Georgia Districts confirmed for 2016!

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by ebarker

To make a fine point.

100 % of the Georgia District events are embraced and hosted by units of:

USG - University System of Georgia, this is the system than contains GT.....

It's just too bad there are no events in the city. All those potential GT volunteers....

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by TDav540

It's just too bad there are no events in the city. All those potential GT volunteers....

It's only 20 miles up the street, easy to get to.

[vikesrock777]

Originally Posted by ebarker

It's only 20 miles up the street, easy to get to.

As a leader of the Georgia Tech RoboJackets, a group that helps provide volunteers for the event, I would disagree with your dismissal of this "small" distance.

Our students usually have varying levels of commitment they can give to volunteering. Ideally, everyone would be able to devote their full weekend, but we typically have students whose schedules and availability don't allow that. It is not at all unusual for us to have multiple students only show up for half of a day. This becomes much harder to facilitate with this new location. Most of the time these students would walk to or from campus or be given a ride by one of us other volunteers. Walking to or from the event is now completely out of the question, and giving them a ride now changes from a short trip to an hour long commitment.

You definitely won't lose all your GT volunteers. Those you're most likely to lose aren't in your key volunteering roles. However, with distance and the change in event timing, you definitely will lose some.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Imagination is important, but try not to use it as a substitute for actual information. In addition to paying for the use of the facility, the Purdue district event had to rent bleachers, which had always been a major expense for the Boilermaker Regional.

Haha. Thanks. I probably should have made it more clear that ll my information was a guess. That is my fault.

[DonShaw]

Ed here is the link form GAFirst website and the first sentence states?

http://www.gafirst.org/images/GA_FIR...Model_2016.pdf


Here is the first sentence from the document posted:

"As an FRC team, you will be required to compete in two district qualifying events within the state of Georgia."

How is that poorly worded? It clearly states you must compete in two district events.

I am wondering when all the rules will be released from GA First we have about four weeks from today for registration start.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

Ed here is the link form GAFirst website and the first sentence states?

http://www.gafirst.org/images/GA_FIR...Model_2016.pdf


Here is the first sentence from the document posted:

"As an FRC team, you will be required to compete in two district qualifying events within the state of Georgia."

How is that poorly worded? It clearly states you must compete in two district events.

I am wondering when all the rules will be released from GA First we have about four weeks from today for registration start.

It is poorly worded because it says you are required to compete in two events when it should say that you get to compete in two events. No other district requires teams to compete in two events but it would be unlikely to move on to DCMP and CMP if you only compete in one qualifying event. (a team certainly could win CA attending a single district event, move on to DCMP from that and then qualify for CMP with CA, EI or DCMP winner)

Yes it is unusual for a team to compete in one event but that has happened in the PNW district.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

I am wondering when all the rules will be released from GA First we have about four weeks from today for registration start.

I don't know how much liberty the specific regional governing body as far as advancements and play-times as such.

With that being said, a lot of the district-level rules (advancing, points, etc.) are laid out in last year's rulebook.

- Sunny G.

[FrankJ]

I have no special knowledge of special rules discussion for GA. I do know there are some elements that would prefer more heavily weighting of the non robot awards. First is not about the robot after all. Whatever rules there are will presumably be published in the administrative manual. It seems that since First values uniformity Ga will be playing under the same rules the general districts (meaning largely not MI)

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

... I do know there are some elements that would prefer more heavily weighting of the non robot awards. First is not about the robot after all. ...

I have a better idea. EI and Chairman's excluded, the only way to gain points in the district system should be based on robot performance and robot awards.

/edgy

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I do know there are some elements that would prefer more heavily weighting of the non robot awards. First is not about the robot after all.

IMHO, the judged awards (excluding EI and Chairman's) are weighted well enough considering the cutoff for district championships. Chairman's gains automatic entry to the next level, so the amount of points it provides is relatively irrelevant. EI could and possibly should be weighted more highly than 8 points, but at most it shouldn't be over 12 points.

At the end of the day, the District Championship and Worlds want to have the best robots in the world competing for the crown. This is NOT to say that they don't care about the judged awards: they do, especially EI and Chairman's. But since the robot construction and competition is the main attraction of students, mentors, and sponsors, it makes sense that a large majority of the field is attending because of robot quality.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

Ed here is the link form GAFirst website and the first sentence states?

http://www.gafirst.org/images/GA_FIR...Model_2016.pdf


Here is the first sentence from the document posted:

"As an FRC team, you will be required to compete in two district qualifying events within the state of Georgia."

