[FRC Blog]2017 Updates

[Karthik]

In 2013, 96 teams made the elimination rounds at the Championship (4 divisions, 8 alliances per division, 3 teams per alliance).
In 2017, 384 teams will make the elimination rounds at the Championships (2 Championships, 6 divisions per championship, 8 alliances per division, 4 teams per alliance).

In essence, this is the approximate equivalent (384/400) of every team from the 2013 Championship making the elimination rounds. Some people will really like this change, some will really dislike this change. An interesting decision to say the least.

(All this assumes that the alliance format stays the same for 2017)

[bkahl]

12 divisions... Sheesh.

We thought finding enough volunteers for 8 was gunna be rough. Now cut the volunteer pool in half and only take away 2 divisions. Then do it again.

Have fun, Jess.

[AdamHeard]

I really like the Round Robin. It's a great show at Vex worlds (although a good deal shorter with only 5 alliances).

I also like the +1 wildcard.

Good decision!

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Atrocious? That's a little extreme.
Perhaps FIRST will choose to move some teams from the North down South. That may help a little.

I mean maybe atrocious isn't the right word, but his point of the event being watered down is valid.

A huge increase in the number of teams divided into even more subdivisions, without a large increase in total # of FRC teams or the competitiveness of existing teams.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is certainly an opinion, but it's factually true that the divisions will be weaker.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

How has nobody yet commented that 400 ISN'T EVEN DIVISIBLE BY 6!!!

Furthermore, with 6 divisions, each division having 400/6=66.7 teams, 48% of all teams will participate in a division playoffs. Maybe that's what FIRST HQ wants (more inspiration for everyone!!!), but there are going to be some pretty mediocre picks at the tail end of selections.

Not that anyone in FIRST HQ really cares about my opinion, but I would propose if they want to increase divisions,
only run 5 divisions/championship.

A) 400/5= 80 teams/division (very similar to the current 75, AND there shouldn't be as extensive of a field reset)

B) increase of 2 divisions is a much more reasonable expectation to staff.

The one setback of 5 vs 6 would be having less Einstein matches:
Current QF/SF = 12-18 matches
6 Alliance Round Robin = 15
5 Alliance Round Robin = 10

More talking between each match -> longer intervals of not playing.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

How has nobody yet commented that 400 ISN'T EVEN DIVISIBLE BY 6!!!

This really doesn't matter. They will let in 396/402/408 teams. 400 isn't a hard cap.

[Chris is me]

One advantage to more smaller divisions is that there will be fewer teams fighting for limited seating in the new pit fields we get to play in all weekend! The Dome is only for Einstein teams in the 2Champs era of FRC, so having fewer teams in a division makes supplying adequate field seating much easier.

[bdaroz]

Ok, so I decided to quantify this a bit....

Google Spreadsheet

Pulling data from TBA and the FRC Pre-Qual list (methods listed on the 2nd tab), and ignoring Ontario (going districts), here's what I get:

Under 2016 rules 57 teams were awarded wildcards. Under the 2017 rule that would jump to 88, an increase of 31 teams.

Another interesting point... 17 regionals would not have gained a wildcard under the 2017 rules because they either ran out of finalists, or they were pre-qualified otherwise. Some of those regionals (I've yet to dig deep enough to quantify it, yet) surely have "burned" wildcards under the 2016 rules as well.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

How has nobody yet commented that 400 ISN'T EVEN DIVISIBLE BY 6!!!

That's only a problem if you assume that divisions will have a natural number of teams, a team will only play in one division, and will play a natural number of games. None of these is necessarily the case. For example, there could be 75 matches in each division, two alliances consisting of 3.6 teams each, each team playing 13.5 matches (9 in their "main" division, 4.5 in their "alternate" division).

[Akash Rastogi]

Nice, my favorite part of the Championship event is watching sub-par teams competing in uneventful matches for most of the week.

This is a great change for people who love this same aspect of the CMP as me!

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'd gladly trade 2 matches for 25% deeper divisions.

I don't even mind having few matches at the Championship. More time to get around and see cool robots/people!

[Jayd009]

I personally like the idea of the new round robin format at World's because I think it allows you to find the best alliance at that championship. My problem with the normal tournament format is that you only have to prove that you are better than some of the teams versus all of the teams.

Let me explain while using this year's champs as an example. With the old tournament format, you have to prove that you are better than 3 other subdivision champions to become the championship winner. In other words, there could be an alliance in a different section of the bracket that could potentially beat you, but you would never know if another team took them out. If you beat that team in the old tournament format, you aren't necessarily better than the rest of the subdivision champions. You're just better than that team (along with 2 others).

Because you have to face every other subdivision champion in the round robin format, you can find the best alliance in there. Obviously, It's extremely unlikely that we're going to have an alliance that goes 6-0 in the round-robin tournament. But, the alliance that has the best record in the round robin playoff and wins the final playoff series is the best at that championship.

I'm glad to see that FIRST is going to try this new method for champs. Who knows, if FIRST goes back to one championship event, maybe they'll bring this round-robin format with them.

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Not a huge fan of 6 divisions, I find the round robin finals in vex makes it less exciting so I'm not super pumped to see it come to FRC.

Huge fan of the extra wildcard at regionals. Should definitely balance out the regional spots at champs with quality teams that often miss out.

hopefully the scheduling issues with regionals in NY/southeast US get addressed in someway, but I'll take this as a win for today.

This exactly. Definitely a more complicated system and not that spectator friendly compared to a nice simple bracket.

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

AND there shouldn't be as extensive of a field reset)

Just a quick thing here - field staff size depends on the game, not the divisions. Divisions are merely the multiplier.

It's difficult to come to the correct amount of volunteers for the Champs fields during the season - different regions run leaner than others, and the decision for the field staff size comes early, usually in week 1 or 2, so we can give food counts to HQ.

Although I personally prefer to run leaner events (back in the early 00s I was challenged - and succeeded - to run entire regionals with double digit volunteers), the final number tends to skew to the higher side to give comfort to the regions who run larger and to cover drop outs.

Stronghold was the first year we had more than 100 volunteer slots on reset alone (14 reset slots / field, if you're curious). This doesn't count DCs, or any one else on the field. Additionally, a volunteer slot does not equal a person, as we have many partial-weekend volunteers, so we're probably closer to the 150 range in terms of actual people needed for the entire event.

[logank013]

Can someone please explain to me how the Einstein division will be played out? I've heard round robin but I don't understand how that works. Thanks.

Edit: Also, will round robin only be for Einstein or will it be like that at each regional / district event?

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by logank013

Can someone please explain to me how the Einstein division will be played out? I've heard round robin but I don't understand how that works. Thanks.

Edit: Also, will round robin only be for Einstein or will it be like that at each regional / district event?

The round robin will only be for einstein. Basically there will be 6 division winners moving on to Einstein, and 6 doesn't make a single elimination bracket. So each alliance will play a match against every other alliance (so 5 matches each) and the best two records (with some sort of tiebreaker because ties are common with round robins) will move on to a best of three final round.

VEX has done it this way at their "Einstein" for years with 5 alliances, so check out videos on YouTube to see what it's like.