PCH 2017

[Kellen Hill]

I thought it would be good to get a thread started to generate discussion for the PCH District (Georgia) for the upcoming 2017 season.

We'll again be having 4 district events with District Champs coming week 6. PCH teams are slotted to attend the Houston Championship Event in week 8.

Week 1: Gainesville Event (Event Link) March 3-5
Week 2: Dalton Event (Event Link) March 9-11
Week 3: Columbus Event (Event Link) March 16-18
Week 4: Albany Event (Event Link) March 23-25

Week 6: PCH District Champs (Athens, GA) (Event Link) April 5-8

Here is a spreadsheet I've been updating to keep tabs on who has been registering and where. I try to keep it updated, but let me know if you notice any errors.

PCH 2017 Registration

I am looking forward to another competitive PCH season. 1746 is hoping to keep our Motorola Quality award streak alive after having won 3 of them last year.

[Ginger Bread]

I'm very surprised to see that 3600 Clockwork hasn't registered yet, last year they had a fairly large group and performed well. Strange how the steampunk themed team isn't in the steampunk game.

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by Kellen Hill

I thought it would be good to get a thread started to generate discussion for the PCH District (Georgia) for the upcoming 2017 season.

Here is a spreadsheet I've been updating to keep tabs on who has been registering and where. I try to keep it updated, but let me know if you notice any errors.

PCH 2017 Registration

I'm curious to see what the final registration numbers will look like. Both Albany and Dalton have surpassed their team totals from last year, and Columbus and Gainesville have met their initial caps. I know there are at least a couplet teams on waitlists, so what those final numbers are should be interesting.

On paper, Columbus and Gainesville look like the premier districts of the season: 1648 is really looking forward to playing with the best of the best from our state.

[ttldomination]

Hey there folks, inspired by Top 25, we, at PCHQA, are doing a 2017 preseason poll for the top 10 teams in the PCH District.

Go here to vote: https://www.facebook.com/pchqa/posts/215384552246642

- Sunny G.

[NoahMinter]

Team 6341 is so pumped to compete in PCH this year! We will be attending Dalton and Gainesville! Congrats to all the rookie teams who made it this far!

Who else is super excited to participate in FIRST Steamworks?

[BenDSterling]

I'm really looking forward to this season! This year I will be running A/V for Gainesville, Dalton, Columbus, and the District Championship.

Also, this season I have the honor of coaching FRC team 6325, Reset Robotics, who will be attending Gainesville and Columbus (and hopefully the District Championship).

I can't wait to see all of you this season!

[Ginger Bread]

Wow! The district certainly has grown from last year. Now no event has less than 35 teams. I remember Albany only having 25 last year. It's great to see Georgia FIRST grow.

[FrankJ]

The other Frank sez PCH has 18 slots for Championship south.

[PCH Uniformerer]

As we get closer to kickoff, we, as a district, need to face the music. Our first year in the district model went about as expected. Plenty of things went well (volunteer turnout, increased collaboration), but we faced just as many, if not more, problems (bouncy house flooring at Columbus, plywood flooring at Kennesaw, no practice elements). From GA First's perspective, it was a good first year under a new system, and they have hopefully addressed many of the problem we faced, but there is one problem they, and many teams will not face.
In 2016 we sent 13 teams to the world championship. The average qualification ranking of those 13 teams was 47.5. This includes 4468's 16th seed, and 1261's 13th seed. Aside from this, PCH events consistently finished as the worst performing events across the nation each week (ranked based off average score, % breach, % capture). To call a spade a spade; we suck.
Now before you scroll off of this post, denying blame for this unfortunate reality (let's be honest the few GA teams following this thread are probably in the top 15), ask yourself if your team is honestly trying to improve the average skill level of PCH teams. Your "elite" team suffers alongside the struggling teams. When you tell someone your team won the PCH championship, do you think they really care? National perception of FRC teams out of Georgia is back to its all time low, after a short lived spike from 2415's 2013 bot.
Back to my point, we aren't any closer to Einstein that we were when championship was hosted in Atlanta. This year, with PCH being allocated 18 spots, we will send an additional 5 teams to their doom at half-champs, so I ask you, my fellow PCHers, when are we going to stop being complacent being the laughing stock of the FRC world? When are we going to stop creating teams just add a tally to our chairman's presentation, and instead focus on helping the existing teams?
I ask this because there is little effort being made.
One great way to contribute will be to make "FRC Georgia Alliance" facebook page active and worthwhile. If you see a post asking for help, take the initiative to be that help. If you discover any game changing information within the game manual, share it. Yeah I know, you're still competing with all of these teams and blah blah blah. But let's be honest, there are 18 teams from Georgia going to half-champs. Any team that builds a robot that can drive has a very good shot of making it.
To sum it all up, HELP EACHOTHER, if for no other reason than to make your team look better after winning a district event.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by PCH Uniformerer

To call a spade a spade; we suck
...
To sum it all up, HELP EACHOTHER, if for no other reason than to make your team look better after winning a district event.

Indeed, many Georgia teams underperform on a National level, but not for a lack of cooperation.