How is that poorly worded? It clearly states you must compete in two district events.

I am wondering when all the rules will be released from GA First we have about four weeks from today for registration start.

The new wording will become "All teams are required to compete in two FRC qualifier events in order to advance to the state event. (Exceptions: Chairman's Award - automatic slot at state championship event (with robot), Engineering Inspiration and Rookie All-Star - can compete at the state championship in regard to each judged award but not with the robot, unless the robot ranks high enough in the points ranking system)."

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by TDav540

IMHO, the judged awards (excluding EI and Chairman's) are weighted well enough considering the cutoff for district championships. Chairman's gains automatic entry to the next level, so the amount of points it provides is relatively irrelevant. EI could and possibly should be weighted more highly than 8 points, but at most it shouldn't be over 12 points.

At the end of the day, the District Championship and Worlds want to have the best robots in the world competing for the crown. This is NOT to say that they don't care about the judged awards: they do, especially EI and Chairman's. But since the robot construction and competition is the main attraction of students, mentors, and sponsors, it makes sense that a large majority of the field is attending because of robot quality.

Truth in advertising, while my team makes a pretty good robot, our outreach (EI, Chairman's) is way better. I am not really the one advocating a change. BUT.

Being a rookie gives you the same points as a district chairman's, 2 more than EI, & 5 more than the other judged awards, some of which are based on robot quality. EI will not even get your robot to district Champs. The stated goal for championships is to give every team a chance to attend. If you read First management's statement on the expanded Championship. First's goal is to get young people into STEM, not to build robots.

Please do not read into this what my opinion on the points system is. Other than its complicated and you won't satisfy everybody. Other than that I really have not though about enough to have a strong opinion.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by TDav540

IMHO, the judged awards (excluding EI and Chairman's) are weighted well enough considering the cutoff for district championships. Chairman's gains automatic entry to the next level, so the amount of points it provides is relatively irrelevant. EI could and possibly should be weighted more highly than 8 points, but at most it shouldn't be over 12 points.

At the end of the day, the District Championship and Worlds want to have the best robots in the world competing for the crown. This is NOT to say that they don't care about the judged awards: they do, especially EI and Chairman's. But since the robot construction and competition is the main attraction of students, mentors, and sponsors, it makes sense that a large majority of the field is attending because of robot quality.

Yes winning CA at a district event gets your team and robot a spot at DCMP but once you are there you are competing for CA against an even tougher set of teams. So I would not say the 10 points earned are irrelevant since they are still a part of your total points used to determine earning a spot at CMP and since it usually comes down to a 1 or 2 point difference at the cut off point, 10 points is huge. For example places 34-39 were each separated by 1 point in the PNW this season. Yes we technically only send 32 teams but there are declines so it was down to 1 point being the deciding factor of the lowest team to qualify.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Yes winning CA at a district event gets your team and robot a spot at DCMP but once you are there you are competing for CA against an even tougher set of teams. So I would not say the 10 points earned are irrelevant since they are still a part of your total points used to determine earning a spot at CMP and since it usually comes down to a 1 or 2 point difference at the cut off point, 10 points is huge. For example places 34-39 were each separated by 1 point in the PNW this season. Yes we technically only send 32 teams but there are declines so it was down to 1 point being the deciding factor of the lowest team to qualify.

Agreed. In Indiana Districts, 1741 only beat 447 out by 9 points. And that was because 1741 won 3 5-point awards (One of which was triple weighted due to being at district champs) so that was equal to 25 points. team 447 got no points for awards so awards make a difference.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by logank013

Agreed. In Indiana Districts, 1741 only beat 447 out by 9 points. And that was because 1741 won 3 5-point awards (One of which was triple weighted due to being at district champs) so that was equal to 25 points. team 447 got no points for awards so awards make a difference.

I am not saying awards do not make a difference. All the regions clearly show that those points can be the difference for 2-8 teams. However, I am saying that, with the exception of Engineering Inspiration (which should either increase in point value or allow automatic DCMP) the awards provide sufficient value, including the Chairman's award.