[FRC Blog] Two Championship Survey Results and Path Forward

[ay2b]

Originally Posted by Cory

I think if you polled all the sponsors they're probably not stoked that they get two chances to give their company air time...they're probably wondering how the hell they're going to make their steadily shrinking budgets for FIRST cover two events instead of one.

Originally Posted by jeremylee

This worries me even more. I don't see 2 "championships" bringing in much for additional sponsorship dollars, but I do see significant cost associated with putting on a 2nd "championship".

Previously FIRST was selling the sponsors the ability to reach 600 teams at 1 event. Now FIRST is selling the ability to reach twice as many teams. I'm sure that if a company wants to buy advertising at ("sponsor") only one event, they can, but of course FIRST would encourage them to do both.

[gblake]

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly!

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life as one of the New World Order's Illuminatis' brainwashed proles , surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords (whom I look forward to serving)) is this:

Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.

Blake

[Ichlieberoboter]

Originally Posted by gblake

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly!

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, clearly, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life with the rest of the masses who have been completely brainwashed by the Illuminati of the New World Order , surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords) is this:

Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.

Blake

That, my friend, is deep.

[216Robochick288]

Originally Posted by gblake

While we are on the subject of statistics, I discovered something very interesting that was cleverly hidden in the blog post by someone forced to communicate their true message to us secretly!

The survey result percentages were 26, 11, 11, 7, 12, 4, 6, 7, 4, and 12.

If you combine those together to sum the full psychic power of all respondents, you get this sequence of numbers: 26, 37, 48, 55, 67, 71, 77, 84, 88, 100.

If you remove spaces from the first sentences of the blog post (because that is how these things are done), and then extract the 26th, 37th, 48th, ... 100th letters from the post you get: N F E T H I P I N A.

Once you have those letters it's immediately obvious that FIRST is trying to convey this to us: "THIN FE PAIN".

And what could that be, other than an unmistakable reference to the pain of being cut by a thin iron/steel blade???

So, clearly, unless you are one of the lemmings bumbling through life with the rest of the masses who have been completely brainwashed by the Illuminati of the New World Order , surely you understand that FIRST's real message to us (that they had to hide from their robotic overlords) is this:

Cutting the Championship in half to form two new Championships is painful for them and for us; but it is a compromise they believe will be both valuable and necessary, given their mission, and the constraints they face.

Blake

....Half Life 3 confirmed?

[Deke]

Originally Posted by Holtzman

Another way of looking at these results is that 55% oppose two championships, 12% are neutral, and only 33% favor two championships. To me, that’s is a much more powerful statement about how the community really feels.

Originally Posted by Karthik

When I looked at the numbers, I immediately grouped the data into buckets.

Strongly oppose (ratings 1-3): 48%
Neutral (ratings 4-7): 29%
Strongly favour (ratings 8-10): 23%

I find both of these interesting, so I would like to expand on them:

1 vs 10 = 26 to 12 = 2.16:1 ratio
1-2 vs 9-10 = 37 to 16 = 2.31 ratio
1-3 vs 8-10 = 48 to 23 = 2.09 ratio
1-4 vs 7-10 = 55 to 29 = 1.90 ratio
1-5 vs 6-10 = 67 to 33 = 2.03 ratio

No matter how you slice the deck, for every one person approving the championsplit, there are two people opposing it.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by jeremylee

This worries me even more. I don't see 2 "championships" bringing in much for additional sponsorship dollars, but I do see significant cost associated with putting on a 2nd "championship".

Every previous Championship location has results in corporations based in the area contributing as sponsors. Coca-Cola was a giant presence in Atlanta, Monsanto in St. Louis, Disney in Orlando, etc. I suspect we'll see similar in Houston and Detroit.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by ay2b

Previously FIRST was selling the sponsors the ability to reach 600 teams at 1 event. Now FIRST is selling the ability to reach twice as many teams. I'm sure that if a company wants to buy advertising at ("sponsor") only one event, they can, but of course FIRST would encourage them to do both.

