[FRC Blog] 2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 8/31/16: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...-for-districts

2017 FIRST Championships Allocations for Districts

Written by Frank Merrick, 2016 AUG 31.

Below you will find a short version of changes to the 2017 FIRST Championships District allocations and reasoning for those changes. If you want the dance version*, with more words and examples, click here.

There has been a concern raised about the fact that Districts get both a guaranteed percent representation at FIRST Championship and are allowed to send non-qualified teams from the waitlist to FIRST Championship. For the majority of Districts, this means over-representation at Championship from a strictly percent-of-teams approach, compared to Regional teams.

FIRST HQ values the opportunity for non-qualified teams to attend FIRST Championship, so we want to keep that option in place for Districts, but we do need to make an adjustment. So, for 2017, the initial value of the ‘available slots’ calculation used to determine District allocations, rather than being full Championship capacity, will be 10% less than full Championship capacity.

Also, if we were to use the percentage of teams from each District compared to all FRC, along with the total number of available slots at both FIRST Championships combined, in determining the number of District slots available at each of the two Championships, the St Louis Championship would be over-subscribed, or very close to it. Instead, the formula for 2017 will use the percent representation of each District compared to the number of FRC teams just within the geography assigned to the District’s home Championship, and that percentage will be applied just to the number of available slots at that particular Championship.

Even with these changes in place, if 2017 were to look like 2016 with respect to team counts, all Districts will have at least one more guaranteed slot at their Championship than they did in 2016. In addition, as noted above, they will still have access to non-qualified waitlist slots.

Estimates are below. Please note these values will of course shift with the actual numbers for 2017:



As with all things in this very new situation in 2017, we will be reviewing results and considering additional changes for 2018 and beyond.

Still TL;DR




Frank



*Do they still make dance versions?

**This assumption is guaranteed to be wrong, so look in the 2017 manual when it comes out for the actual numbers.

[Jon Stratis]

So, who wants to do the math to figure out how many estimated waitlist spots each champs gets now?

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

So, who wants to do the math to figure out how many estimated waitlist spots each champs gets now?

I'm not sure about the exact number of Regionals, but:

That's 201 District spots at HalfchampsN and ~20 Regionals getting 7 each. So that leaves around 59 waitlist spots.

HalfchampsS would have 88 District spots and ~29 Regionals? So they'd get 109ish waitlist spots.

[Sperkowsky]

Ok I like this a lot gets rid of my concern about our waitlist tokens becoming useless. Thanks frank!

[AGPapa]

This was a predictable change, but I'm still disappointed.

Originally Posted by AGPapa

FIRST will almost certainly change how districts qualify teams to limit how many teams the northern regions send

Under the old system the North Championship would have ~265 teams from district areas but under this system they'll only have 201. Given that district teams are much more competitive than waitlist teams, this will seriously decrease the quality of championship play.

I had assumed that the purpose of waitlist spots was to fill the gaps when regionals didn't send enough teams to fill out the championship, but FIRST doesn't seem to share that view. What is the point of waitlist teams? Why do the extra 64 waitlist teams deserve to go to the North Championship more than the district points teams do? Shouldn't we reward success on and off the field more than a lottery?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

This was a predictable change, but I'm still disappointed.





Under the old system the North would send ~265 teams from district areas, but under this system they'll only send 215. Given that district teams are much more competitive than waitlist teams, this will seriously decrease the quality of championship play.

I had assumed that the purpose of waitlist spots was to fill the gaps when regionals didn't send enough teams to fill out the championship, but FIRST doesn't seem to share that view. What is the point of waitlist teams? Why do the extra 50 waitlist teams deserve to go to the North Championship than the district points teams do? Shouldn't we reward success on and off the field more than a lottery?

Teams getting the "championship experience"


It may be a good thing text doesn't convey tone.

[Lil' Lavery]

Houston Champs districts get a pretty huge spike in slots! Roughly 40% (give or take) increases for each of PNW, North Carolina, and Peachtree.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Under the old system the North would send ~265 teams from district areas, but under this system they'll only send 201. Given that district teams are much more competitive than waitlist teams, this will seriously decrease the quality of championship play.

