[FRC Blog] Frank Answers Friday: Championship Slots

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by Nemo

Yeah, we should go deeper than finalist alliances to make sure all six of those champs slots get awarded to somebody at that regional. Personally, I'd be looking at semifinalist captains and first picks, with the alliance that got beat by the winners being higher on the pecking order. I like basing it off elimination rounds. But basing it off qualification seed would still be an improvement over losing those slots. It would also be possible to send another award winner, perhaps Engineering Excellence.

Are you familiar with the district point system? It's an excellent system for ranking based on the criteria you suggested:

• 2 points per qual win, 1 per tie
• 0-16 based on alliance selection
• 10 per round of playoffs won (0 for quarterfinalist, 10 for semifinalist, 20 for finalist, 30 for winner)
• 10 for Chairman's Award, 8 for Engineering Inspiration, 8 for Rookie All-Star, and 5 for all other judged awards

Earlier in the thread, I talked about how the distribution typically works out, after winner captain, winner first pick, finalist captain, finalist second pick:

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

From my experience in a district, I've noticed that there tends to be one or two captain/first pick semifinalists that outrank the second pick winner, and a few more semifinalists that outrank the second pick finalist.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

To be honest, I don't really think that the under-representation in MN is a problem that HQ should even try to solve. The solution, plain and simple, is that if we want a higher representation at champs, we just have to create more events, either within the regional system or in a new district system.

I agree fully, MN needs to join the district system soon, ok a year or two ago, and effort should not be waisted on trying to come up with someway to equalize things in what should be a very short term.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I agree fully, MN needs to join the district system soon, ok a year or two ago, and effort should not be waisted on trying to come up with someway to equalize things in what should be a very short term.

Unfortunately it still doesn't appear to be a majority of people in MN that want, let alone are willing to push districts. And it certainly doesn't appear to be being pushed at a decision making level. As has been pointed out in the "Current Districts Maps" thread, there are some major organizational hurdles MN needs to overcome first, and the first step to that is realizing (at all levels-- not just a team and not just at a decision making) that they need to be overcome for us as a state to move forward.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I agree fully, MN needs to join the district system soon, ok a year or two ago, and effort should not be waisted on trying to come up with someway to equalize things in what should be a very short term.

What about the teams from geographic areas that lack the population density to perhaps ever support a district system? I believe some thoughtful consideration of the issue would not be a waste.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by mwmac

What about the teams from geographic areas that lack the population density to perhaps ever support a district system? I believe some thoughtful consideration of the issue would not be a waste.

It definitely wouldn't be a waste, and it'll become more of an issue as these low-density areas get 'boxed out' of the events they've been attending for years. I remember an idea coming up a while back about keeping a few regionals around for these teams (LA, Dallas, cities with big airports?), and I think this is where we'll probably end up. It's not an idea scenario for these teams in low-density areas, for sure.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by mwmac

What about the teams from geographic areas that lack the population density to perhaps ever support a district system? I believe some thoughtful consideration of the issue would not be a waste.

I was referring specifically to MN with my comment. Overall I agree but at this point there are lots of districts ready to come on line soon and others that are well past a good time to start. So I believe that needs to be the top priority and once that shakes out then it is time to try and balance the few remaining Regionals.

To have true geographic representation you need to close borders otherwise what happens when someone from outside of that state border comes in and is in the position to get one of those for lack of a better term "bonus spots"? Do they get passed over because they are not from within that political boundary? Do they get the spot and risk the "but they stole our spot"?

[mwmac]

A couple of comments:

1. One of the most striking issues I find is that no one has mentioned the problem of awarding Championship slots to districts based on their proportion of the FRC population in a post-Championsplit world. Using 2015 figures, and assuming them to remain constant for this discussion, Michigan (not picking on MI, just the easiest to make the point) teams comprised 11.86% of registered FRC teams which corresponds to roughly 71 slots for St. Louis. The same should hold true for 2016. However, beginning in 2017, Michigan's 345 teams will represent either 11.86% of the overall FRC teams or 23.73% of the corresponding Championsplit pool. Given that both Championsplit venues will host 400 FRC teams, will Michigan teams comprise 47 slots or 95? Clearly, something has to change with respect to the awarding of Championship slots on a proportional basis to district participants.

