2016 Minnesota State Champs

[hutchMN]

Originally Posted by Boe

Good luck to all the teams going, it always ends up being a good event despite some of the best teams in the state not attending each year.

This really needs to be fixed, 2175 and 3130 both deserve to go. This happens every year, and it's time to fix it. We can't call it a state championship if it doesn't have the best teams in the state.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by hutchMN

This really needs to be fixed, 2175 and 3130 both deserve to go. This happens every year, and it's time to fix it. We can't call it a state championship if it doesn't have the best teams in the state.

How do you propose fixing it?

The teams invited are invited using the same formula that districts use to select who's invited to district championships. The formula applies to the first event only. Giving teams the best of multiple events is prima facie unfair to teams that can only afford one event.

As it is, winning Chairman's at any event is an automatic in.

I'd love to see 2175 and 3130 at the state championships but that's not the way the rules are written.

You want heartbreaking, 2169 is the first team not selected and they lost on the 4th tiebreaker.

[hutchMN]

Originally Posted by DareDad

How do you propose fixing it?

The teams invited are invited using the same formula that districts use to select who's invited to district championships. The formula applies to the first event only. Giving teams the best of multiple events is prima facie unfair to teams that can only afford one event.

As it is, winning Chairman's at any event is an automatic in.

I'd love to see 2175 and 3130 at the state championships but that's not the way the rules are written.

You want heartbreaking, 2169 is the first team not selected and they lost on the 4th tiebreaker.

Take the average of both events. The goal of the state championship should be to find the best teams in the state... IRI doesn't only take into consideration your first event because the goal is to find the best teams. You can't call it a state championship if the goal isn't to find the best teams in the state.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by DareDad

How do you propose fixing it?

Take an average of the first 2 events a team attends. Not every team goes to 2 events, but those that do should be rewarded for their hard work. In order to go to two events, you need money. To get this you work hard to raise funds. Every team in the state can work hard. Can every team raise enough money for 2 events? No, but a large majority can. The teams that go to 2 events generally have more time put into the program on average. Obviously there are exceptions with 4778 being one of them. I think this dedication to FIRST should be rewarded as well.

I would also say teams should be rewarded for the time they spend iterating and improving their robots between events. Diagnosing problems, fixing them and having a better performance and the field as a result is an amazing thing. These teams put in a lot of time and work and money into this improvement, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears.

If you're worried about not all teams being able to do 2 events, then take the teams single event and double the score while taking others teams' 2 events. Or simply take an average of 2 events that teams do, same thing.

This system rewards hard work without eliminating teams that can only do 1 regional from being able to compete. The top robots need to be there if we're going to call it a championship event, and this will correct for that without over-correcting.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by DareDad

The teams invited are invited using the same formula that districts use to select who's invited to district championships. The formula applies to the first event only.

This is false. Among other things, the district formula does not have the potential to award 10 points to teams who spend 15 minutes writing an essay they don't care about.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

This is false. Among other things, the district formula does not have the potential to award 10 points to teams who spend 15 minutes writing an essay they don't care about.

I agree, if you spend 15 minutes on your Chairman's essay/presentation/video no one will care about it. Or at least no one will care for it.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I agree, if you spend 15 minutes on your Chairman's essay/presentation/video no one will care about it. Or at least no one will care for it.

But you'll still get your 10 state qualification points and you'll still take up judges time and energy

[Ginger Power]

Sorry for all the posts, I'm very opinionated on this topic... actually I'm very opinionated in general

Using only 1 event for state qualification rankings also provides incentive for teams to avoid early events. It is unfair to those teams located in the Duluth area that can't afford to travel. They only get 1 week after build season ends to make improvements (with no reference) while teams in the Twin Cities area that can't afford to travel, get over 6 weeks and the opportunity to see 254 and 1114 play, as well as many of their competitors who go to Duluth.

It's not fair no matter how you do it. I just think we should reward hard work rather than worry about being fair in a single aspect.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

Using only 1 event for state qualification rankings also provides incentive for teams to avoid early events. It is unfair to those teams located in the Duluth area that can't afford to travel. They only get 1 week after build season ends to make improvements (with no reference) while teams in the Twin Cities area that can't afford to travel, get over 6 weeks and the opportunity to see 254 and 1114 play, as well as many of their competitors who go to Duluth.

Or do the Duluth teams have an advantage because they're not playing against anyone who has already played? Not clear cut either way. Making it "fair" is not straightforward.

We appreciate the sentiment and regret missing the event. It's always fun to compete up close and personal with MN friends again.

The qualification rules have been the same since the event was established in 2012. The 30 teams that performed best at their first events, according to district points, compete at state champs. We all know this, and try our best to make the cut. (Indeed, district teams still only count two events for points, any additional plays don't help ranking.) Both 2175 and 3130 have been lucky to attend in the past, and wish the best of luck to the very worthy competitors this year.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Aren Siekmeier

Or do the Duluth teams have an advantage because they're not playing against anyone who has already played? Not clear cut either way. Making it "fair" is not straightforward.

This is an interesting view, and one that actually seems to be born out by the numbers from this year's rankings. Ignoring the 4 Chairman's teams, 22 of the teams that earned a spot at states competed in Duluth. 1 from Wisconsin, and only 3 from Minneapolis. Now, many of those also competed a second time (most in some combination of Minneapolis, Iowa, and Duluth) - in fact, 16 of the teams attending states attended multiple regionals this year.

