Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[microbuns]

Originally Posted by kgargiulo

Made some progress (with help, and in so doing identified a new programming challenge for the team and a possible new mentor, but that's another story). I have all FRC teams from the OPR sheet on a Google Earth globe.

Only 16 failed to geocode correctly (they're all at lat/long 0 / 0). I attached a North America picture (low team density in other countries requires too much zoom to make a useful picture).

The pins for each team can pop up with whatever information we want to embed, such as "nearest airport" or "distance to Houston". There are a thousand possibilities.

Going to do some more work to elaborate on this and then of course will publish it, even outside this thread and the CMP topic it might be a very interesting thing to see. But probably not going to do more about it until after CMP.

Good luck to everyone attending, looking forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for this map - it's very enlightening. Now I see why they chose to do North and South instead of East and West.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Shifter

Not ideal, but a possible temporary solution until everyone has migrated to Districts...

World Championship: crowns undisputed FRC World Champion (which is important, especially to robot-centric FRC teams)

invitees*:

• Chairman's winners with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event are invited (but have the option to choose to attend the World Festival instead) - approx 50 teams
• captain and first pick from each Regional winning alliance - approx 160 teams
• top 60% of teams qualifying through District Championships - approx 100 teams
• Engineering Inspiration winners (with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event) - approx 60 teams
• Rookie All Stars (with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event) - approx 30 teams

World Festival: crowns undisputed Chairman's Award Winner (which is important to all FRC teams)

invitees*:

• Chairman's winners (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event or those who choose to forego the World Championships) - approx 30 teams
• second pick from each Regional winning alliance - approx 80 teams
• bottom 40% of teams qualifying through District Championships - approx 70 teams
• Engineering Inspiration winners (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event) - approx 20 teams
• Rookie All Stars (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event) - approx 50 teams
• wait-listed teams (similar to the 2015 lottery) - approx 150 teams

Each year Detroit and Houston swap hosting of the Championship and the Festival.

Pros:
- eliminates "co-champions" issue
- at both events FLL and FTC can be present, compete and be inspired
- opportunity for teams at both events to meet others from around the world
- increases the level of competition at the Championship

Cons:
- does not address travel costs (makes it worse depending on the team and their location)
- is there a better way to divide teams from Districts - based on how they earned their points?
- what about teams that qualify in multiple categories?
- at each event Rookie All Star and EI are awarded at the division level only

*the number of teams shown in each category are rough estimates only. Someone more clever than I would have to confirm/adjust.

I think at the core, this could be the compromise that could get a lot of traction in the community and be blessed by the benevolent overlords in Manchester.

I think a way to discern between whether a team qualifies for the FRC World Championship or the FRC Open Championship is by normalizing district points systems to the regional model (this year with the change in how teams earn points from seeding rounds, you don't even have to do that). The top half of qualifiers from a regional qualify for Champs and the Open, and the bottom half qualify for the Open.

This means that if a team turns down a spot at Champs to go to the Open, the next team in line at the regional gets the slot to the Championship. I believe VRC is similar in that everyone who qualifies for their World Champs also qualifies for the Open. This means if you are a team based out of Houston that qualified for Champs in Detroit but didn't have the money, you can still go to the Open.

Fluidity of the waitlist causes a lot of issues, as does the somewhat vague objectives FIRST has for it. To get a nice even 50/50 split across a district or region, the actual time to plan travel for a WL team or any team may be slim to none.

I would like to know what current HoF teams and their mentors think about a change to the HoF induction policy to roll out in the next couple of years. Teams with x RCA/DCCA wins and or y consecutive RCA/DCCA wins go up for consideration for induction to the hall of fame. Anywhere between zero and N teams can be inducted annually. This year is what I think could be the most wide open race for HoF induction in 5 years.

I think anyone who has been on the block for a while could have given you 3 or fewer numbers for every year since 2010 or 11 of teams that would be inducted and probably get it right every year (I can tell you that the '12. '13, and '14 winners were the favorites before their awards team even put words to a page). The openness of '15 and on isn't a sign of weaker teams, it's the opposite. Over the next 5 years a lot of really impressive candidates for CCA are going to hit the judges table, to the tune of up to a dozen worthy candidates per year. If FIRST is going to open the floodgates for postseason play, might as well let some more HoF inductions trickle out since that's what we are supposed to be celebrating even more. Switching eligibility of HoF teams to get a certain number of guaranteed entries to champs followed by a recurring point bonus after 5 years (I want to say at least 40, since in the district system a DCA/DCCA winner nets 40 points).

