Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[Siri]

Originally Posted by grstex

That's why I think it should be a swap (qualifying team for qualifying team) lottery (random). Those trying to reach the "stronger" championship will have to rely on qualifying teams from the other region also entering the lottery. even then, it would be a random switch. Heck, the lottery algorithim could even stipulate that it's an "even swap" (winning alliance captain for wining alliance captain, etc.). Even so, There will at least be some opportunistic teams aiming to swap to the "weaker" championship to increase their chances of winning. It opens up all sorts of interesting choices with risks and tradeoffs! THAT is cool!

I understand that you see this working, but I still haven't figured out how making it a lottery would address the phenomenon of more powerhouse teams signing up to leave one event than the other. Unless HQ develops a way to deliberately control powerhouse swaps, making the selection random doesn't compensate for the bias within the lottery pools themselves. A winning alliance captain is not the same thing in all cases. This isn't meant an insult to any specific team, simply an acknowledgement that different performances are different. It would take concerted and arguably inappropriately specific effort on the part of HQ to even ostensibly enforce equality, with or without a swap program.

I also feel the need to strenuously challenge the term "cool" for engaging in the practice you refer to as opportunistic (personally I'd call it exploitative). This is already possible at a regional level, and I have never seen nor had the desire to apply the word "cool" to it. I usually hear it called exactly (exactly) the opposite. Particularly because most teams do not have the luxury to move even should they wish to do so.

Originally Posted by grstex

In that case I'd recommend requesting a Q&A session be a major agenda item at the town hall. I think FIRST's goals with split championships were pretty clear based on the press release and blog post, but anything that will help teams better understand this decision and the motivation behind it will ease the tension (as long as things are kept civil).

I would expect that the Q&A will be, but would personally find HQ waiting until Worlds to publicize these details rather untoward. It's very difficult to prepare proposals without knowing what's legally locked and what's not. I've made a blog comment request for more information already.

Originally Posted by grstex

With all due respect, I acknowledged and understood the sentiment, I didn't agree with it. As a FIRST alumni and active volunteer, I've been... "disappointed" by some of the comments on other threads.

Sorry, I hadn't meant to imply that you agreed, merely that the comparison was insightful and rhetorically impressive.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by grstex

I know this is a popular compromise being discussed, but but please consider how this will be perceived by the host cities. They (along with the FIRST sponsors based in those cities) likely spent lots of time and money bidding to an FRC Championship. I suspected that all cities bidding to host championships also knew there would two championship events. Suddenly changing course and giving one city the FRC Championship and the other and FTC/FLL championship with an FRC invitational is not what these cities bid for.

If you were in their shoes, and invested time, money, and political and business connections attract such a big event, and got something very different than what was promised, would you not be upset? (Honestly, in typing this, I realize this is likely what many commenters feel has happened to them with this announcement.) To be blunt, reshaping this agreement and awarding only one city the championship that both cities were promised will leave the other city snubbed.* That will ruin the reputation of FIRST, and make it that much harder to negotiate with other cities in the future (if you don't think this type of thing would be spread by mayors, tourism chiefs, etc., you're wrong).

This is even more reason why FIRST should have consulted the community BEFORE it agreed to anything. Now FIRST will have to choose to spite either the host cities or the teams. On one hand, pulling the bait-and-switch on the the host cities may be damaging to FIRST's negotiating power. On the other hand, the teams are the customers to whom FIRST is providing a service. There is a limit to how much your customers will put up with before they decide that the service is not worth it.

Furthermore, if people's opinions regarding the value of the FIRST experience is diminished, such as it would be by the isolation of teams by geographical boundaries***, then teams would be less enthusiastic about bringing others into the program. FIRST seems to have dug itself a nice, deep hole, in between a rock and a hard place.

I really think allowing qualifying teams to opt in to a "swap lottery" has a lot of potential. It allows for cross pollination, gives qualifying teams a special privilege that they earned, and would protect against stacking one Championship at the expense of the other. The host cities involved would also likely welcome a more diverse pool of teams traveling to their cities.


*To be clear, calling an FTC/FLL championship a "snub" is NOT meant to disparage these programs. It's just obviously not what either host city signed up for.

