bus for it

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by artK

In FIRST, a huge number of people have the philosophy of "in order to level the playing field, raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling". This is why people who suggest that FIRST make rules about limiting resources (because a powerhouse team has a good robot) get a lot of flak and a negative reputation in the community.

A lot of this discussion about people disliking the Championshplit probably stems from the fact that FIRST has lowered the ceiling, and the floor. I suspect that a lot of the backlash is from the ceiling being lowered.

Personally, I thought at first that 8 divisions would be a silly idea, but as I think about it more, while it would lower the ceiling for a division win, the expansion would allow more teams to see the best, learn from them, become more competitive, and it would (theoretically) get back to a point where a division win then would be just as much as a division win last year. Had the 2015 championships been the model for the future, the lowest a division ceiling could be would be the ceiling this year, and this year is looking pretty good.

Running the Championshplit would lower the ceiling of all major awards to an irreversible low, and the lowering from 8 divisions would only compound the lowered ceiling. The ceiling would be so low that division champions would go from 12 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 in under 5 years. The ceiling being that low would reduce the inspiration to the floor, and the floor would rise much slower than 8 divisions ever would. This is why I dislike this idea.

So back in 2003 when 291 of about 746 teams (39%!) made it to Champs, we must've been doing a terrible job of inspiring people at that competition. I mean, we were because it was the most poorly thought out layout for Champs EVER, and HQ's poor planning gave Houston a bad rep that has apparently lasted to this day... But I don't the the size of the event relative to the field of teams had anything to do with it. Heck, I'm pretty sure way back in the dawn of time, over 50% of the teams that competed ended up at Nationals. I don't really think that made Nationals any worse or less inspiring.

[Michael Blake]

I say, "One Championship to rule them all."


Sorry... just had to do that... geek spasm... lol

--Michael Blake

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Not according to the graphic everyone's been bandying about:
http://i.imgur.com/oSNK90t.png
That shows Michigan funneling into a Super Regional. Along with a number of "District Event Candidate" regions. I'm pretty sure the whole idea was very much to funnel DCMPs into SRs into WCMP. Which makes a nice flow chart, but is definitely going to be stressful on the teams involved.

Hi Kevin,

I know what the 2011 graphic says. However, that is not only model under discussion here. The post I replied to was referring to the 4-tier plan as if it was the only one in this thread (or considered at all), and presented serious objections that have been discussed several times already. She opens with saying that she hasn't followed the discussion closely, so I was pointing out the previously discussed common alternative that addressed her objections. I may have misjudged the balance of opinions between the two models. This is an unknown, but if you think so, I apologize.

Thanks for the GRB info, as well. I feel better about the whole fields in the pits issue.

Originally Posted by jman4747

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.

I'm not sure why you're conflating any arbitrary "preliminary plan" with this particular announcement. Yes, FIRST has a sustainability and scalability problem. That does not necessitate this "hard sell" as you call it, and I don't understand why HQ would think a hard sell is wise based on history.

Asserting the inevitability of this thread in response to a legitimately transparent process is a serious claim to base on a single, non-transparent data point. It's a particularly serious one considering it's against precedent in the community, and no one's complaining sustainability isn't a challenge. Consider the 2011 vision. Backlash? Oh yeah. But nothing like this. Because it wasn't signed contracts with zero input. FIRST spent years at Worlds and in its online presence explaining goals, addressing concerns, being transparent about the process. Was it perfect? No. But was it this? Hah.

This announcement demonstrates a basic lack of willingness to engage that stands contrary to past successes. Consider again the unified Districts and District Point system discussion. Ongoing, for years. Responsive to issues like interdistrict play, slot distribution, consistency, on and on. Wild cards. Even in cases without direct results, HQ at least engaged the objections beforehand and explained themselves. When they didn't, they felt it. They're feeling it now. Look even at the previous bids for the Worlds city. This? I really don't understand your conflation of this with, well...anything. Anything good, at least. (See FVC/FTC)

Originally Posted by jman4747

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.

While I am not personally one of the people that's particularly upset about the two winning alliances aspect, the root change is not that there are two "sole victors" or 8 robots instead of 4. The central objection isn't that two is larger than one. The objection is that the process by which those two alliances develop is entirely different, and to some people, highly objectionable. I see their point.

Originally Posted by jman4747

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.

I would very much appreciate it if you ceased putting words in my mouth. I did not indicate that I trust VEX just as much as FRC--or not, for that matter. I said that my trust is FRC is diminished by tactics like this, and can diminish to the point where I prefer my loyalty to VEX (or anything) over that of FRC. It's not just about the substance of this change; part of the value of FIRST is the trust placed in it. I understand your argument that this move does not affect the value you see in FRC. I understood that the first time you said it. I would appreciate if you did not straw-man me simply because my definition of an organization's value and the derivative thereof differs from your own.

You trust HQ that this is the best move, and you can support it. Good on you, I honestly hope you get the value you want from it, and I suspect you will. I don't understand why this puts you in a position to say that I'm wrong simply because I do not.

[Jared Russell]

The only way a four-tier system works is if the final tier (where the Super Regional/FIRST "Championship" winners play the last couple matches) is kept to a very small number of teams. It would be cool to send the last 4 alliances to one central location (on FIRST's dime, and on a weekend to avoid missing work/school) to do a polished, professionally-produced, live televised 2 hour "Superbowl"...