1.5x as many teams, right? 2x400 vs 1x600.

I have heard that key Championship Event sponsors were not made aware of this plan before we were, or consulted at all as to their thoughts on/ability to support two events. That seems like a huge problem.

[Steven Smith]

From a personal standpoint and as a mentor, I have one opinion on the championship split, and I've expressed that in other posts.

However, I also have some visibility into the sponsor side, so I'll speak to my knowledge there. I'm not an official spokesman of company policy, but since I got involved with FIRST, I've been more involved with the circles where decisions are made regarding educational donations and have lobbied for more support for FIRST.

I see sponsorship dollars (at least at the Fortune 500 corporation level) as being a bit more flexible, with the ability to flex up to account for program growth.

Over $500 billion is spent annually on pre-K to 12th grade education in the US by government. At my company alone, we averaged ~$30M/year (2009-2014) in education related donations. Of course, I advocate for FIRST to get a bigger piece of the pie, but there are a lot of great organizations out there all trying to solve the workforce development problem in unique ways. I quote these numbers simply to say that FIRST is still quite small relatively speaking, and the available funding for education is quite large. If FIRST could truly solve all the educational problems by just throwing more money at it, I suspect it would have happened already. For the FIRST model to work though, you need volunteer/mentor growth in conjunction with funding. If ~200,000 FIRST volunteers averaged 50 hours a year, and it would take $25/hr incentive pay to pull in new volunteers by just throwing money at it, you need ~$250M/yr to double the size of FIRST (assuming doubled need of volunteers). On top of that, the existing volunteers might be a little miffed the new ones are getting paid and they aren't. Sponsor money is important, but volunteerism is the key to growth IMHO.

I think that if FIRST can continue to scale, continue to meet the objectives companies want in terms of increasing the quality and quantity of qualified students entering the workforce, increase its reach/availability to historically underrepresented groups in engineering, etc... funding for the program will continue to grow. We're also very much interested in growing our volunteer base, as employees that are passionate about mentoring, their communities, etc., often bring that passion to work, as well as provide positive representation of the company.

We don't really spend a lot of time talking in terms of "marketing/advertising" opportunities at championship(s). The discussion is typically more of "how can we be most efficient with our donated dollars". Do we fund program A or program B? Who has shown they can do more with less and spend our grant money wisely. There is also the consideration of supporting our employees. If they choose to volunteer with an organization, it increases our confidence in said organization, so we want to back their efforts with additional funds.

As this all relates to championships and the championship split (sorry for rambling)... if it results in an increased student experience and supports growth, it will probably be seen as a positive change. The logistics of being present at two events are workable, and the overall cost to send representation is not prohibitive with respect to typical donation levels. That being said, it is pretty tough to measure "inspiration", and to understand if adding an additional championship is both the best way to support raw growth, as well as a cost effective way to increase inspiration. Perhaps the right answer is to continue to leverage volunteers to increase the quality of "lesser" events, to push the district models harder, etc. I won't claim to know the right answer, but I will say that whatever makes FIRST grow and scale better, will probably be seen as favorable from a corporate sponsor standpoint.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

This statement is misleading. Based on the graphic, the respondents to the survey oppose the championsplit 62.5% to 37.5% (after removing the '"5s"). That's a pretty overwhelming landslide in opposition. I'm not sure if a presidential candidate has ever exceeded that in the popular vote. The decision looks to be deeply, deeply unpopular.

Voluntary survey. Not a census. Not a study. Statistically speaking, the survey means very little to me.

Now if they had picked individuals in FRC at random, with a very high response rate, I might be more inclined to give weight to the results. Otherwise the survey is suffering from a tremendous response bias (how many people that don't have a strong opinion on a subject are going to volunteer their time to do a survey?)

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Voluntary survey. Not a census. Not a study. Statistically speaking, the survey means very little to me.

