Ideas to move in the direction of making FIRST competitions 'fair'

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Are you talking about the referees and scorers getting together after the end of the matches, and rechecking their scorecards against the records that were entered into the scoring computers? Or do you feel that some officials were deciding to change selected scores based on a discussion and reinterpretation of the calls made earlier? (I would consider the former to be standard practice; I'm not aware of the latter to any significant degree.)

The latter happened last year. We could never get an official to answer us to why due to rule <G42> then they just told us to use some GP and get over it.

[Bongle]

I just finished re-doing my last year->this year stats with all the standings available rather than just GTR. There were 424 teams for which I could get data (most of the 2005 regionals don't have standings posted). What I did is I just took an average of their percent placing over all regionals attended each year. So if a team came 5th/50 (10%), 17th/51 (33%), and 1st/70 (1.4%), their average for the year would be 14%.

I've also marked out the 2006 championship finalists. Note that some of them didn't even do well in 2006 and still had success. 296 even turned themselves around from an (apparently, my stats might be bad) poor year in 2005 and had themselves a championship victory in 2006. This wouldn't be possible if they had been relegated to a lower division in 2005.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Bongle

I just finished re-doing my last year->this year stats with all the standings available rather than just GTR. ....

I think your data proves the point that FIRST is not a fair competition. Since each team only contributes 33% of the makeup of each alliance, how can any team expect to have consistant match results, when they are matched with and against the best to the lowest performers?

When your team represents only 16% of the action on the playfield, I would not expect there to be any correlation between your teams performance, and the outcome of the matches (win/lose), unless you have been able to build a robot that totally dominates the playfield - unless you have a 6 to 1 advantage over the other teams. That is a totally unfair competition.

An excellent team may do great one year, and poorly the next year.

A poor team may do well two years in a row...

This is what we have been talking about, the competitions are not fair - the outcome can be completely random no matter how hard your team works.

What do you learn from that? Work hard and the outcome is still random?

Work twice as hard next year and you may end up doing even worse?

In the real world companies do form alliances and partnerships, but we get to carefully choose those alliances, and we get to reject a partner if they fail to perform. We are not paired with alliance parters at random!

This is not the only aspect of FIRST that is not fair, it is only one.

[Gdeaver]

There is a tendency to only look at the physical robot and its performance. A robots performance and capabilities are only one part of the competition. The way the competition rules are lade out only 8 robots are placed into the finals based on performance , not 24. The rest are picked. This brings a big human factor into the competition. For the other 12 robots they chosen based on the subjective evaluation of human beings. This is not engineering, this is marketing. If your team has performed well year after year placing in the top rankings and not been picked then you might want to look at your marketing plan. Do you have one?. This is what I like about First. It mimics the real world business problems. Doing first is like starting and running a company. In todays market designing a great and superior product doesn't guarantee a companies success. Today a company can make a lousy product and be very successful by having a superior marketing effort. This can be true for first too. I've been a small business owner for 24 years now and I can say that our market based economy is not fair, life is not fair. However there are rules in our society both written and natural. Learning to adapt and play with in the boundaries of the rules is part of being successful in life. Participating in First is practicing the skills needed for life and it's a whole lot of fun. We just need to be vigilant as the program grows and changes to keep it that way.

[dhitchco]

Hey Ken,
a very interesting thread you started here, just a couple of thoughts from "an old man".

1) Repeat after me....."It's not about the robot......It's not about the robot"

2) from FIRST's web site ".....teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience—and a lot of fun." This is very true. Whether you be a rookie, underfunded team ar a corporate-backed mega-team, there's always LOTS to be learned.....

3) Developing new "classes" of super-competition would totally defeat the concepts of info-sharing, partnerships, alliances, etc and create an eletist society within FIRST.

FIRST must remain a homgenious society. Rules are rules in any society.....either live by them, or work to change the rules.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by dhitchco

Hey Ken,
a very interesting thread you started here, just a couple of thoughts from "an old man".

1) Repeat after me....."It's not about the robot......It's not about the robot"
....

Ive been saying that for years. People on CD jump all over my case when I say we should focus on giving the students the best exposure to engineering instead of focusing on winning

people tell me that 'playing to win' with a highly competitive robot is the way they inspire their students

the competition is there, its a part of FIRST, its a part of the drive that caps the program, its the goal at the end of the struggle.

If the competition is not going to be fair, why dont we let the teams play against each other for 3 days, and then have a random number generator pick the champions for that event?

If we say FIRST is not fair, its not meant to be fair, then why do we pretend there is a contest happening at all? If the competition is not fair, then there is no contest. Mostly (as the way things are now) its a random event.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

If the competition is not going to be fair, why dont we let the teams play against each other for 3 days, and then have a random number generator pick the champions for that event?

If we say FIRST is not fair, its not meant to be fair, then why do we pretend there is a contest happening at all? If the competition is not fair, then there is no contest. Mostly (as the way things are now) its a random event.

Mostly a random event? I guess Beatty has been so lucky over the years, that they've ended up winning 4 Championships. The Poofs winning SVR eight years in a row, totally random. Team 25 going 48-5 this year, must have been a lot of dumb luck going their way. Yes, I submit that there is a large amount of luck in this competition. But calling it a mostly random event? That's a ridiculous statement, even by your standards.

(Aside, can we get Beatty added to the dictionary...)