Some other points to make if anyone still remotely cares about what I'm saying here.

-FTC World Champs and FTC World Open should happen at the FRC World Open and FRC World Champs, respectively. Flipping cities is a good idea.

-Let winners of the World Open qualify for World Champs the following year.

-To clarify HoF talk, induct teams as necessary at each event they attend.

-Another clarification: all teams that qualify for the Champs also qualify for the open. Those who forgo the Champs give the first Open team their slot. Teams that forgo both Champs and the Open send their spots either down the rankings of their event or district system, or they get turned over to FIRST for waitlisting, idk.

There is a fair argument that the idea of creating two distinct levels of postseason play would mean no one would want to go to the Open. The only way I know how to fix it is if you give a bid to the next World Champs to winners. Also, the idea of the two champs having disparate quality will exist regardless.

We'll probably only get a concession that allows swapping between events, but this plan might work.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I think at the core, this could be the compromise that could get a lot of traction in the community and be blessed by the benevolent overlords in Manchester.

I think a way to discern between whether a team qualifies for the FRC World Championship or the FRC Open Championship is by normalizing district points systems to the regional model (this year with the change in how teams earn points from seeding rounds, you don't even have to do that). The top half of qualifiers from a regional qualify for Champs and the Open, and the bottom half qualify for the Open.

This means that if a team turns down a spot at Champs to go to the Open, the next team in line at the regional gets the slot to the Championship. I believe VRC is similar in that everyone who qualifies for their World Champs also qualifies for the Open. This means if you are a team based out of Houston that qualified for Champs in Detroit but didn't have the money, you can still go to the Open.

Fluidity of the waitlist causes a lot of issues, as does the somewhat vague objectives FIRST has for it. To get a nice even 50/50 split across a district or region, the actual time to plan travel for a WL team or any team may be slim to none.

I would like to know what current HoF teams and their mentors think about a change to the HoF induction policy to roll out in the next couple of years. Teams with x RCA/DCCA wins and or y consecutive RCA/DCCA wins go up for consideration for induction to the hall of fame. Anywhere between zero and N teams can be inducted annually. This year is what I think could be the most wide open race for HoF induction in 5 years.

I think anyone who has been on the block for a while could have given you 3 or fewer numbers for every year since 2010 or 11 of teams that would be inducted and probably get it right every year (I can tell you that the '12. '13, and '14 winners were the favorites before their awards team even put words to a page). The openness of '15 and on isn't a sign of weaker teams, it's the opposite. Over the next 5 years a lot of really impressive candidates for CCA are going to hit the judges table, to the tune of up to a dozen worthy candidates per year. If FIRST is going to open the floodgates for postseason play, might as well let some more HoF inductions trickle out since that's what we are supposed to be celebrating even more. Switching eligibility of HoF teams to get a certain number of guaranteed entries to champs followed by a recurring point bonus after 5 years (I want to say at least 40, since in the district system a DCA/DCCA winner nets 40 points).

Some other points to make if anyone still remotely cares about what I'm saying here.

-FTC World Champs and FTC World Open should happen at the FRC World Open and FRC World Champs, respectively. Flipping cities is a good idea.

-Let winners of the World Open qualify for World Champs the following year.

-To clarify HoF talk, induct teams as necessary at each event they attend.

-Another clarification: all teams that qualify for the Champs also qualify for the open. Those who forgo the Champs give the first Open team their slot. Teams that forgo both Champs and the Open send their spots either down the rankings of their event or district system, or they get turned over to FIRST for waitlisting, idk.

There is a fair argument that the idea of creating two distinct levels of postseason play would mean no one would want to go to the Open. The only way I know how to fix it is if you give a bid to the next World Champs to winners. Also, the idea of the two champs having disparate quality will exist regardless.

We'll probably only get a concession that allows swapping between events, but this plan might work.

This proposal obviously has issues, but I think it's the most amenable to all parties of any proposal yet presented.

[barn34]

Originally Posted by Shifter

Not ideal, but a possible temporary solution until everyone has migrated to Districts...