Get Al Michaels and Dave Verbrugge to do match commentary. Get Grant Imahara and Erin Andrews to do sideline interviews. Use the lead time to do in-depth exposes on the teams and students involved. Invite VIPs and give them the red carpet treatment in a more intimate, less overwhelming venue than a football stadium with thousands of teams. Have simultaneous live viewing parties around the world hosted by FRC teams, ala kickoff.

I think it could be pretty cool if done right. I'd still prefer to see a District Event -> Super Regional -> World Championship format, but this would make the best of the changes that have seemingly already been finalized.

(Oh, and let teams sign up for a first-come, first-served list for swapping "Championships" if they desire)

[MrRoboSteve]

Hard to square the "they're not being transparent" calls on this thread with the availability of presentations like this one, dating back nearly three years, that show clear efforts to present plans and gather feedback.



Oh, and what about this blog entry? Here's a task force, a majority of whom are out in the field, looking at champs eligibility.

http://community.usfirst.org/robotic...nd-Eligibility

Longer-Term Changes

To get serious now. While changes for 2015 Championship eligibility were easy for us, we see a problem on the horizon. We project that within a few years, our current system of Championship eligibility for Regionals will result in an overbooked situation. The task force continues to work on longer-term changes, and will release information on eligibility for later Championships by the end of October. You should know, though, that for us to ensure we don’t exceed our Championship capacity in later years, we will likely need to change eligibility rules, so some teams that have been eligible in the past will no longer be eligible. These won’t be easy decisions for us, but we are working very carefully to ensure the fairest result possible, and we will detail the reasons for our decisions when the information is released.

Hmmm. Could it be that the field/community feedback was "we don't want a lower percentage of teams eligible for champs?", instead pushing for an increase in capacity?

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The only way a four-tier system works is if the final tier (where the Super Regional/FIRST "Championship" winners play the last couple matches) is kept to a very small number of teams. It would be cool to send the last 4 alliances to one central location (on FIRST's dime, and on a weekend to avoid missing work/school) to do a polished, professionally-produced, live televised 2 hour "Superbowl"...

Get Al Michaels and Dave Verbrugge to do match commentary. Get Grant Imahara and Erin Andrews to do sideline interviews. Use the lead time to do in-depth exposes on the teams and students involved. Invite VIPs and give them the red carpet treatment in a more intimate, less overwhelming venue than a football stadium with thousands of teams. Have simultaneous live viewing parties around the world hosted by FRC teams, ala kickoff.

I think it could be pretty cool if done right. I'd still prefer to see a District Event -> Super Regional -> World Championship format, but this would make the best of the changes that have seemingly already been finalized.

(Oh, and let teams sign up for a first-come, first-served list for swapping "Championships" if they desire)

I completely agree that a small championship with larger "showcase" events earlier in the year is probably ultimately the best approach to satisfy need to have both a conclusive championship matchup and a spectacle the scale of the current format championship, especially since the consistently extreme quality level at this final tier would be perfect for mass exposure. I feel as though you would have to make it a little larger though, just enough to allow it to play out as a traditional event with quals/alliance selection/elims (although I could also see a number of in-between options, with performance from previous events somehow weighing into the rankings, allowing for shorter quals matches and potentially a longer form elimination tournament).

This would prevent a problem which would arise in any setup where you carry alliances across tournaments: What if a team, for whatever reason, has to decline the invitation? It would also allow an alliance selection for the championship of the world to occur in a single division format. This has been impossible with the current champs setup for a very, very long time, but it may do a great deal to help determine the "true" best robots. I can think of numerous examples of "what if?" alliances which were never able to happen due to division lines. By making picking a free for all among teams who achieve an elite level of performance (probably some autobids+district point rankings at the north and south events), you can create some mind boggling alliance pairings.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The only way a four-tier system works is if the final tier (where the Super Regional/FIRST "Championship" winners play the last couple matches) is kept to a very small number of teams. It would be cool to send the last 4 alliances to one central location (on FIRST's dime, and on a weekend to avoid missing work/school) to do a polished, professionally-produced, live televised 2 hour "Superbowl"...

Get Al Michaels and Dave Verbrugge to do match commentary. Get Grant Imahara and Erin Andrews to do sideline interviews. Use the lead time to do in-depth exposes on the teams and students involved. Invite VIPs and give them the red carpet treatment in a more intimate, less overwhelming venue than a football stadium with thousands of teams. Have simultaneous live viewing parties around the world hosted by FRC teams, ala kickoff.

This is a great concept.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Hard to square the "they're not being transparent" calls on this thread with the availability of presentations like this one, dating back nearly three years, that show clear efforts to present plans and gather feedback.

Attachment 18818

Yes, and then they release something completely different without any notice, and present it as a done deal.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Yes, and then they release something completely different without any notice, and present it as a done deal.

Exactly. Did anyone outside of HQ know anything about this? We've gotten definitive "no"s from a number of WFAs, HOFs, Chiefs...nothing. I'm not even sure upset is the right word for me about that. I'm just...baffled. We'd really been building up the examples of transparency there for a while.

I would PPV to watch Jared's red carpet superbowl.

[MikeE]

A response on FRC Blog

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...Were-Listening

[Citrus Dad]

One possible solution for evening out the competitiveness of the two events is to rotate geographic regions attending each event. For example it could be four regions:

- NE US + Canada
- SE US w/Texas
- Upper Midwest
- West + Rest of World

The middle 2 regions may never meet each other, but the other 2 could alternate sites each year.

Other regional alignmnets might choose to split it down the Detroit-St. Louis-Houston axis and rotate among all 4 regions.