This is definitely a possible solution, but it still loses to the single FRC championship option. Although time travel is still the best by far.

It might be worth noting that by moving the FTC championship to a single venue (without an FRC championship) would allow it be greatly expanded to the point where it could be nearly as large as the FRC championship. It might be possible to reduce the backlash from the host cities if FIRST promises, and delivers a greatly enlarged FTC championship in addition to a smaller FRC competition. It might take a lot of effort to effect change of this magnitude, but I think it is possible.
Additionally, FIRST could alternate which City hosts the FRC championship and which gets the FTC championship.

***The idea of FIRST causing geographical segregation is quite unpleasant, to say the least.

[grstex]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

This is even more reason why FIRST should have consulted the community BEFORE it agreed to anything. Now FIRST will have to choose to spite either the host cities or the teams. On one hand, pulling the bait-and-switch on the the host cities may be damaging to FIRST's negotiating power. On the other hand, the teams are the customers to whom FIRST is providing a service. There is a limit to how much your customers will put up with before they decide that the service is not worth it.

Furthermore, if people's opinions regarding the value of the FIRST experience is diminished, such as it would be by the isolation of teams by geographical boundaries***, then teams would be less enthusiastic about bringing others into the program. FIRST seems to have dug itself a nice, deep hole, in between a rock and a hard place.



This is definitely a possible solution, but it still loses to the single FRC championship option. Although time travel is still the best by far.

It might be worth noting that by moving the FTC championship to a single venue (without an FRC championship) would allow it be greatly expanded to the point where it could be nearly as large as the FRC championship. It might be possible to reduce the backlash from the host cities if FIRST promises, and delivers a greatly enlarged FTC championship in addition to a smaller FRC competition. It might take a lot of effort to effect change of this magnitude, but I think it is possible.
Additionally, FIRST could alternate which City hosts the FRC championship and which gets the FTC championship.

***The idea of FIRST causing geographical segregation is quite unpleasant, to say the least.

Its a classic planning exercise. Determine the space needs for the 800+ FRC teams FIRST hopes to have at championships in the future. Then, make a list of venues that can accommodate those needs. Then look at hotel space within reasonable distance, travel arrangements for domestic and international teams, amenities, etc. Build a list of venues, then ask which location is the best for everyone. It's like planning a wedding. Do you hold it near the bride's family? The groom's? Do you do a destination wedding? How do these choices effect who you invite and if they'll come? 3-course meal or buffet? Go through the exercise of getting an 800-team FRC championship under one roof, find that one best location, and ask why it was not considered.

[David Lame]

I'm relatively new to First. I've got just two years of experience as a mentor.

My first year was really inspiring to me, and a big part of that was seeing a world championship event, watching the whole world come together to have the best teams compete in front of a crowd of screaming fans. It was genuinely awe-inspiring.

You can't have two championships. You can have zero or one.

Commitments have been made already. Some things aren't going to change. I don't know which things could be renegotiated and which cannot, but I'm pretty sure a lot of this plan is set in stone and can't be undone, at least for a few years, so I'm not going to say what ought to be done, because I don't know what the real options are.

I'll talk about one thing, from my own perspective. There have been a lot of posts mentioning goals and tradeoffs about the world championship events. There are a lot of factors that have to be considered, and maybe when all of them are considered, there really isn't any better way to do it than to eliminate the world championships. (I won't say "split" them. A split championship is no championship at all.) However, of all the goals that are considered, the one that I would get rid of first is the idea that every team ought to have a chance to participate in the World Championship on some sort of regular basis.

I feel like I don't have to be physically present at the championship venue to be part of it. When I talk to my students, I talk about a road that ends in Saint Louis, and how we want to go as far along that road as possible. If we didn't get very far along that road this year, we can look and see what we can do to get a little farther next year. We might not make it, but just having the destination in mind makes me feel like I'm part of that big, global, event called the world championships. Somehow, struggling to go as far as possible on the road to a world championship is more inspiring than having an easier path to half a championship.

Well, that's the way I feel about it anyway. Others may see it differently.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by grstex

Go through the exercise of getting an 800-team FRC championship under one roof, find that one best location, and ask why it was not considered.

I'll give some help with that...