[dhitchco]

Why FIRST is like MasterCard......
Life always works in REVERSE order:

.....Taking home a cheap Lucite Trophy.........$10
.....Doing enough car washes to afford the trip to Atlanta ........$1,000
.....Soliciting & Teaming with a good sponsor and mentors.........>$10K

....BUT, getting to meet new teams, learning from each other, and shaking Woodie or Dean's hand.........PRICELESS

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Mostly a random event? I guess Beatty has been so lucky over the years, ......

look at Bongles scatter diagram. there is no correlation between how teams have done from one year to the next

you can flip a coin and have it come up heads 5 times in a row, and its still random.

I give up on this thread. No one can get past the issue of fairness, and very little has been accomplished in the direction of making FIRST better by making it more fair

and I have been told more than once now "If you dont like the way FIRST is structured, then leave it alone and go somewhere else".

[dhitchco]

Hey Ken,

one last thought when you say

and I have been told more than once now "If you dont like the way FIRST is structured, then leave it alone and go somewhere else".

I NEVER had anything even CLOSE to the FIRST experience when I was in high school or even college. I could "kill" to be involved in such a great learning program.....stick with it.....

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

If we say FIRST is not fair, its not meant to be fair, then why do we pretend there is a contest happening at all? If the competition is not fair, then there is no contest. Mostly (as the way things are now) its a random event.

This is ridiculous.

For those of us who are on teams, provide material to the kit of parts, volunteer at events, and coordinate FIRST-related activities throughout the year, things are not random. I believe that you just insulted all of us who work hard to make FIRST what it is today.

From your outsider's viewpoint, things may seem random to you. How would you know any better? Join a team, volunteer at an event, or go climb another tree.

(for everyone watching, I just negative repped Ken for this out-of-line comment)

Andy B.

[Bongle]

Warning: don't take the lack of year-to-year success correlation as a sign that no matter how hard you work, your placement is random, because that isn't what it means. These stats essentially tell you that maintaining support and talent from year-to-year is VERY difficult. There are many other stats I've done that indicate that cash on hand (# of regionals attended is a fair indication of that) and team age within a given year have a pretty strong correlation with team performance. Do a search for a bunch of stats I posted in march that had that kind of stuff in there. Back then I was trying to show that FIRST was kinda unfair towards richer, more established teams. However, then my team ended up doing very well and going to nationals, so now I don't care quite so much.

Short Version: As many teams know, it is really a crapshoot if your whole team stays together from year to year. 1281 lost our head gamepiece designer, programming mentor (me), half our student programmers, and our head teacher this year. That is why there is little correlation year to year.

[JaneYoung]

Basically,
the system is working.
FIRST is not perfect, no organization is. The great majority of posts in this thread continue to support the system in place. It is a different system, it is not a system that mimics another or needs to and it is handled with care.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

look at Bongles scatter diagram. there is no correlation between how teams have done from one year to the next

you can flip a coin and have it come up heads 5 times in a row, and its still random.

Some real detailed analysis. I'm impressed...

Everyone, time to pack your bags. Apparently the competition is completely random. Those elimination rounds are no better than a game of dice.

I could come out with a detailed and typically Karthik-like response, but it's akin to doing the same sort of analysis to prove that sun sets at a certain time. Just open your eyes, and you'll see it.

/Edit: Andy beat me to it...

[Rohith Surampudi]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

This is ridiculous.

For those of us who are on teams, provide material to the kit of parts, volunteer at events, and coordinate FIRST-related activities throughout the year, things are not random. I believe that you just insulted all of us who work hard to make FIRST what it is today.

From your outsider's viewpoint, things may seem random to you. How would you know any better? Join a team, volunteer at an event, or go climb another tree.

Andy B.

i agree with Mr. Baker 140% FIRST competitions are entirely fair, everyone is provided an equal opportunity to perform, everyone gets the same kit of parts, and FIRST has already laid down regulations on exotic metals in order to prevent wealthier teams from getting that far ahead of others. Look at this year for example, 1902(a rookie team!) worked extremely hard to be innovative, and they designed an awesome robot. by eliminating competition from the event, you are essentially capping the capabilities of some teams, if a random team was chosen, there would be no urge to make new and more efficient designs,the Ball drive system would have never come about, teams would have never pioneered the crab drive or the Mecanum drive. By designing your robots to be new and innovative to compete at higher levels than anyone Else's (or so you hope) is pioneering new designs, exactly what engineers do. Scientists ask Why, Engineers ask Why not. By having students why not, they are being trained to understand what engineers do daily. I am almost 99% positive that FIRST designs each game in an effort to keep competition high, fun and to test different aspects of engineering.

For those of you being dropped by sponsors, perhaps it may seem tyrannic and evil to you, however almost any company would drop a community service operation than to drop the jobs of hardworking employees who need that job to sustain their family.

As to Mentors and teachers, you must moderate how much time you spend, if you listen to Episode 4 of FIRSTcast you will learn how Mr.Baker has managed to moderate his robotics life, and his family life. As to being Burnt out, its a matter of over exertion, if at any point you begin to feel burnt out, please step back for a bit and take a breather.

So please consider this, when you limit competition, you limit the need for innovation, and by doing that, you limit the engineering experience students receive.

I'm sure there are many members of the FIRST community somewhat insulted by the contents of this thread, their hard work, pride, and joy all being insulted, so please remember Scientists ask Why, Engineers ask Why not. lets not limit their/our potential


just my 2 cents