Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I don't like this suggestion for several reasons. The crux of my problem is this solution is based on the assumption that RCA winners and highly competitive robots are somewhat mutually exclusive. Yet the eventual Chairman's winner is quite often on Einstein. Hot (67) actually took home both awards in 2005, and you can't tell me 359, 842, 111, etc. don't field competitive robots. So what you're doing is forcing teams to pick which half of the program they value most. It seems like a weird thing to do if we think FIRST is about changing the culture through awesome robot competitions. This seems more like changing the culture OR having an awesome robot competition. To me, it seems a lot more damaging to the spirit and mission of FIRST than just having two championships.

Also, I dispute the notion that having a single, undisputed Chairman's Winner is important to all FRC teams. At the very least, it's not important to me and mine. As I said in the other thread, I would be quite surprised if a Chairman winning team was disappointed that a second team won Chairman's that year. Heck, they say right in the award description that it "recognizes sustained excellence and impact, not just a one (1) year team effort". I don't see how it's mandatory that we only recognize one team per year for what is essentially a lifetime achievement award. At this point, we're growing fast enough that we're creating CCA caliber teams at a rather higher rate than 1 per year. You could probably take the top 10 Chairman's teams, pull one of their numbers out of a hat and be quite justified declaring they should win that year because (specific extraordinary traits/achievements that are different than those of the other 9 teams).

So. I think the beef with having multiple WFAs, CCAs, etc. is pretty misplaced, and I really don't like the concept of officially segregating the two halves of the FIRST mission.

This.

Jane

Does anyone know if the meeting is being recorded?

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

Does anyone know if the meeting is being recorded?

I heard that it was being recorded by FIRST.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Hallry

I heard that it was being recorded by FIRST.

You're not gonna get much out of it... Pretty much 40 min of Steve Chism and Don Bossi evading questions.

[dodar]

Did anyone there just record it? Because I forsee FIRST's video of this not going up for quite a while.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by dodar

Did anyone there just record it? Because I forsee FIRST's video of this not going up for quite a while.

FIRST was recording it but there was also another personal camera on a tripod recording it

[blazingbronco18]

For those off us that weren't able to make it to the meeting can someone fill us in on what the jist of the meeting was?

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by blazingbronco18

For those off us that weren't able to make it to the meeting can someone fill us in on what the jist of the meeting was?

From the presentation slides:

Non-negotiable:

2 "Championships" through 2020
400 FRC teams at each event (800 total)

FIRST is "exploring":

- Options for a post-season, broadcasted, event between winning alliances
- Opening a percentage of slots at each Championship to teams from the other Championship region
- Other options for adding to the value of Championship for teams

Questions:

- What are FIRST's objectives with this decision?
- What process was used to make this decision, and why wasn't the FIRST community asked for input?
- How does this reduce travel costs, especially for West Coast teams?
- Doesn't having two championships weaken the competition aspect that helps make any sport exciting?
- What elements of the decision are set in stone and what elements can the community still help decide?

So basically - FIRST is unable or unwilling to make substantive changes to the plan, but you can rearrange the deck chairs if it makes you feel better.

Sounds like they barely provided answers to the "Questions" slide - they cited "contract negotiations" as a reason that the community wasn't consulted. Total cop out.

They had a big chart showing that the percentage of teams "that can experience Championship is shrinking". Going from 80% in 1995 to the current ~20%. The cheeky response is that 0% of teams will experience the "Championship" starting in 2017.

Unclear why FTC and FLL are so unloved that it's OK to have a very small % of those programs attend the Championship event, but that's unacceptable for FRC.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by scottandme

From the presentation slides:


So basically - FIRST is unable or unwilling to make substantive changes to the plan, but you can rearrange the deck chairs if it makes you feel better.

Sounds like they barely provided answers to the "Questions" slide - they cited "contract negotiations" as a reason that the community wasn't consulted. Total cop out.

They had a big chart showing that the percentage of teams "that can experience Championship is shrinking". Going from 80% in 1995 to the current ~20%. The cheeky response is that 0% of teams will experience the "Championship" starting in 2017.

Unclear why FTC and FLL are so unloved that it's OK to have a very small % of those programs attend the Championship event, but that's unacceptable for FRC.

Wow, that's a real screw you to teams if I ever saw one. Sounds like someone is trying to cover their behind/save their job by trying to convince the FRC community (which is teams, not administrators) that this is good for them.

[PayneTrain]

Glad to hear it's all going according to plan.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by scottandme

From the presentation slides:


So basically - FIRST is unable or unwilling to make substantive changes to the plan, but you can rearrange the deck chairs if it makes you feel better.

Sounds like they barely provided answers to the "Questions" slide - they cited "contract negotiations" as a reason that the community wasn't consulted. Total cop out.

They had a big chart showing that the percentage of teams "that can experience Championship is shrinking". Going from 80% in 1995 to the current ~20%. The cheeky response is that 0% of teams will experience the "Championship" starting in 2017.

Unclear why FTC and FLL are so unloved that it's OK to have a very small % of those programs attend the Championship event, but that's unacceptable for FRC.

Well that sounds incredibly disappointing.

[Munchskull]

Sounds like they were cowards. If they kept dodging questions then what was the point?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Wow, that's a real screw you to teams if I ever saw one. Sounds like someone is trying to cover their behind/save their job by trying to convince the FRC community (which is teams, not administrators) that this is good for them.

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Well that sounds incredibly disappointing.

Let's establish some truths:

In the long run, FIRST does not care about what you think concerning the prospect of two championships.

In the long run, FIRST is not scared of you.

Your ideas don't hold any weight as long as it is fundamentally different from the idea of the championsplit that has taken hold over HQ since 2014 (I assume)

FIRST thinks they are doing the right thing and those who don't fall in line to this line of thinking
a) are not a threat to the overall mission of FIRST
b) can only become a threat if their wishes are respected and thoughts are considered on equal footing to those who made the decision to split
c) will fall in line eventually because there is no alternative to FRC as far as they can see (which I assume is to the end of their nose)

If they do not fear a collection of individuals who are WFA, WFFA winners, employees of major sponsors, mentors on teams who share major sponsorship with FIRST, they fear no one. If the opposite were true, the town hall would have gone on as it should have in the eyes of the community, and not as planned out by FIRST.

I'm not a mind reader, but this is the perception, and perception is reality.

[Lil' Lavery]

The adversarial stance of the community here on Chief Delphi is helping the situation how, exactly?

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The adversarial stance of the community here on Chief Delphi is helping the situation how, exactly?

I guess it would be okay to give them a pat on the back and tell them that we don't mind if they keep making mistakes like this.