Fields: 800 teams might be doable with the current 8 fields. Barely. Let's use that as a baseline for size on the playing field. Incidentally, that means we'll need a football field, covered, or similarly-sized venue, just for the fields.

Pits... at 10x10 for each team, that's 80K square feet without any aisles (which will obviously add quite a bit of space--call it 120K with the aisles as a conservative number). Plus 4 basketball courts for the practice fields, plus about 400 square feet for Pit Admin. Say a good-sized convention center.

"Add-ons" like Spare Parts, HoF, Scholarship Row, Supplier Showcase, and the Conference will also need space. Plus space will be needed for the volunteer lounge, judging rooms, and VIP areas.

Seating: Many a team brings a skeleton crew. But more bring full teams. If we figure 50 people/team, that means the minimum seating is 40K seats. Not counting VIPs and judges and all, of course (they'll need a hundred or so, at best guess).

Now, any one or two of those conditions isn't all that hard to meet. Football stadiums, any college or NFL town will have at least one, and they'll probably all be able to handle 40K seats if the college is at a high enough level. (Or a baseball stadium, though you'd need to make sure that the home team was on the road that week. Soccer might be even better; the field is a smidge larger than a football field as I recall.) Convention centers, even more places have those that could probably handle the entirety of the pits and other similar space, maybe even fields (though seating could be problematic for fields). If tents are allowed, even more areas could be in the running.

But... you also have to deal with travel and lodging. Many a team will use a bus, but more will need to fly. This means an airport that can handle international flights (connections at another airport are OK too, but ). And don't forget about 15K hotel rooms for those 40K team members and the volunteers. A lot of major cities can deal with that; most can handle the traffic.

Now, the really tricky parts: The whole thing has to be covered throughout the event, and the field area and the pit area have to be pretty close together. And transport to the airport and hotels needs to be manageable.

And that's just for FRC.

Atlanta did a pretty good job--if FIRST were still there, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to pull off an 800-team event under those conditions. But the Georgia Dome might not be available much longer. (GWCC might still be an option.) St. Louis is rather cramped. I'm not aware of anything of that nature out here on the West Coast--maybe Seattle has something but I doubt it. I've heard rumors of Anaheim but that might be stretching it quite a bit. (We've got good weather out here, so very few stadiums even have a roof--you'd be getting a convention center.) I've heard Indianapolis floated a few times as a possible site, but I haven't been anywhere near the proposed venue so I don't know anything.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

This is even more reason why FIRST should have consulted the community BEFORE it agreed to anything. Now FIRST will have to choose to spite either the host cities or the teams. On one hand, pulling the bait-and-switch on the the host cities may be damaging to FIRST's negotiating power. On the other hand, the teams are the customers to whom FIRST is providing a service. There is a limit to how much your customers will put up with before they decide that the service is not worth it.

...

***The idea of FIRST causing geographical segregation is quite unpleasant, to say the least.

Alan, if you read CitrusDad's original post, this thread is a problem-solving one, dedicated to developing alternative proposals to make at the town hall meeting. One way you can distinguish serious discussion from venting is whether it includes emotionally loaded statements like spite, bait-and-switch, and segregation. Those words are fine if you want to let off steam, but they will cause the decisionmakers at the Town Hall Meeting to discount any ideas you have.

Please use this thread if you want to vent.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by EricH

Atlanta did a pretty good job--if FIRST were still there, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to pull off an 800-team event under those conditions.

I know we keep focusing on 800 teams, but it stands to reason that FIRST has the goal of getting >25% of teams to a championship event. While one location might be good for 800 teams, what happens when FRC grows beyond 3200 to 4000 or more teams?

While any solution focusing on 2017 and 2018 would assume 2 locations at some 800 team split, I'd look at it from FIRST's perspective. If the solution isn't scalable to years in the future, it probably is a non-starter with FIRST.



Thinking outside of the box, I think it would be neat to wrap up the previous season at the next year's kickoff. Having both winners play then solves the problem of no clearly defined champion, low visibility and perhaps "unofficial-ness" at any event other than a championship, fast turnaround travel times for the winning alliance at the early event, and possibly mentor burn-out / limited vacation times, etc.

