Proposal for Wildcard Reform

[Paul Richardson]

Currently the wildcard system rewards playing late regionals over early regionals. "Burned" wildcards could be reallocated to alleviate this.

If a team generates a wildcard that goes unused, retroactively create a wildcard at the earliest event where that team qualified for Championship and generated the least wildcards.

Spoiler for Hypothetical Scenarios:

Hypothetical Team A

Event 1: Regional Winner
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 3: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

A realistic scenario. Here the wildcard from Event 3 goes to Event 1, because Team A generated the least wildcards at Event 1.

Hypothetical Pre-qualified Team B

Event 1: Regional Winner and Regional Chairman's Award (2 wildcards used immediately)
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)
Event 3: No awards
Event 4: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 5: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

An unrealistic scenario for demonstration. Here the wildcard from Event 2 goes to Event 1, because Events 3-5 don't exist at that time. The wildcard from Event 5 goes to Event 4 because Event 4 has 1 wildcard from this team compared to 3 at Event 1. Event 2 also has only 1 wildcard, but is ignored because a wildcard already went unused at that event. Event 3 is ignored because Team B did not qualify there.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Paul Richardson

Currently the wildcard system rewards playing late regionals over early regionals. "Burned" wildcards could be reallocated to alleviate this.

If a team generates a wildcard that goes unused, retroactively create a wildcard at the earliest event where that team qualified for Championship and generated the least wildcards.

Spoiler for Hypothetical Scenarios:

Hypothetical Team A

Event 1: Regional Winner
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 3: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

A realistic scenario. Here the wildcard from Event 3 goes to Event 1, because Team A generated the least wildcards at Event 1.

Hypothetical Pre-qualified Team B

Event 1: Regional Winner and Regional Chairman's Award (2 wildcards used immediately)
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)
Event 3: No awards
Event 4: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 5: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

An unrealistic scenario for demonstration. Here the wildcard from Event 2 goes to Event 1, because Events 3-5 don't exist at that time. The wildcard from Event 5 goes to Event 4 because Event 4 has 1 wildcard from this team compared to 3 at Event 1. Event 2 also has only 1 wildcard, but is ignored because a wildcard already went unused at that event. Event 3 is ignored because Team B did not qualify there.

The problem with this comes down to expectations and bag and tag. A team leaving a week 1 regions that has no more events, may not bag their robot or prepare for champs in any way. Then, over a month later (here in MN it's likely a week 1/week 6 difference, with how out events are scheduled) we give them a "retroactive" wild card? Not only is their robot now illegal for having been unbagged all that time, they probably aren't prepared for it financially either. It just introduced a whole lot of uncertainty into the equation for teams.

The current system makes sure teams know what to expect when they leave their event. For regionals, you know if you earned a spot or not before you leave the venue. For districts, hopefully you'll have a good feel for your odds of making it to the district championship, although that can be a little up in the air (but you should know if it's definite, borderline, or no way). Teams on the waitlist know they are on the waitlist and are planning for the eventuality of getting selected.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The problem with this comes down to expectations and bag and tag. A team leaving a week 1 regions that has no more events, may not bag their robot or prepare for champs in any way. Then, over a month later (here in MN it's likely a week 1/week 6 difference, with how out events are scheduled) we give them a "retroactive" wild card? Not only is their robot now illegal for having been unbagged all that time, they probably aren't prepared for it financially either. It just introduced a whole lot of uncertainty into the equation for teams.

The current system makes sure teams know what to expect when they leave their event. For regionals, you know if you earned a spot or not before you leave the venue. For districts, hopefully you'll have a good feel for your odds of making it to the district championship, although that can be a little up in the air (but you should know if it's definite, borderline, or no way). Teams on the waitlist know they are on the waitlist and are planning for the eventuality of getting selected.

Any team that is eligible for (and has intentions on accepting) a retroactive wildcard has to bag their robot after their final event is a simple solution for this. Doesn't help with last minute travel plans, but that's the same as if you qualified at a late regional anyway.

[Paul Richardson]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The problem with this comes down to expectations and bag and tag. A team leaving a week 1 regions that has no more events, may not bag their robot or prepare for champs in any way. Then, over a month later (here in MN it's likely a week 1/week 6 difference, with how out events are scheduled) we give them a "retroactive" wild card? Not only is their robot now illegal for having been unbagged all that time, they probably aren't prepared for it financially either. It just introduced a whole lot of uncertainty into the equation for teams.

The current system makes sure teams know what to expect when they leave their event. For regionals, you know if you earned a spot or not before you leave the venue. For districts, hopefully you'll have a good feel for your odds of making it to the district championship, although that can be a little up in the air (but you should know if it's definite, borderline, or no way). Teams on the waitlist know they are on the waitlist and are planning for the eventuality of getting selected.

The problem with your argument is that it assumes nobody planned for something that would be known to exist. That's an easy problem to solve and it wouldn't affect many teams, especially when assuming that wildcards can still only go to the Finalist Alliance. I'm ignoring the District Points idea because I think actual districts will happen before that sort of change is made.