2. I have posted previously about the need for there to be a single set of consistent and fair qualification criteria for Championships. This post by BMSOTM looks like a potential solution, (assuming a return to W-L-T). The district point system has always served as a comprehensive way of separating wheat from chaff and advancing quality teams to Championships.

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

Are you familiar with the district point system? It's an excellent system for ranking based on the criteria you suggested:

• 2 points per qual win, 1 per tie
• 0-16 based on alliance selection
• 10 per round of playoffs won (0 for quarterfinalist, 10 for semifinalist, 20 for finalist, 30 for winner)
• 10 for Chairman's Award, 8 for Engineering Inspiration, 8 for Rookie All-Star, and 5 for all other judged awards

In the closing paragraph of his blog post, Frank states that he is "not closing the door on this forever. I'm willing to take a look at any specific proposal anyone has on this, or any other concern."

Glad to see Frank is keeping an open mind on this issue as I believe the application of a district scoring model to the FRC population as a whole is a potential solution rather than a complicating factor. In 2015, we implemented average scores. Could apply the same methodology to account for teams attending 1 or more events with the top 400 teams advancing to their corresponding Championsplit venue. On the minus side, teams near the cut-off point face uncertainty in the closing weeks of the season but how does that differ from the current system used by districts?

Such a change would not necessarily address under-representation of geographic areas at Championships but would level the playing field to the greatest extent possible.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by mwmac

A couple of comments:

1. One of the most striking issues I find is that no one has mentioned the problem of awarding Championship slots to districts based on their proportion of the FRC population in a post-Championsplit world. Using 2015 figures, and assuming them to remain constant for this discussion, Michigan (not picking on MI, just the easiest to make the point) teams comprised 10% of the FRC teams and sent roughly 60 teams to St. Louis. The same should hold true for 2016. However, beginning in 2017, Michigan's 250 teams will represent either 10% of the overall FRC teams or 20% of the corresponding Championsplit pool. Given that both Championsplit venues will host 400 FRC teams, will Michigan teams comprise 40 slots or 80? Clearly, something has to change with respect to the awarding of Championship slots on a proportional basis to district participants.

2. I have posted previously about the need for there to be a single set of consistent and fair qualification criteria for Championships. This post by BMSOTM looks like a potential solution, (assuming a return to W-L-T). The district point system has always served as a comprehensive way of separating wheat from chaff and advancing quality teams to Championships.



In the closing paragraph of his blog post, Frank states that he is "not closing the door on this forever. I'm willing to take a look at any specific proposal anyone has on this, or any other concern."

Glad to see Frank is keeping an open mind on this issue as I believe the application of a district scoring model to the FRC population as a whole is a potential solution rather than a complicating factor. In 2015, we implemented average scores. Could apply the same methodology to account for teams attending 1 or more events with the top 400 teams advancing to their corresponding Championsplit venue. On the minus side, teams near the cut-off point face uncertainty in the closing weeks of the season but how does that differ from the current system used by districts?

Such a change would not necessarily address under-representation of geographic areas at Championships but would level the playing field to the greatest extent possible.

Michigan has 350, not 250.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

Michigan has 350, not 250.

Thank you for catching my error. I have corrected my figures in the post using 2908 as registered team head count (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...tration+201 5) and 345 as Michigan team count (https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....250#FRC_teams).

The issue is still significant for the allocation of post-Championsplit district slots for their corresponding venues. Just the spread is now 47 to 95 slots in the case of Michigan.

[TJP123]

Originally Posted by mwmac

1. One of the most striking issues I find is that no one has mentioned the problem of awarding Championship slots to districts based on their proportion of the FRC population in a post-Championsplit world. Using 2015 figures, and assuming them to remain constant for this discussion, Michigan (not picking on MI, just the easiest to make the point) teams comprised 11.86% of registered FRC teams which corresponds to roughly 71 slots for St. Louis. The same should hold true for 2016. However, beginning in 2017, Michigan's 345 teams will represent either 11.86% of the overall FRC teams or 23.73% of the corresponding Championsplit pool. Given that both Championsplit venues will host 400 FRC teams, will Michigan teams comprise 47 slots or 95? Clearly, something has to change with respect to the awarding of Championship slots on a proportional basis to district participants.

To stay proportional, it's either 11% of 800, or 22% of 400, because MI teams would theoretically make up 22% of the smaller population attending their Championship event. They equal the same number.