This introduces more problems for the teams that win, including what to do with their robots in the off season and seniors graduating, but I think that could be worked around.

[MrRoboSteve]

EricH:

Looking at pit layout diagrams, a good number to use for pit size is roughly 250-300 square feet per team, depending on venue layout. There is generally an aisle in front of each pit that is equal in size to the pit, so that gets us to 200sf right there. Plus you need connecting aisles, and routes for robots to/from the competition and practice fields.

Pit admin, spare parts, and inspections runs closer to 1000 square feet at venues I'm familiar with. Full sized practice fields probably consume more than 4000sf each, assuming a 15' deep driver area at each end, 10' clear areas on each side, and space for waiting robots.

That said, if you assume no limits on money for event buildout, there are several locations in the US with NFL stadiums that would work for the event.

Thought exercise for those proposing a larger, single venue event

We can easily identify other options for venues that physically accommodate 600-800 teams, so we must assume that FIRST, with experienced event planners, can do the same. In fact, FIRST has the St. Louis location under contract for 2017, which is physically able to handle 600 teams, and has chosen to add a location in that year.

Since FIRST has proposed going to multiple events with smaller event sizes, there must be some other resource needed to put on an event that is not available at one location. Any thoughts on what that resource might be?

[grstex]

Originally Posted by EricH

I'll give some help with that...

Fields: 800 teams might be doable with the current 8 fields. Barely. Let's use that as a baseline for size on the playing field. Incidentally, that means we'll need a football field, covered, or similarly-sized venue, just for the fields.

Pits... at 10x10 for each team, that's 80K square feet without any aisles (which will obviously add quite a bit of space--call it 120K with the aisles as a conservative number). Plus 4 basketball courts for the practice fields, plus about 400 square feet for Pit Admin. Say a good-sized convention center.

"Add-ons" like Spare Parts, HoF, Scholarship Row, Supplier Showcase, and the Conference will also need space. Plus space will be needed for the volunteer lounge, judging rooms, and VIP areas.

Seating: Many a team brings a skeleton crew. But more bring full teams. If we figure 50 people/team, that means the minimum seating is 40K seats. Not counting VIPs and judges and all, of course (they'll need a hundred or so, at best guess).

Now, any one or two of those conditions isn't all that hard to meet. Football stadiums, any college or NFL town will have at least one, and they'll probably all be able to handle 40K seats if the college is at a high enough level. (Or a baseball stadium, though you'd need to make sure that the home team was on the road that week. Soccer might be even better; the field is a smidge larger than a football field as I recall.) Convention centers, even more places have those that could probably handle the entirety of the pits and other similar space, maybe even fields (though seating could be problematic for fields). If tents are allowed, even more areas could be in the running.

But... you also have to deal with travel and lodging. Many a team will use a bus, but more will need to fly. This means an airport that can handle international flights (connections at another airport are OK too, but ). And don't forget about 15K hotel rooms for those 40K team members and the volunteers. A lot of major cities can deal with that; most can handle the traffic.

Now, the really tricky parts: The whole thing has to be covered throughout the event, and the field area and the pit area have to be pretty close together. And transport to the airport and hotels needs to be manageable.

And that's just for FRC.

Atlanta did a pretty good job--if FIRST were still there, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to pull off an 800-team event under those conditions. But the Georgia Dome might not be available much longer. (GWCC might still be an option.) St. Louis is rather cramped. I'm not aware of anything of that nature out here on the West Coast--maybe Seattle has something but I doubt it. I've heard rumors of Anaheim but that might be stretching it quite a bit. (We've got good weather out here, so very few stadiums even have a roof--you'd be getting a convention center.) I've heard Indianapolis floated a few times as a possible site, but I haven't been anywhere near the proposed venue so I don't know anything.

Thanks Eric! Good start. For a baseline, check the Championship website for this year. You'll see FTC has already been moved to a completely separate venue, so I think it's safe to assume you need greater than the maximum exhibit space at the America's Center/EJD, which is over 500,000 square feet.