Having come from a team in New Jersey that hates being called "Elite", but happens to win an awful lot, and watching MAR compete for over a decade I can say that the very best teams here in Georgia would get eaten up alive in MAR.

Before I speculate on why I think that's so, what reasons can you come up with?

To offer some food for thought: Many teams here in GA lack resources, whether it is money, mentors, or build space. But there are several teams that lack for none of these - I am certain you can think of a few. Why aren't these teams competitive at a National level?


NOTE: Please don't let this post reflect on the team I happen to be mentoring. They don't review or approve my posts, and so shouldn't be held responsible for them.

[PCH Uniformerer]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

To offer some food for thought: Many teams here in GA lack resources, whether it is money, mentors, or build space. But there are several teams that lack for none of these - I am certain you can think of a few. Why aren't these teams competitive at a National level?

Sorry, I guess I forgot to add that part. The reason these teams teams aren't competitive is because they don't have to be. These teams know that building a robot that can simply complete all the tasks of the game will serve them well in PCH. For the most part, a Ri3D robot would be able to win at least one district event here. Like I said in my first post, it is being complacent with mediocrity that is hurting us.

We need to help each other not just to raise the skill level of the lower tier teams, but to make the top tier teams even more competitive, because it is from our top teams pushing each other to strive for more that will produce a team competitive on the global scale.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Ginger Bread

I'm very surprised to see that 3600 Clockwork hasn't registered yet, last year they had a fairly large group and performed well. Strange how the steampunk themed team isn't in the steampunk game.

I've talked with a few members on their team, it looks like they are not doing FRC this year, and are switching to VEX.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

In
Before I speculate on why I think that's so, what reasons can you come up with?

The following are my observations regarding the city of Atlanta:

1. Correct me if I'm wrong but school systems are not cooperative at all. Like AT ALL.

2. Faculty at many schools aren't usually very excited. Rookie teams seem to loose teachers before funds and outside mentors.

3. The above leads to team attrition; kills student/mentor knowledge base.

4. It's hard to constantly find the kind of money you really need to run an FRC team. Can't buy many parts as a result (among other things).

5. There are very few teams east, west, and south of the inner city.

6. It's not easy to get milling, turning, or sheet metal work done in the time frame FRC teams need in this city. Robots therefore can't be all that advanced and few teams can house or afford a mill/lathe.

7. To many engineers in and around this city don't know about FRC.

[Osseus_Dominum]

Originally Posted by jman4747

The following are my observations regarding the city of Atlanta:

1. Correct me if I'm wrong but school systems are not cooperative at all. Like AT ALL.

2. Faculty at many schools aren't usually very excited. Rookie teams seem to loose teachers before funds and outside mentors.

3. The above leads to team attrition; kills student/mentor knowledge base.

4. It's hard to constantly find the kind of money you really need to run an FRC team. Can't buy many parts as a result (among other things).

5. There are very few teams east, west, and south of the inner city.

6. It's not easy to get milling, turning, or sheet metal work done in the time frame FRC teams need in this city. Robots therefore can't be all that advanced and few teams can house or afford a mill/lathe.

7. To many engineers in and around this city don't know about FRC.

Regarding #2: Based on what I know from my experience with both VEX and FRC, I think that a lot of schools (public and private) that already have VEX/TSA view those things as an adequate replacement for an FRC team. Therefore they're just not interested in having another robotics activity in their school, especially when it would cost so much more.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by PCH Uniformerer

To sum it all up, HELP EACH OTHER, if for no other reason than to make your team look better after winning a district event.

Eh, you're on the right track, but I don't think there's any lack of support, either from GA FIRST or from other FRC teams in the PCH district.

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

To offer some food for thought: Many teams here in GA lack resources, whether it is money, mentors, or build space. But there are several teams that lack for none of these - I am certain you can think of a few. Why aren't these teams competitive at a National level?

Well, ain't that the million dollar question.

Obviously, there are the basics of why a team isn't as successful as it wants to be:
1. Money
2. Mentors
3. Resources
4. Support (Community & School)

However, as you've said, there are teams that have plenty of all 5 and yet, we're still having this discussion. So obviously there are components that are subtle in nature but very important to the secret sauce of what makes a team truly great.

I think one of the more subtle components is ensuring that your team has a culture of competition. Now, PCH has some very competitive teams, but having a competitive culture goes above and beyond simply wanting to win.

A team with competitive culture...
...recognizes competition as an asset, not as a hindrance.
...recognizes that no matter how good you are, there's always room to improve.
...recognizes that failure is a part of the process, but it's not an acceptable outcome.

A solid example of good competitive culture is team 1746. They started off strong, but continued to improve through the season and even carried that progress into the off-season. Many teams, including top-tier teams, would've rested on their laurels, but Otto sought to keep competing, and that's why their stock is incredibly high right now.

But that's just one example; there are many other teams in PCH that definitely seem to have a flash of good competitive culture here and there.

However, at the intersection of all the hard resources, competitive culture, and just pure, raw execution, we're going to get our first national competitor.

- Sunny G.