Split Champs assignment

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by CalTran

So, as a Kansas team, and Missouri resident, I'm not sure how I feel.

Looks like you'll be in St Louis next year and Houston in 2018.

[Billfred]

Let's just get one megathread going:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=148233

[bearbot]

Darn looks likes will miss our friends on the west coast friends but we have 4 districts New England, MAR, Michigan and Cheaspeake

[Hallry]

Originally posted here: http://www.firstinspires.org/2017-20...mpionship-info

2017 & 2018 FIRST Championships Information Update

More than 25 years ago, FIRST® became a game changer in the STEM world. Over the years, we’ve built an incredible culture with our K-12 FIRST Progression of Programs that celebrates kids’ accomplishments through high-quality, inspiring, life-changing experiences, the culmination of which is our FIRST Championship. FIRST is the oldest and largest youth robotics program in the world, and now we can deliver the FIRST Championship experience to many thousands more young people worldwide!

Geographic Proximity
When FIRST announced the dual FIRST Championship structure starting in 2017, our primary intent was to make the life-changing excitement and inspiration of the FIRST Championship more accessible, available, and affordable to more kids and teams.

To stay true to this goal, geographic proximity became our first-order determinant when assigning teams from a given state, province or country to a “home” Championship, especially when those geographic regions are viewed to be within a reasonable driving distance of one of the Championships. Within this constraint, we then tried, as best we could, to balance the number of teams that feed in to each Championship, recognizing that the number of teams in any given region varies and grows from year to year. Importantly, we then aligned geographic assignments across all four FIRST programs, so that participants, Mentors, and Sponsors who support teams across multiple FIRST programs in a given geographic region will be able to support all of those teams at a single FIRST Championship.

A committee of FIRST staff and community volunteers worked diligently to appropriately allocate geographic areas to the FIRST Championships for both 2017 and 2018, recognizing that the FIRST Championship will be in Houston, Texas, U.S. and St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. in 2017 and then in Houston, Texas, U.S. and Detroit, Michigan, U.S. in 2018-2020. Based on our learning and experience in 2017 and 2018, we may or may not make additional changes to the assignment structure in 2019 and beyond.

Teams will be assigned to attend a FIRST Championship (i.e., their “home” Championship) based on the location where the team is based and not the location of the event through which they qualify for Championship.

Please note that in the transition year of 2017, we recognize that there is not a lot of geographical separation between Houston and St. Louis. In 2018-2020, the geographical separation between the two Championships is greater, and there will be a significant improvement in average team drive time for North American teams. (As you already know, this metric would be even better had we been able to secure a more western-U.S. venue that met our needs. Unfortunately, that was not possible.)

A full slate of team and individual student awards will be presented at each of the FIRST Championships.

2017 & 2018 Geographic Assignment Maps (PDF)

2017 Cities & Dates
As previously announced, the 2017 FIRST Championships will be held in Houston, Texas, U.S. on April 19-22, 2017 and in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. on April 26-29, 2017. The 2017 geographic assignment map (page one of PDF) delineates which states, provinces and countries will feed into each of the Houston and St. Louis Championships in 2017. Each 2017 Championship will host up to 400 FRC teams, 128 FTC teams, 108 FLL teams and 60 FLL Jr. teams.

For the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) program, which incorporates a Super Regional qualifying structure in the United States, states participating in the East and North FTC Super Regionals will compete at the St. Louis Championship, and states participating in West and South FTC Super Regionals will compete in the Houston Championship. To create cross-program alignment, Kentucky, which is currently in the South FTC Super Regional will move to the North FTC Super Regional in 2017 and beyond, and will compete in the St. Louis Championship in 2017.

The states of Kansas and Missouri are currently in the North FTC Super Regional. That will remain the same in 2017, and those two states will compete at the St. Louis Championship.

2018 Cities & Dates
As previously announced, the 2018 FIRST Championships will be held in Houston, Texas, U.S. on April 18-21, 2018 and in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. on April 25-28, 2018. The 2018 geographic assignment map (page two of PDF) shows which states, provinces and countries will feed into each of the Houston and Detroit Championships in 2018. Again, each 2018 Championship will host up to 400 FRC teams, 128 FTC teams, 108 FLL teams and 60 FLL Jr. teams.

With the exception of Kansas and Missouri, all of the states, provinces and countries that are assigned to the St. Louis Championship in 2017 will transfer to the Detroit Championship in 2018. Teams from Kansas and Missouri will transition to attend the Houston Championship beginning in 2018.

To maintain alignment with the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Super Regional advancement structure, the states of Kansas and Missouri will also move to the South FTC Super Regional in 2018 and beyond. States participating in the East and North FTC Super Regionals will compete at the Detroit Championship, and states participating in West and South FTC Super Regionals will compete in the Houston Championship.

Ability to attend your “non-home” FIRST Championship
As noted above, our primary goal is to ensure teams have the ability to attend their “home” Championship, which in most cases will be closer to where they live than their non-home Championship, thereby hopefully minimizing travel costs and transit time. However, we recognize that some teams may desire to attend their non-home Championship for a variety of reasons. Hence, we are working to finalize a mechanism whereby FRC teams can elect to attend their non-home Championship. However, to maintain balance between the two events, not every team who asks may be able to move to their “non-home” Championship. Specifically, FIRST may limit the quantity of teams allowed to change from one event to the other for various reasons. As noted above, details on this program are still being worked out and will be communicated at a future date. Due to the processes by which FTC, FLL and FLL Jr. teams qualify for Championship, those Programs will require teams to attend their home Championship.