Anything on either coast is out for a single FRC event, as it's more travel for teams on the opposite coast. That leaves the central US (that was the reasoning behind St. Louis, IIRC). At 566,000 SQFT, The Indiana Convention Center isn't much larger than St. Louis, which we already acknowledged is cramped. Tents are a good idea, but I was around for old school FRC at Epcot Center, which was nothing but tents and portable A/C. I imagine several 100,000 SQFT of tents would be expensive. The GWCC might have still been an option. And then there's Detroit and Houston.

Now ask FIRST why a single FRC-only championship wasn't considered at one of these facilities (or any others that meet criteria). And, ask why subdividing Championships was preferred over breaking up the established precedent of having all four programs at one event. This is the path to many of the answers as to why this decision was made. What are the goals and constraints of a FIRST Championship event? Define the scope, and look at your viable options for meeting your short and long term goals. That's what FIRST had to do, and we can find answers to our "why" questions if we attempt it ourselves. BUT, you can also ask FIRST their reasoning, too. That why they're holding the town hall.

[shhrz]

I don't know where to put this exactly, but i'll throw it up here. My vision is more long-term, seeing as I assume that the short-term aspects are already set in stone.This thread was created to deal with the short-term salvation and I think great ideas were raised, yet I think we should also look a little further over the horizon, since clearly FIRST changed their future plans. My long-term plan is similar to FIRST's previous version of expansion, with a little detail.

So, long-term, there are a few limitations on what I would try to plan for. The main issue, of course, is time. The season is limited for many reasons previously discussed in many different threads, and I assume that we would want to stay within the 9 week time frame. This is my main constraint, but I also try to think about money and time away from school.

I see everyone moving to districts. All district events will happen during weeks 1-4, where each team gets to play a maximum of 2 events. A team pays according to the amount of events they play. Should they play 2 events, their point total would equal the sum of points earned at both events. Should they select to play 1 event - their point total would be multiplied by two. I am assuming that teams play better as the season progresses, so they will be better during their second event. Should a team not be able to afford/schedule two events - they would be slightly hurt, but not horribly. The good teams will still make it to the next round of play, due to point multiplication.

Weeks 5-6 will hold the next level of competition: District Championships, similar to what happens today. Obviously, since EVERYONE is in districts then this can happen during the same time, where each District chooses the week it wants (to give the teams a break during week 5 OR week 6). I think any place with 50+ teams can move to the district system. Smaller places with few teams (China, Turkey etc.) will have to be handled separately. Not sure how yet.

Now comes the question regarding time and money. Another level of competition between District Champs and Worlds in week 7 means all teams participating need to travel and pay for playing, food and so on. Yet this seems to be a necessity long-term. Another option is to make BIG District Champs, yet even if there are many teams participating, a smaller amount of teams advances directly to Worlds rather than a bigger amount to the intermediate level - I think this is a question of time, money, and so on.

Should we have the Super Regionals, they should be a week 7 event. This allows 2 weeks to prepare for the week 9 Championship. A big advantage for these Super Regionals is that FIRST can just add more once a Region is big enough to split. Should we have big District Champs, they can be during weeks 6-7, instead of the 5-6 stated above. The Districts can also be split, should it be needed to maintain a decent sized championship (so that x% of the teams can attend the District Championship).

Finally, the World Championship can occur during week 9.

================================================== ========

While not solving the immediate issue (that coming up in 2 years), trying this out will help transition these two championship events to Super Regionals. If we don't want Super Regionals, then I guess we can use one of the previously mentioned solutions and ride them out until 2019.

================================================== ========

In terms of money, most teams in Districts go to anywhere between 2 (two District Events) to 5 (three District events, District Champs, World Champs) events. With this system, the most events a team can go to is 5 - two District events, District Champs, Super Regional, Worlds. So the payment should be roughly the same for competing.

In terms of travel... the Super Regional is probably a little further away than a third District Event, but not HORRIBLY so. Other than that it's a wash to the current situation.

In terms of the time of the competition season, we stay within the 9 week time frame, as described above.

================================================== ========

Granted, not all issues are solved here, but once we figure out the short-term ideas to bring up, we should also think long-term

[grstex]

Originally Posted by efoote868

I know we keep focusing on 800 teams, but it stands to reason that FIRST has the goal of getting >25% of teams to a championship event. While one location might be good for 800 teams, what happens when FRC grows beyond 3200 to 4000 or more teams?