World Championship: crowns undisputed FRC World Champion (which is important, especially to robot-centric FRC teams)

invitees*:

• Chairman's winners with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event are invited (but have the option to choose to attend the World Festival instead) - approx 50 teams
• captain and first pick from each Regional winning alliance - approx 160 teams
• top 60% of teams qualifying through District Championships - approx 100 teams
• Engineering Inspiration winners (with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event) - approx 60 teams
• Rookie All Stars (with robots ranked in the top 40% at their last event) - approx 30 teams

World Festival: crowns undisputed Chairman's Award Winner (which is important to all FRC teams)

invitees*:

• Chairman's winners (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event or those who choose to forego the World Championships) - approx 30 teams
• second pick from each Regional winning alliance - approx 80 teams
• bottom 40% of teams qualifying through District Championships - approx 70 teams
• Engineering Inspiration winners (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event) - approx 20 teams
• Rookie All Stars (with robots ranked in the bottom 60% at their last event) - approx 50 teams
• wait-listed teams (similar to the 2015 lottery) - approx 150 teams

Each year Detroit and Houston swap hosting of the Championship and the Festival.

Pros:
- eliminates "co-champions" issue
- at both events FLL and FTC can be present, compete and be inspired
- opportunity for teams at both events to meet others from around the world
- increases the level of competition at the Championship

Cons:
- does not address travel costs (makes it worse depending on the team and their location)
- is there a better way to divide teams from Districts - based on how they earned their points?
- what about teams that qualify in multiple categories?
- at each event Rookie All Star and EI are awarded at the division level only

*the number of teams shown in each category are rough estimates only. Someone more clever than I would have to confirm/adjust.

I've been quietly mulling over my thoughts on these developments and this is extremely close to the best compromising solutions I could come up with to the issues everyone has already discussed. Essentially a kind of NCAA and NIT breakdown between venues which make each event more competitive and inspiring for the team's in attendance, but with different focuses that highlight different awards and overall aspects of the competition and FIRST experience.

While not a perfect solution, I think there's enough good here to use this as foundational building blocks for a compromise that would potentially be an improvement for the overall championship experience and competition as a whole.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by barn34

I've been quietly mulling over my thoughts on these developments and this is extremely close to the best compromising solutions I could come up with to the issues everyone has already discussed. Essentially a kind of NCAA and NIT breakdown between venues which make each event more competitive and inspiring for the team's in attendance, but with different focuses that highlight different awards and overall aspects of the competition and FIRST experience.

While not a perfect solution, I think there's enough good here to use this as foundational building blocks for a compromise that would potentially be an improvement for the overall championship experience and competition as a whole.

I fully agree. Additionally, although a team might not be "World Champions" if they win the World Festival competition, it would still be a tremendous achievement and amazing for every team there.

I believe this idea is a fantastic place to start.

[Foster]

I'm going to guess that this will be unpopular.

You are not looking at a request for comments or a request for proposal from FIRST. You are looking at a done deal.

Two champs (and feel free to call them Half-Champs) with FRC/FTC/FLL all sharing the Championship Inspiration is what FIRST is offering. What they want.

They are not going to listen to "but Mom, this isn't the way that I want this".

You need to go to the town hall and listen.

You need to ask who, what, when, where, why, how questions. (And not What were you thinking when you came up with this).

-- What was your goal
-- What were your criteria
-- How were they weighted
-- When do you think events will happen
-- etc.

When Government has town hall meetings, they expect people to come and whine and then they do what they want.

When politicians have town halls, they have people that ask carefully scripted questions to elicit the "correct" answer. Watch for these people, let them ask their questions, they may add a clue. And then they do what they want.

When companies have "Town Hall Meetings" the expect to explain to people what is going on at a glossy high level" -- Your job is to sit there and nod, but it's possible to ask questions that will reveal the next level down of details. But remember they then do what they want.

Reminder, FIRST is a company, but they are somewhat political in the way they act since they have sponsors, etc. But they have decided.

If you are thinking of standing up and suggesting a change, let me suggest you stay in your seat and let someone that will ask a "nice" question to help us learn more. Your idea isn't worth anything to them. They have decided.

We need to learn more about why they did this and what the goal is, driving factors, pain points, etc.

For example, lets call these half-worlds or super-regionals or hemisphere championships. To move to a World Championship can be carting 6 teams to a location and playing. To inspire millions of roboteers and want to be roboteers it may mean another 400 team event. That is painful and expensive if they wanted that, they would have said so.

Once we know the details then we can help make it great.