Waitlist
The FRC and FTC programs will have Waitlist slots available for both Championships. The details for Waitlist slots, along with the number of earned slots assigned to each FRC District, each FTC Super Regional event and countries outside the U.S., and each FLL and FLLJr. region and Partner are still being worked out.

Culminating Event
In response to your questions and feedback from teams, we are exploring options to bring the top alliances from each Championship together at a high-caliber, potentially made-for-TV-type, post-season event. However, we do not currently have definitive plans for such an event, but continue to explore our options.


Posted May 5, 2016

[JohnFogarty]

Well the statistical odds of 2056 winning their next world championship just went WAAAAYYY up.

[mwmac]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Just for fun, I tried a rough cut of geographic assignments based on 2015 FRC registration numbers. The goal was to create an approximately even split of teams while trying to cluster around the two venues. 2908 FRC teams registered last year. Selecting the Dakotas, NE, MO, TN and NC and all states south and west of them, (and including AK, HI, western Canada and Mexico, Israel, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Turkey and China yields roughly 1320 +or- teams that could be assigned to the Houston venue or about 140 shy of an even split between venues.

I do not envy this committee or the task they will confront. Whatever their recommendation, it is likely to leave many dissatisfied. That said, I wish them well in their deliberations...

Looks like I guessed pretty close to how the split would go...in September!
Disappointed that HQ/BoD still have not come to grips with the opt out mechanism.

[Akash Rastogi]

Well, $@#$@#$@#$@#, now I'm sad.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

They do include this paragraph on the Website:

"As noted above, our primary goal is to ensure teams have the ability to attend their “home” Championship, which in most cases will be closer to where they live than their non-home Championship, thereby hopefully minimizing travel costs and transit time. However, we recognize that some teams may desire to attend their non-home Championship for a variety of reasons. Hence, we are working to finalize a mechanism whereby FRC teams can elect to attend their non-home Championship. However, to maintain balance between the two events, not every team who asks may be able to move to their “non-home” Championship. Specifically, FIRST may limit the quantity of teams allowed to change from one event to the other for various reasons. As noted above, details on this program are still being worked out and will be communicated at a future date. Due to the processes by which FTC, FLL and FLL Jr. teams qualify for Championship, those Programs will require teams to attend their home Championship."

My hope is that they take the simplest solution here:

STEP 1: Team that wants to jump pays their registration for their home Championship.
STEP 2: They email FIRST (or select in TIMS, or whatever) to indicate they want to switch. They go on a first-come-first-served list. They know where they are in the list, and there's a button to give up their place on the list.
STEP 3: They wait for a team to perform Step 2 going in the other direction.
STEP 4: They're switched.

[jlmcmchl]

Originally Posted by bearbot

Darn looks likes will miss our friends on the west coast friends but we have 4 districts New England, MAR, Michigan and Cheaspeake

Don't forget Indiana, another incredibly strong district for it's size.

[Tim Sharp]

I'm interested in how the logistics of filling the CMP slots will work. I hadn't considered the fact that teams competing at the same regional/district event could earn spots at different championship events.
The possibility exists that one event could fill up faster than the other, resulting in a large difference in the # of wait list slots available in one event over the other,

[EricLeifermann]

Im sure I'm missing some but it looks like only 7 HOF/original teams in the Houston champs while all the rest are in the St. Louis/Detroit.

I get that FIRST can't help where the HOF and original team are from but the HOF area at champs are going to look even more sparce than they have; but with less teams they should be able to give the HOF teams the amount of space they used to/deserve to have....

[AndrewPospeshil]

Ability to attend your “non-home” FIRST Championship
As noted above, our primary goal is to ensure teams have the ability to attend their “home” Championship, which in most cases will be closer to where they live than their non-home Championship, thereby hopefully minimizing travel costs and transit time. However, we recognize that some teams may desire to attend their non-home Championship for a variety of reasons. Hence, we are working to finalize a mechanism whereby FRC teams can elect to attend their non-home Championship. However, to maintain balance between the two events, not every team who asks may be able to move to their “non-home” Championship. Specifically, FIRST may limit the quantity of teams allowed to change from one event to the other for various reasons. As noted above, details on this program are still being worked out and will be communicated at a future date. Due to the processes by which FTC, FLL and FLL Jr. teams qualify for Championship, those Programs will require teams to attend their home Championship.

I read this as "No, not every powerhouse team is going to go to the same Championship." Which, while a bummer, is probably for the best.

I'll probably be looking at a list of the Houston teams and crying softly to myself for the rest of the day.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by JohnFogarty

Well the statistical odds of 2056 winning their next world championship just went WAAAAYYY up.

Didn't it literally just plummet to zero?

[Lil' Lavery]

Naturally, I'm quite bummed we won't get to see many of the new Californian and PNW buddies we made while attending Championship this year. A lot of our pit neighbors are falling on the other side of the split, and that's a real downer. Getting to be in an aisle with so many top notch teams from the west was really awesome.

Selfishly, I'm pleased we have the later dates of Championship (and we get to hopefully return to STL next year).

On the other hand, knowing how much our students were impressed (and hopefully inspired) by the Championship experience, I'm hoping that FIRST's desired change comes to fruition. I'm hoping more teams will be able to experience Championship at a reasonable cost, and that both events will maintain the same level of inspiration at the singular event has achieved.

[SoccerTaco]

We are slated for Houston.

Knoxville to Detroit or St Louis, ~7.5 hours.
Knoxville to Houston, ~13.5 hours.

The Kentucky border isn't far from us - time to rent a P.O. Box for our home address??