Now if they had picked individuals in FRC at random, with a very high response rate, I might be more inclined to give weight to the results. Otherwise the survey is suffering from a tremendous response bias (how many people that don't have a strong opinion on a subject are going to volunteer their time to do a survey?)

This is my opinion towards this as well, and I think it's interesting that so many people are drawing the conclusions they want from the survey results.

The response rate to the survey was only 10%. I'm one of those neutrals in the remaining 90% that didn't respond.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Cory

1.5x as many teams, right? 2x400 vs 1x600.

I have heard that key Championship Event sponsors were not made aware of this plan before we were, or consulted at all as to their thoughts on/ability to support two events. That seems like a huge problem.

Are you serious? With the level of commitment and funding that these companies provide, I can't believe they weren't consulted or at least it had to have been considered. The total cost for FIRST has to go up considerably for hosting two of these events. They have to have a plan for fundraising for them to cover the cost of hosting. At least, I hope they do.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

I apologize for my terse language, would it have been more appropriate to say "Neither Oppose nor Favor" a proposed pizza selection?

I also love to use analogies to help explain difficult situations. But this is a bit more complex than pizza.
It's ice cream, don't ya know?

[wgardner]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'll be honest, AS IT HAS BEEN DONE IN THE PAST, I don't care about having the full progression of programs under the same roof. I didn't miss FTC at all at CMP this year. I noticed their lack of presence about as much as I've ever noticed their presence. (I'm biased as a former world festival FLL judge I've noticed their presence quite a bit)

The other programs have always been relegated to sideshow status and I don't care if that continues. In fact, I'd like to see it stopped. If they can't be granted real "participant" status then I'd rather they not be there.

Now, I'd like to have A championship that celebrates all the FIRST programs, the values of FIRST, and celebrates STEM.


Just a thought on why that ranked so low (at least in my mind)

Well of course it ranked low, because the survey was only of FRC teams! The whole point of having all of the FIRST levels under one roof is to inspire the younger kids to go to the higher levels. I bet if you surveyed FTC, FLL, and jrFLL teams you'd get a completely different answer (just like you'd get a different answer on the importance of having 1 championship if you only surveyed the teams that were at the 1 championship).

[fargus111111111]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

So what this data tells me is that a small number of teams really hate this idea and are very vocal about it. This seems to jive with what typically happens here on CD.

of those who gave a team number, 52% of teams were represented, that is over half of the teams in FRC.

[fargus111111111]

I am somewhat relieved that they are even considering an event after "Champs" to become the new Championships because, as my team was discussing the other day, that is what IRI would otherwise become. I am concerned about this format though due to travel costs. Our team certainly is not one of the richest, but we have decent funding and two regionals plus champs stretched our budget this year. I am more optimistic about the district model and advancing through a series of competitions that way, resulting in lower travel costs but potentially more competitions. Also if FIRST is so focused on getting a set percentage of FRC teams to champs why do they not seem to care about FTC or FLL. I find their interpretation of the data odd. If the average response is 4.45 then that suggests to me that while it is not a strong opposition there is an opposition. I am concerned that FIRST seems to be ignoring the community they are supposed to serve. If they truly wanted the community's opinion they would have done a study asking x number of people, students and mentors from each team to complete the survey instead of whoever in the community felt like it. I am concerned about the direction FRC is going. While the game this year was exiting and competitive it did not have the same viewing appeal that many other games have had. If FIRST wants to keep this competition interesting and keep encouraging new people to get involved they need the high level of competition ON the field with the same Olympic high stakes. Last year we went to an off season event and took a number of new members with us. When we returned we asked them what they thought about the competition and one replied, "I thought is was going to be just a bunch of nerds standing quietly around a field watching their robot, I could not have been more wrong." This is the impression that FIRST needs to make on people however I am concerned that if they continue straight down the path they are on the competition will slowly die off and it will become a bunch of nerds standing around a field quietly watching their robot. Please FIRST hear us out, we want competition, this is supposed to be like the olympics right, not Tee-Ball. (although that could be an interesting robot game)