2016 Minnesota State Champs

[Peyton Yeung]

When Indiana first started to have a state championships they used the following metric for who got in.

Indiana team rankings have been determined based on the previously announced point system. (Best event, win-loss, draft performance, elimination performance, awards, Tie-Breakers).

If it were me I'd add the score of the 2 regional teams and double the score of the 1 regional teams. If you can qualify via chairman's at 2 events you should be able to get points at 2 events.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

Alternatively, if we want to encourage teams to attend multiple events, we should count two events for our rankings.

100% agree.

As I stated earlier, Becker is not a well-funded team. We are by no means a poor team either. Yet within our budget we have to make really difficult decisions each and every year.

If any team would like, we have an open door policy. We will share any and every bit of knowledge to anyone who asks. As one of my own professors used to state: "Knowledge is free, you just have to bring your own bucket."

I think I am going bat crap crazy right now.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

When Indiana first started to have a state championships they used the following metric for who got in.



If it were me I'd add the score of the 2 regional teams and double the score of the 1 regional teams. If you can qualify via chairman's at 2 events you should be able to get points at 2 events.

Personally, I think the double or two system is the best balance between being "fair" (lets face it, any way we cut it, the rankings are going to be unfair to someone), and actually getting the best robots in the state.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by DareDad

In the context of a competition all of the participants need to be judged on a level playing field.

It's not a level playing field now, nor will it ever be. Life isn't fair. The teams located next to a John Deere R&D facility will always have an advantage over teams that are in the inner-city with 4 other teams within 10 miles.

Similarly high school football teams that recruit players from all over the country play teams who can barely recruit from their own school. We don't change the way football games are scored, or the way the tournament is set up to balance everything out, and make things fair.

The good teams qualify for State, the bad teams don't. It's the way competition works. There isn't anything wrong with that.

[topgun]

Originally Posted by BenHildy

Can't wait for the Minne Mini and Gitchi Gummi though!

The Minnesota Robotics Invitational is October 15th, 2016 and is a great way to start the robotics year for your new students and returning students. We also partner with MNFIRST to provide Key Volunteer training during the event (last year we trained 45 Key Volunteers). In addition we have provided $5000 in scholarships to graduating seniors over the last 5 years.

[BumblingBuilder]

Originally Posted by topgun

The Minnesota Robotics Invitational is October 15th, 2016 and is a great way to start the robotics year for your new students and returning students. We also partner with MNFIRST to provide Key Volunteer training during the event (last year we trained 45 Key Volunteers). In addition we have provided $5000 in scholarships to graduating seniors over the last 5 years.

After hearing about this event last year at the Gitch I was pretty interested. Maybe I can convince our usually busy team to attend...

[FRCTeam3293]

FIRST Team 3293 is ranked 33rd, 'just a bit outside'...but in very good company (2169 and 3130...and 2977 - Hey Sir Lancer bots!). Just want to say thanks to all those in MN who volunteer and work to make the Regional a great experience. Best of luck to all Teams who will attend the MSHSL States!

And just a point of view from a Team who missed it by "that much". I think the qualification ranking is "fair enough". No reason to change. We'll work harder and take another shot next year, or we won't...that's life.

The only real fair in this world comes to town but once a year.

[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by FRCTeam3293

The only real fair in this world comes to town but once a year.

What you state is fairly true.

[Whatever]

I am curious if the fact that no one qualified based on their performance at the Iowa Regional is going to factor into anybody's scheduling plans for next year.

[youngace89]

Originally Posted by Whatever

I am curious if the fact that no one qualified based on their performance at the Iowa Regional is going to factor into anybody's scheduling plans for next year.

I don't know whether the team leadership feels the same way, but I would love to return to Iowa next year. It's always fun to compete with that many great teams all in one place, especially from the other states like Missouri that we don't come into much contact with otherwise.

Plus, we were one ramparts cross away from the semifinals, which would have given us a much higher chance of qualifying. It would be very rewarding to qualify there next year, and I think we're capable of it.