I'd suggest that this thread die and a new one start of "things we would like to know". We know FIRST reads CD, so maybe if they have a list of questions before hand they will have answers.

I look at this like standing in front of the GDC on Saturday afternoon. "Totes? Stacking Totes? Like some factory drone? Really, what is the competition in that?" and here we are 14 weeks later ready to declare a champion.

Good luck!

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Foster

I'm going to guess that this will be unpopular.

You are not looking at a request for comments or a request for proposal from FIRST. You are looking at a done deal.

Two champs (and feel free to call them Half-Champs) with FRC/FTC/FLL all sharing the Championship Inspiration is what FIRST is offering. What they want.

They are not going to listen to "but Mom, this isn't the way that I want this".

You need to go to the town hall and listen.

You need to ask who, what, when, where, why, how questions. (And not What were you thinking when you came up with this).

-- What was your goal
-- What were your criteria
-- How were they weighted
-- When do you think events will happen
-- etc.

When Government has town hall meetings, they expect people to come and whine and then they do what they want.

When politicians have town halls, they have people that ask carefully scripted questions to elicit the "correct" answer. Watch for these people, let them ask their questions, they may add a clue. And then they do what they want.

When companies have "Town Hall Meetings" the expect to explain to people what is going on at a glossy high level" -- Your job is to sit there and nod, but it's possible to ask questions that will reveal the next level down of details. But remember they then do what they want.

Reminder, FIRST is a company, but they are somewhat political in the way they act since they have sponsors, etc. But they have decided.

If you are thinking of standing up and suggesting a change, let me suggest you stay in your seat and let someone that will ask a "nice" question to help us learn more. Your idea isn't worth anything to them. They have decided.

We need to learn more about why they did this and what the goal is, driving factors, pain points, etc.

For example, lets call these half-worlds or super-regionals or hemisphere championships. To move to a World Championship can be carting 6 teams to a location and playing. To inspire millions of roboteers and want to be roboteers it may mean another 400 team event. That is painful and expensive if they wanted that, they would have said so.

Once we know the details then we can help make it great.

I'd suggest that this thread die and a new one start of "things we would like to know". We know FIRST reads CD, so maybe if they have a list of questions before hand they will have answers.

I look at this like standing in front of the GDC on Saturday afternoon. "Totes? Stacking Totes? Like some factory drone? Really, what is the competition in that?" and here we are 14 weeks later ready to declare a champion.

Good luck!

From Frank:

To meet our lofty goals, though, we will need your help. As Don said in his video, we want to engage members of the community in coming up with the best solutions possible to the challenges presented to this two Championship approach. The concerns you’ve expressed are valid. Over the next several months you will see a number of initiatives intended to engage the community in helping shape what these Championships and activities surrounding them will look like. As an example, we are currently planning a town-hall style meeting at the 2015 FIRST Championship that will allow the community to engage directly with Senior FIRST Leadership on this important change. In all of this, we need your help in doing what you do best – solve problems. I’m personally very interested in hearing your ideas about how we may be able to arrange for final matches between the winners of FIRST Championship Houston and FIRST Championship St. Louis.

While the existence of two events is set in stone, this seems to suggest that they are open to some degree of input regarding the nature of the events. If that isn't the case, then the next question would be "What kind of example are we trying to set for students by eschewing compromise?". (This would not be an appropriate response in the examples you gave because those examples lack the context of a high school robotics competition)

[grstex]

Originally Posted by Foster

I'm going to guess that this will be unpopular.

................

Good luck!

Foster, Even though many things are likely set in stone, That doesn't mean FIRST won't be open to suggestions. Of course, they're free to accept and reject suggestions, too. That's true in most every engagement effort.

The examples you give are mostly based on old stereotypes. Most definitely, when a government agency is seeking comments on a proposed action, they HAVE to at least consider them. Its the law. Sometimes those comments not relevant to the proposed action, or propose infeasible actions, but they are all considered. And, sometimes, things change. Even large companies will seek comments on projects, though doing so is not always required.

Participation is a spectrum, and you're only describing one end of it. Where this town hall sits on the spectrum remains to be seen.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Shifter

Not ideal, but a possible temporary solution until everyone has migrated to Districts...

World Championship: crowns undisputed FRC World Champion (which is important, especially to robot-centric FRC teams)
World Festival: crowns undisputed Chairman's Award Winner (which is important to all FRC teams)

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.

[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