[FRC Blog] We're Listening

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

As one of these teams, in fact 31st out of 31 PNW slots (before waitlist candidates), I can say I agree. While we had a good enough robot and enough practice to win a district, we weren't as competitive as the top tier at the DCMP.

Our goal as a team, was to make it to world's in this transition year. It feels amazing and the kids are proud, because they know we worked hard to earn it. We want to be competitive at Saint Louis, we want to do our best to contribute in Qualification Matches, but most importantly we want to build a team.

I want my students to strive to be better, to learn more and want more. Being able to show them robots and teams that continue to inspire me allows me to do that. Without the risk of failure or more importantly a lofty goal to reach, how can I expect them to be Inspired to grow.

Teams don't want a banner or a championship slot handed to them, they want to earn it. Winning a match in the finals is not just a victory in the moment, it's being rewarded for all the hard work we put in during the season and up until then at the event.

You want to inspire? Give people all the examples they can get, teach them, and reward them the right amount for the time and effort they put in. That's inspiring.

This right here. Now, there may be teams (or maybe just people in teams) that just want to go, they don't care about competing, they just want to be there. And that is fine. But, it would feel so much better earning the spot based on work, like Navid said.

Our team missed the cutoff by about 5 spots, and personally, i dont mind, we cant afford it anyway. But i feel that DCMPs were super inspiring, and that is something everyone should have.

An idea to try and fix this, instead of DCMPs, why not have the Super Regionals as a "Psudeo-DCMP?" It would reduce the burnout, and you would not need to bump the CMP much, if any, depending on the schedules of the regionals. (i know this has been said before, but i want to bring it up again.)


Also, someone talked about the FLL, only .0034%(?) of teams get to go to CMPs, why do we have 25%? why not more 10%? Once most of FRC goes to districts, everyone will have a CMP like feel, but in a smaller area. We dont need 800+ championship, thats just too many teams. And with less teams, we dont need two arenas.