Honestly, it's a crap shoot when picking a regional to attend as your first event. Some years, you'll be in a regional where the winning alliance is made up of all team's from out of state - that's a LOT of potential points that aren't awarded to anyone. Other times, there's practically no one from out of state. Sometimes a team that wins Chairman's earns a boatload of points that don't really matter anymore, taking them out of the equation for other teams. And, of course, sometimes it's second-play teams that eat up the available points.

[hutchMN]

another way too early prediction
1. 5172, 2052, and 4009 (W)
2. 2502, 2512, and 1816 (F)
3. 5434, 2883, and 4539 (SF)
4. 4778, 2823, and 2220 (SF)

[Chief Hedgehog]

Yes, this current system is now flawed. However, if you look back to pre-2012 when the formula was put into place, MN FIRST and the MSHSL had to come up with something - and it worked for a while. I do think it needs to be revisited.

I have an interesting vantage point. My team has made many contacts the last 4 years throughout greater Minnesota and I have been hearing of the problems with the current system. 4607 has been fortunate enough to qualify for the State tournament 3 of our 4 years - but not without help.

As a rookie team in 2013 we won the North Star Regional outright as the 2nd pick on the alliance (thank you 2175 and 967). We ended up winning the State Tournament with 2175 and 2052.

In 2014, the 5 points awarded to us as being a 'Second year team' helped us to edge out other VERY deserving teams (again at NS we were allied with 967 and 2175 - I still cannot watch that Semifinal match). However, at State we did lead the alliance (with 2530 and 3018) that ended up as Finalists - so that kind of validated our being there. In a weird turn of events we had to face off against 2175 and 2052 (and 4778) - our alliance partners the previous year. As much as I would have liked to win the State Tournament - we took the fact we had to face off against 2175 and 2052 as a major bookmark in our team's history.

This year we qualified based on RCA (I am still trying to come to grips with this). We will see how it ends up.

Now to my thoughts...
As a coach of many sports for more than a decade, I can attest to the fact that the greatest improvement for ANY team happens between the first and second event/match/game. No matter the competitive sport, there is a significant advancement following a team's first event. I am all in favor of having each team's last regional event as the qualifier for the State Tournament. I do understand the situation of low-budget teams, because my team is one. Becker does not have a large industrial/commercial base and even though our school provides the space, they do not provide any funding. Contrary to popular belief, Xcel does not provide any unusual tax base to Becker - Xcel Sherco tax base is spread out among all school districts in MN (Thank you Jesse Ventura). This last year we lost funding from our founding sponsor and it has been a great struggle as we attended two regionals. We are now in a situation where we face a negative balance and we face a $25,000 bill for worlds. We will most likely go back to 1 regional for the foreseeable future.

And contrary to most stats, we actually finished lower at our second event than we did at our first.

I am also very opposed to the gratuity points allotted to Rookie and Second year teams (even though my team benefited in the past). If we run a state tournament without Judges Awards, there should be no reason that these bonus points are allowed. Even if there were judges, there should not be bonus points based on years.

As for Chairman's Awards submissions, MN FIRST had a reason for this and I believe Jon Stratis laid this out effectively in his post. Many of the teams that I have talked to have expressed great disdain for the 10 points that are attached to CA submission. Now that MN FIRST has seen a significant rise in CA submissions, I think that their goal has been realized. However, since CA is the top award in FRC, I do believe that a team that wins this at ANY regional should be granted a spot in the MSHSL Tournament. I know that many of my colleagues disagree - but this must still be a part of the qualifications for state.

Man this is a long post. I will wrap it up with this:

In my opinion, qualifications for the MN State Tournament should go as such:

1. RCA's automatically qualify (no matter the regional)
2. MN Regional (Duluth or MPLS) Winners automatically qualify
3. The rest of the field is based upon a system where the LAST regional is the qualifying regional.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

3. The rest of the field is based upon a system where the LAST regional is the qualifying regional.

I have to disagree there. It needs to be the first regional, not the last. By using the first, it benefits teams that come prepared rather than teams that react and have the funds to react. This is something all teams can do regardless of finances they can design and build something unique.

Or to put it more simply, at the first regional the robot is the one the team built. At the second regional the robot has had bits grafted on based on what they saw worked for others.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I have to disagree there. It needs to be the first regional, not the last. By using the first, it benefits teams that come prepared rather than teams that react and have the funds to react.

What about teams that specifically build for the tournaments they're attending? I've seen several teams show up to their first tournament with major subsystems that are intentionally left off. Early season tournaments are generally less competitive than tournaments later in the season, and planning to scale your robots ability to the tournaments you're attending is one method to build a robot that you don't have the resources to finish in six weeks. I don't see this as not coming prepared, but rather strategic planning.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I have to disagree there. It needs to be the first regional, not the last. By using the first, it benefits teams that come prepared rather than teams that react and have the funds to react. This is something all teams can do regardless of finances they can design and build something unique.

Or to put it more simply, at the first regional the robot is the one the team built. At the second regional the robot has had bits grafted on based on what they saw worked for others.

That reaction that you are talking about is called engineering. It takes a lot of hard work, and yes, money. Money takes a lot of hard work to get too. Why are we more concerned with creating a fair environment (which we've already determined isn't actually fair), rather than rewarding hard work. As a byproduct of rewarding that hard work, we get to see more competitive teams at the state championship.

This is an engineering competition. Engineering isn't necessarily building "unique", and "fancy". Engineering is systematically determining the best way to approach a problem, and then doing so in a scientific way. Engineering within FIRST certainly isn't contained within a 6 week week period. The most significant improvement in performance for most teams happens at competitions. The idea that this would looked upon in a negative way by some is mind-blowing.

My team may have competed in 2 events this year, but it'll be tough to do so every year. I'm not making these arguments out of self interest.