Basically, if a team is on the Finalist Alliance in their last event, have the head inspector tell them to bag their robot and keep an eye out, just in case. You'd know which teams could possibly get you a spot and where they'll be competing in the future, so you'd have a good idea what your chances might be.

Teams that qualify in Week 6 have to deal with the sudden cost of Champs as well, so having a couple weeks to prepare would be significantly easier if anything. If you don't end up qualifying you can just save the money for next year. Also, many companies will offer conditional donations/grants (eg. $5000 if you qualify for Championships).

I think the benefit of this is worth the effort in communication that is required. Instead of qualifying some unknown quantity from the waitlist or letting wildcards fall all the way to Semifinalists at late regionals, you get to qualify a Finalist.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Paul Richardson

Currently the wildcard system rewards playing late regionals over early regionals. "Burned" wildcards could be reallocated to alleviate this.

If a team generates a wildcard that goes unused, retroactively create a wildcard at the earliest event where that team qualified for Championship and generated the least wildcards.

Spoiler for Hypothetical Scenarios:

Hypothetical Team A

Event 1: Regional Winner
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 3: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

A realistic scenario. Here the wildcard from Event 3 goes to Event 1, because Team A generated the least wildcards at Event 1.

Hypothetical Pre-qualified Team B

Event 1: Regional Winner and Regional Chairman's Award (2 wildcards used immediately)
Event 2: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)
Event 3: No awards
Event 4: Regional Winner (wildcard used immediately)
Event 5: Regional Winner (wildcard unused)

An unrealistic scenario for demonstration. Here the wildcard from Event 2 goes to Event 1, because Events 3-5 don't exist at that time. The wildcard from Event 5 goes to Event 4 because Event 4 has 1 wildcard from this team compared to 3 at Event 1. Event 2 also has only 1 wildcard, but is ignored because a wildcard already went unused at that event. Event 3 is ignored because Team B did not qualify there.

I think this is the biggest thing that is fixed with the new wildcards being alotted to each regional. Early regionals will now have at least one wildcard, and later regionals that already had a lot of wildcards aren't getting any more.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

It's good to see some data. Looking at the 48 events in your spreadsheet it looks like there were 57 wildcards given out, so it's already averaging more than 1 per event. That's really interesting. My team has never been to an event where there were any wildcards.

Perhaps your experience reflects the fact that you are in the district system?

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Perhaps your experience reflects the fact that you are in the district system?

Certainly that's part of it. But wildcards were around before we were in a district. Also, there aren't any nearby original or sustaining teams or hall of fame teams.

[blueyoshi256]

Some sort of further wildcard distribution could be very useful in Minnesota. In 2016, both of the events 2823 attended had 2+ wildcards. Lake Superior had 2 (thanks 359!), and 10k had 3 (and possibly could have had 4 if they had awarded rookie all star). We were very fortunate to qualify off of the waitlist to champs after losing in semis (to 2052) at both regionals. Had we not been so fortunate, we would not have gotten to see our robot run at peak performance, win 10 qualification rounds, and have an amazing trip. With the extra wildcards added already, there will might be less impact in Minnesota than other regionals without some sort of further distribution rules.
That said, District Points may be unnecessarily complicated for this. I can't think of a simpler way, but it might exist.

[bdaroz]

I've updated the Google Drive Spreadsheet earlier in the thread to include a calculation of district event points for the Sacramento event.

I picked Sacramento as it's mid-season, and all 3 members of the finalist alliance already had bids to CMP.

Two caveats:

1. Google Sheets doesn't have an inverse error function, so I had to approximate it using a not-as-complicated formula as I'd like. As a result there are some minor errors in the values, but it doesn't appear to affect anything but the last placed team (got a 3 instead of a 4 -- I checked several other values with Wolfram Alpha).
2. I did not add the "season-wide" district points for rookie and 2nd year teams. I believe the intent here is to evaluate the play on the field, and those points were not listed on the proposal, but I did add judged award points as listed on the proposal (excluded Chairman's RAS, EI).
3. The DP tiebreaker is not factored in the sort on the spreadsheet

On a point basis... some interesting things:

• Winning alliance took positions 1, 2, and 5 in the DP ranking
• Finalist alliance took 3, 4, and 13th in the ranking. (3rd team was qual rank 26/60 with no awards)
• After all automatic and previously-awarded bids to CMP are factored in, 701 (sf 1st pick) would get the wildcard for the 2016 rules. Team 3250 (qf 1st pick) the additional under 2017 rules.
• The next teams, should other WCs had been generated would be 3669 (sf captain), 1056 (sf captain), 4094 (qf captain), and 4543 (qf 1st pick)

All in all I'm surprised the alliance captains didn't get more of a boost, and that award points played a significant result. Without them 701 and 3250 would not be anywhere close to in the running for a wildcard slot.

I'm interested to see what the rookie / 2nd year points boosts do. If someone wants to know, either post here, or PM me the team # ranges for rookies and 2nd year teams for 2016. I'm just too tired to go looking right now.