Split Champs assignment

[sdangelo]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

It would be interesting to see which CMP would have more teams from the 2016...Einstein...

I'll try the rest of that statement later, but this one I can do by hand.
St. Louis: 19
Houston 2017: 13

Detroit: 18
Houston 2018+: 14

[Whatever]

Seems like most of the non-US/Canada teams are going to Houston.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

For us District teams, we will continue to hope more areas will move to our format and inter-district play with be more prevalent (Canada perhaps). If this happens, I don't really see us justifiably playing at a half-champs.

I think this will become a growing problem for FIRST over time. I could envision where the powerhouse teams agree to meet at a late season regional (e.g., SVR) or even having a small invitational a la Chezy Champs to settle the matter in April. That would make it harder for an outsider to break in.

[Poseidon5817]

Man, this s#&$ is not m-#+%+@&$ing dope.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

having a small invitational a la Chezy Champs to settle the matter in April.

IRI?

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Wow, I'd love to learn more about that!

Don't you guys talk to each other???

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

IRI?

It has to be during the school year not the summer for logistical reasons.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Mike Starke

Based on the Final Top 25 for this year...

13 of those teams would attend Houston next year, 12 in St. Louis.

Out of the Top 10 of those teams, 6 would compete in Houston, 4 in St. Louis.

Definitely more balanced than I originally thought it would have been. Definitely still absolutely hate the idea though.

While maybe balanced at the top, I expect Houston to have a much weaker field that STL/Detroit. North 1/2 CMP has 5 (6?) strong districts, while South 1/2 CMP gets PNW and GA, as well as many regional qualifying teams. Additionally, I expect Houston to welcome more teams off of the waitlist than North 1/2 CMP will.

That, coupled with a later weekend, means North 1/2 CMP will likely be more competitive and harder to get in to.

Bummer

-Mike

[Citrus Dad]

One surprise to me--that they didn't set up a 4 or 5 "area" approach that carves out the 2 coasts and international teams, and rotates those between the two Super Regionals. It will make no cost difference to the West Coast teams where they go, and I suspect the situation may be similar for East Coast teams given that most fly to competition. (Air fare is not directly distance based.)

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

One surprise to me--that they didn't set up a 4 or 5 "area" approach that carves out the 2 coasts and international teams, and rotates those between the two Super Regionals. It will make no cost difference to the West Coast teams where they go, and I suspect the situation may be similar for East Coast teams given that most fly to competition. (Air fare is not directly distance based.)

Well, they've only announced through 2018, but I believe the Houston/Detroit set-up will continue for several years. So maybe they'll change up the location assignments for 2019 after seeing how things shake out?

[nuclearnerd]

I've already gone on record that I support* the move to bring more teams to champs, even if it means a championsplit. As much as we all love to see the best meet the best here, most students in FRC don't get anywhere near to the best teams from far away, so they won't care as much as we do. So shed a tear for the friends we'll miss, then welcome all of the new entrants!

That said, I am intrigued by the last paragraph of the announcement. It would be cool to have the culminating event be a televised, professionally produced TV series. You could have the Einstein finals be a best-of-7 series, with a few hours between each match to make repairs, changes, and work on strategy and be interviewed. It would be boring to watch live, but that wouldn't be the intent. Instead, the 8 hour day would be condensed into one or more 1/2 hour episodes for a mass audience, the same way they do for Battle Bots. The format works - lots more people around here know about Battle Bots than FRC, even though FRC is a vastly bigger program. Maybe FIRST could entice the same producers...

*Maybe a better way to put it is that I don't oppose the split. If there were a sane way to have 800 teams in one venue, and make things cheaper, I'd probably support that instead.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

This is the approach I'd like to see as well. Someone earlier in the thread referenced an old slide from 2011 that included this vision of FRC (note that none of this was ever official in any way)


But District Champs aren't to that point yet either. Like Basel said, FIRST and their event management companies don't run district champs - it's all the local people. And I don't know of any DCMP that runs conferences and has all the flashy lights like CMP does. As far as international/regional teams go, I though this thread from last year was a great start on the problem. Maybe as more areas move to districts, FIRST's event planning people have some more bandwidth they can apply to running District Championships.

Of course, none of this is anywhere near official, but if someone asked me where I envisioned FRC in a few years, this is what I would tell them.

It is interesting looking back on that and the progress that was made to that goal. A number of areas are finally up and running more or less per that document but a couple are just portions of the original plan.

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

All I really have to say is this looks quite like the old 400 team version of champs times two. To fit everyone in (including the FLL's and FTC) that probably means 100 team divisions.

So, if you thought a 600 team CMP with 75 team divisions was watered down and saw how your "random" assignment of 10 matches could affect your potential to rank high during the qualification matches, think again ... just add another 25 teams.... how do they get there? Are they from waitlist? Do they add some other type of qualifying position at Regionals? Do they go even deeper into the Districts?

I hope that the powers that be look quite hard at this issue next year when they figure out how teams get points for qualifications.

I will miss seeing all of our new and old friends from the East Coast and Canada.

Good luck to you all!!

I bet that the district allocations will stay the current percentage basis and that will account for some of the extra space. The fact that there are currently less district teams at the tan states event means that could mean a potentially large differential in the % of teams at each event via the lottery.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by JohnFogarty

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

Considering they're "Championship" ( I refuse to call it a championship. I just call it Superegional North) is full of FiM, MAR, NE District and Chesapeake District team plus teams from Ontario I think they're still in for a big fight.

[Jaci]

<unpopular opinion>

2 Champs is great for teams competing internationally.

As an Australian Team, going to Houston instead of St Louis is going to make it multitudes easier for us to attend champs. Since we have a layover in Dallas Fort-Worth, it's going to take us less flight time to get to champs, and because of this cost-per-student is going to go down by multiple thousands of dollars.

I hate to say it but a lot of the opinions in this thread complaining about 2 Champs are only really from the POV of a team managed and run in the US, and to see the international teams from Australia, Israel, Brazil, China, Taiwan and more neglected in the conversation is kind of disheartening.

I know the split presents some issues with "fairness" of each Championship, but I won't get into the politics of that nor reveal my position on the matter. I'm simply here to put in my own point to show that the split is actually helpful in some way, especially to teams internationally who often find it hard to gather the money and support to make it to championships.

</unpopular opinion>

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by Jaci

<unpopular opinion>

2 Champs is great for teams competing internationally.

As an Australian Team, going to Houston instead of St Louis is going to make it multitudes easier for us to attend champs. Since we have a layover in Dallas Fort-Worth, it's going to take us less flight time to get to champs, and because of this cost-per-student is going to go down by multiple thousands of dollars.

I hate to say it but a lot of the opinions in this thread complaining about 2 Champs are only really from the POV of a team managed and run in the US, and to see the international teams from Australia, Israel, Brazil, China, Taiwan and more neglected in the conversation is kind of disheartening.

I know the split presents some issues with "fairness" of each Championship, but I won't get into the politics of that nor reveal my position on the matter. I'm simply here to put in my own point to show that the split is actually helpful in some way, especially to teams internationally who often find it hard to gather the money and support to make it to championships.

</unpopular opinion>

Well one thing I did note, was that outside of Canada, all of the international countries with FRC Regional events got assigned to Houston. I find that an interesting im balance.

Thoughts?