I don't think that analysis applies here. Michigan (for example) sent 76 teams. if ~56% made it to the playoffs, that's only ~43 teams. How competitive are the other 33 teams when compared to the waitlist spots? Because this change doesn't really affect those 43 teams - they'll get in either way. It's the team's further down in the district points that are affected, and I haven't seen an analysis that really tells us how competitive those teams are, when compared to the waitlist teams. Do that same analysis comparing the achievement of all waitlist teams against the lower 10% of district teams (sorted by district points), and then we can talk about how competitive or not this decision is.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Teams getting the "championship experience"


It may be a good thing text doesn't convey tone.

Listen I am from a team who could seriously benefit from going to Champs and one with 8 waitlist tokens.

We have been a team since 2009 and have never even come close to qualifying for Champs. Many members despite my best efforts still don't realize how big first really is. The experience of Champs would certainly seriously help our team.

The reason half Champs became a thing was to give more teams the Champs experience. Before this change district teams did have an easier time qualifying despite the wildcard change. Now it's pretty balanced. Don't forget waitlist tokens can go to regional and district teams.

Now I still support 1 Champs but, if we are going to have 2 let's have other teams like mine and maybe ones even farther away from breaking through get a taste of what's out there.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Dallas Champs

Nothing against our friends to the north but nope. South Champs is in Houston.

[Drakxii]

I agree with the point of limiting the number of district teams going to north champs differently then the south champs.

As for waitlists and district teams, why not just leave waitlist for regional teams and give districts the full allotment? As I see it both waitlist and districts were way to help teams that the regional system was leaving behind.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Listen I am from a team who could seriously benefit from going to Champs and one with 8 waitlist tokens.

We have been a team since 2009 and have never even come close to qualifying for Champs. Many members despite my best efforts still don't realize how big first really is. The experience of Champs would certainly seriously help our team.

The reason half Champs became a thing was to give more teams the Champs experience. Before this change district teams did have an easier time qualifying despite the wildcard change. Now it's pretty balanced. Don't forget waitlist tokens can go to regional and district teams.

Now I still support 1 Champs but, if we are going to have 2 let's have other teams like mine and maybe ones even farther away from breaking through get a taste of what's out there.

As far as I am aware admission to The Championship Event has been and will continue to be free.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

I agree with the point of limiting the number of district teams going to north champs differently then the south champs.

As for waitlists and district teams, why not just leave waitlist for regional teams and give districts the full allotment? As I see it both waitlist and districts were way to help teams that the regional system was leaving behind.

The direction FIRST is taking is more about giving everyone a better chance of going to championships with an emphasis on weaker/underdeveloped teams. In this case though, they are taking away earned slots in favor of the waitlist. Besides decreased competitiveness, one major con might be that mid tier teams find it increasingly harder to qualify on their own merit since mid tier teams(I would think) occupy the bottom 10 percent of teams that qualify from a district. Overall I don't really approve of any decreased competitiveness at this point but FIRST has chosen their path and they might as well go as far as they can if they think this is for the best.

[Thad House]

Interesting that the districts going to the south post season expo gained 40%, 55% and 36% more teams, whereas the teams going to the north expo gained 1 or 2 spots at maximum.

[FarmerJohn]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Listen I am from a team who could seriously benefit from going to Champs and one with 8 waitlist tokens.

That's the problem with millennials these days!!! They think they deserve everything and that the world should be handed to them on a silver platter. Everyone wants a participation trophy because all that matters is that they "tried" and there's no such thing as "winners". Back in my day you didn't have a right to go to a championship, you had to earn your way there. When I coached my son's little league we never made it to the state championships because we weren't good enough. After four years of not qualifying do you think I complained that my team was missing out from the "championship experience" because they weren't playing well enough? Of course not! We didn't need a championship to recognize the kids on our team and we sure didn't need one to inspire them. If you want to go to the championships then work harder, don't try and lessen the value of the championships by letting everyone in.