While any solution focusing on 2017 and 2018 would assume 2 locations at some 800 team split, I'd look at it from FIRST's perspective. If the solution isn't scalable to years in the future, it probably is a non-starter with FIRST.



Thinking outside of the box, I think it would be neat to wrap up the previous season at the next year's kickoff. Having both winners play then solves the problem of no clearly defined champion, low visibility and perhaps "unofficial-ness" at any event other than a championship, fast turnaround travel times for the winning alliance at the early event, and possibly mentor burn-out / limited vacation times, etc.

This introduces more problems for the teams that win, including what to do with their robots in the off season and seniors graduating, but I think that could be worked around.

One of my favorite ideas! What a way to kick off the next season! Sure, it has its shortcomings (I'd also add that the "cliffhanger" aspect as a shortcoming, but hey, it works for TV shows), but seeing the previous champions face off would certainly spark imaginations just before the new game reveal!

And, scalability is very likely a factor in championship format.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

I agree that finding volunteers is an issue FIRST has, but I'm slightly confused as to how having two "split" events requires more volunteers than two "mixed" events. If anything, this will allow volunteers who only can/want to help with one event focus on purely that (e.g. if you want to volunteer with FLL, now you don't have to pick one)

My post about volunteers might have been a bit confusing. I'll try to explain further. First, I think you'd agree that FRC events are much more volunteer intensive than FTC and FLL events. Therefore, I am going to focus on FRC in this discussion.

At each FRC regional event, there are several sources of volunteers. I'll walk you through my mental map of each source.

The first group are the key volunteers. These volunteers are usually very experienced, trained, and usually return from year-to-year. They are often alumni (either team members or mentors) who continue their participation because they enjoy it. These volunteers are dedicated enough that they will often travel, on their own $$, to a regional to participate.

The second group of volunteers at regionals are team-provided volunteers -- both team members and family. The supply of these volunteers is roughly proportional to the number of team members present at a regional, adjusted based on the number of teams that have to travel to attend.

The third group of volunteers is community volunteers. A good example of this in 2015 was at North Star -- we had a large group of hard-working volunteers from Target headquarters who helped at the event. When selection a location for an event, the availability of these volunteers is a key factor.

In sheer numbers, most of the volunteers are sourced from teams and the community.

At a Champs-style event, you have a couple issues.

First is that there are a bunch of volunteer positions that you need to fill that aren't needed at a regional, increasing demand for volunteers.

The second issue is around team-provided volunteers. Fewer team-provided volunteers are available at Champs, because the total number of people from a team attending Champs (including parents) is lower. It is also possible for team volunteers and alumni to fit a shift or two between work and/or classes at a regional. A good example of this is Robot Inspectors -- the LRI will happily accept you as a robot inspector if you are competent and can help only between noon and 6pm on Thursday at a regional event. In order to compensate for this, more community volunteers are needed at Champs.

So you need more community volunteers to run your Champs-style event. What's the problem with that? For a variety of reasons (age, incomes, culture), each community has a limited supply of community volunteers. Wondering why Minnesota can operate two well-run double regionals? Being #1 in volunteering rate, with 900,000 active volunteers in the area has a lot to do with it. St. Louis is no slouch either, with 600,000 active volunteers. But there's probably a limit to how many of those volunteers you can attract to help your event. I know our Volunteer Coordinator in Minnesota has to work hard to staff the events here.

So coming back to your question, my concern is around the supply of community volunteers available to support a Champs-style event. Hosting these events in two different locations helps address that by allowing you to draw from two different pools of community volunteers.

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

- How are these teams currently doing it? Do they have a lot of overlap between the programs or have separate groups of kids/mentors?

Some students participate as team members in FTC and FRC (ours, for example), in others the FTC and FLL teams are mentored by FRC team members. There are a lot of Chairman's Award applications that discuss how the FRC team created/mentored multiple FTC/FLL teams.

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

I think that's part of the issue. FIRST hasn't explained their goals. Even Frank's follow up blog post, as good at it was, didn't explain why they think a split champs is necessary. Maybe they have a reason that it is necessary and there aren't any other alternatives, but maybe there aren't. Unless they tell us, we won't know why they decided to go forward with this.