[jwhite]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

That said, It's certainly open for debate at this point - has that benefit served its purpose enough that we can take it away? Have we created a sufficiently focused culture in the state around the Chairman's award that teams will continue to strive for it in the levels they did this past year, and not just make it "all about the robot"? Tough questions to answer.

I agree with Caleb, I think it's an odd incentive. It feels a bit like coercion to boot.

I do suspect that you'd see a drop in chairman's if you take the 10 points away. I know we were submitting before we knew about the 10 points, because our former coach was good that way. But I know I watch it much more carefully, and make sure of the deadline, because of those 10 points.

I'd vote to reduce it. Maybe 1 or 2 points. That could make it a nice tie breaker; if you had two teams that were otherwise pretty equal, give the nod to the one that submitted Chairman's. That feels more fair.

Or, and here's crazy talk: it'd be nice if you got a score on your chairman's submission. You could use that to gain points, and might be a nice way to encourage students to continue submitting. It's pretty hard to submit it year over year, knowing full well that some other amazing and well deserving team is going to win it. But if you had a score that was yours, that you could strive to improve year over year, I could see that being a valuable incentive.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[BumblingBuilder]

Originally Posted by jwhite

I agree with Caleb, I think it's an odd incentive. It feels a bit like coercion to boot.

I do suspect that you'd see a drop in chairman's if you take the 10 points away. I know we were submitting before we knew about the 10 points, because our former coach was good that way. But I know I watch it much more carefully, and make sure of the deadline, because of those 10 points.

I'd vote to reduce it. Maybe 1 or 2 points. That could make it a nice tie breaker; if you had two teams that were otherwise pretty equal, give the nod to the one that submitted Chairman's. That feels more fair.

Or, and here's crazy talk: it'd be nice if you got a score on your chairman's submission. You could use that to gain points, and might be a nice way to encourage students to continue submitting. It's pretty hard to submit it year over year, knowing full well that some other amazing and well deserving team is going to win it. But if you had a score that was yours, that you could strive to improve year over year, I could see that being a valuable incentive.

Cheers,

Jeremy

I like using a chairmans submission as a tie breaker much more than the current one: high score. High scores, in general, do favor later week competitions, and there isn't that advantage in chairmans submissions. So while chairmans submission frequency would still be high (simply to clinch a tie breaker rather than 10 points), I would rather have chairmans submissions be worth none or nominal points and instead be used as the first priority tie-breaker.

*The scoring of individual submissions is alright in theory, but I feel this could be subject to judge inconsistency. I don't feel bad enough about the idea to fig against it, but I see this as a possible point of complaint. Someone will find fault with it, whether it be them not wanted the fact their team scored a 1/10 on a chairmans submission public for everyone to see or for some other reason.

*am I misinterpreting your last paragraph?

Edit: high scores is not highest priority tie-breaker. But my support still stands that I do like RCA submissions as a tiebreaker more than points

[BenHildy]

Originally Posted by BumblingBuilder

I like using a chairmans submission as a tie breaker much more than the current one: high score.

I agree with you here Matt. While this may be affected by our unfortunate ranking based off of the said high score tiebreaker (ranked 31st), high score probably shouldn't be taken into account at all. While most teams haven't scored above 150 or 160, the high score usually doesn't have anything to do with the individual robot's performance, especially when they base everything off of the first regional a team attends. For example, this puts teams who attended Duluth in week 1 at an immediate disadvantage to those who attended Minneapolis at week 6.

While one could say that this provides an incentive to the best teams to have a dominant robot right off the bat, this still doesn't translate well to other teams that either cannot afford multiple regionals or must go to a later one. This brings me back to the high score tiebreaker. Long story short, it shouldn't exist. There are plenty of other team-specific factors such as penalties or even to a certain extent OPR. Overall, the high score tiebreaker is probably not the best decision, even if it is the fourth and last one.

[ehochstein]

I threw some (really quick) data together on how the rankings would change if we removed the 10 point Chairman's bonus. It doesn't change much (in my opinion). Red teams are no longer advancing, green teams are new advancing teams.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by ehochstein

It doesn't change much (in my opinion).

It changes a lot for those 8 teams (you knew that was coming). It would be great to see 5913 make it in - but I would be disappointed to see 4624 and 3102 not make it.