I disagree that they haven't been clear about their goals. The announcement has two goal statements in it that they use to justify the change.

We want more kids to feel the passion and power that comes with being a part of FIRST Championship events.

we seek to reduce the travel distances and associated travel expenses for a significant number of our teams.

They have decided that they're willing to compromise on "single experience" in order to offer "more teams."

If you read FIRST's mission statement,

Mission

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

you have to admit that this decision optimizes for more young people having an inspiring experience. Reasonable people might disagree on the tradeoff, but it is tough to see how the change runs counter to the mission of FIRST.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by shhrz

I see everyone moving to districts. All district events will happen during weeks 1-4, where each team gets to play a maximum of 2 events.

There are issues with venue, field, and volunteer availability that you should consider. An example, in Minnesota we'd need between 10 and 12 district events. We currently put on four events, so instead of two fields that are in use on 2/7 of the weekends (and used by others on 5/7 of the weekends), we would need three dedicated fields.

Regarding your schedule:

So a team that plays a full district schedule and advances would play on something like this schedule:

Week 1
Week 3
Week 5
Week 7
Week 9

or (worse)

Week 3
Week 4
Week 6
Week 7
Week 9

With weeks 5/6, 7, and 9 including travel. Will be a burden for some teams.

Originally Posted by shhrz

Granted, not all issues are solved here, but once we figure out the short-term ideas to bring up, we should also think long-term

I agree that thinking about the long term goal helps guide a short term strategy.

[Rachel Lim]

I'll be writing another post with a more detailed explanation for how I think super regionals and a single champs could work, but first I wanted to bring up this point:
If FIRST is truly determined to have a split champs, the is probably very little anyone can do to change that. Think about it (and I understand these are probably not too relevant to most of you, who are probably adult mentors) like you're arguing with your parents about whether you can go to robotics, or trying to convince mentors that WCD is better than mecanum (examples weren't intended to refer to actual events). You can try your best, but in the end, someone else has all the power. It's not clear how far FIRST is willing to compromise / work with other ideas.

Originally Posted by Dunngeon

Just wanted to point out that each event will host 400 teams, meaning that there are 800 FRC teams total attending a World Championship.

Thanks for the clarification. It seems that there are at least three locations (St Louis, Detroit, and Houston) that can host 400+ FRC teams, plus FTC and FLL.

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

My post about volunteers might have been a bit confusing. I'll try to explain further. First, I think you'd agree that FRC events are much more volunteer intensive than FTC and FLL events. Therefore, I am going to focus on FRC in this discussion.
[snip]

Thank you for the explanation. I'll address volunteers in my next post, which will hopefully be a bit more complete than the previous one.

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

Some students participate as team members in FTC and FRC (ours, for example), in others the FTC and FLL teams are mentored by FRC team members. There are a lot of Chairman's Award applications that discuss how the FRC team created/mentored multiple FTC/FLL teams.

I'll talk about this more later too. Currently do district champs have FTC/FLL with them, or are they purely FRC? I remember Alamo regional having FTC and FRC in the same building, but how many other events have an overlap?

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

I disagree that they haven't been clear about their goals. The announcement has two goal statements in it that they use to justify the change.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. They have said what their goals are, and I think most people agree with them. What they haven't said is why a split champs is the only way to fulfill those goals. What is it about district champs / super regionals that wouldn't work out as well? I'm sure they have reasons to believe in the split champs, but I'm still waiting to understand why they think it's the only way to do that.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

you have to admit that this decision optimizes for more young people having an inspiring experience. Reasonable people might disagree on the tradeoff, but it is tough to see how the change runs counter to the mission of FIRST.

I think the source of strife comes from the trade-off sacrificing what many people who recently attended championships think are keys to making the event inspiring. They ask themselves "What is the point where the number of teams we invite to championships is irrelevant because the actual championships experience has been diminished?" That point of inflection is not something that can be easily, quantitatively defined, and depends on a variety of a variables and perspectives, but it does exist somewhere.

What makes the Championship Event inspiring? I think the elements that dissenters to the Championsplit find important are not the same elements supporters or enablers of the Championsplit think are as vital.