Making heads or tails of the new announcement...

[Matt Leese]

The more and more I think about this announcement the more and more I dislike it. The number one problem I see with it is that it creates a group of "elites" who will always get to go to nationals (whether through the automatic perenial qualifiers or just always having a good robot). This leaves out a lot of teams. And a good number of these teams are going to feel a lot of anger and hate to these "elites." While this does already happen to an extent, it will only be extenuated by the fact that these "elites" now get special priviledges (guaranteed a spot). This will just increase the antagonism among teams. And this will be particularly profound among rookies and it will have a tendency to drive them away. Just another set of problems I see with the decision.

Matt who wishes it was purely random as that would remove any favoritism....

[Bill Beatty]

My FIRST reaction is a bit of disappointment. I was hoping FIRST would find a way for more or all teams go to Florida by having an early qualifying session or something like that. My next reaction is that the qualifying is more dependent on last year's performance than performance in this year's regionals. It looks to me that a team could do quite well in this years regionals and not get to go. Or am I missing something.

[Nate Smith]

Originally posted by tjrage_25
1) How you did last year should have NO influence on whether or not you can attend the nationals. The game is completely new this year, and is never similar from one year to the next. So why should the winners of a different game get a definite yes on going to the nationals this year? How any of the regional or national winners did last year does not necessarily determine how good they will be this year.

2) Same as above, any of any team's standings or awards from last year should not effect this! The slate is wiped clean, and this competition is supposed to be the complete OPPOSITE of last years competition in the aspect of offense/defense.

3) The even over odd registration for the nationals, I just don't get how you can determine if a team is worthy of going to the nationals by team number.
[/b]

Having attended one of the team forum events, I can try to help answer why FIRST has decided to do things the way they have. As Andy mentioned, they did get our input via the team forums as to what would be the best way to do this inevitable thing. What was expressed(at least as the Michigan forum) was that the issue of last-minute planning for nationals was a large concern. For this reason, FIRST has implemented the way of using the previous year as a qualifier, so that at least some of the teams taking the trip to florida have the extra time to plan.

As for using the team number to determine who gets the "extra" slots, my feeling on this is that they were looking for a way to still give every team a chance to attend at least every other year, and limiting the teams that can use the "unassigned" slots by even or odd team numbers seems to be no better than any other way that they could determine who got to use the remaining slots...

[Todd Derbyshire]

So how is everybody doing!!!
I'll take it that everyone besides a couple of teams are
a) freaking out
b) angry
c) questioning what FIRST HAS DONE

ok little aggression has been released but I have noticed something. If you look at the qualify points doesn't it seem that the teams that go to nationals will for the most part always be the teams that go to nationals with the exception of wildcards being thrown in due to number change(even, odd). Anyways I am very upset at what FIRST is doing here so I'll just end it on this note and be happy my team is an even number.

P.S 12:01 midnight every even team all hands battle stations for registration

Good luck to everyone

[Madison]

I know we're supposed to be graciously professional and level-headed and all of that. . . But, well, I would be lying if I said I was not majorly pissed off.

I really think that FIRST has missed the boat with these new rules. I don't think they're at all fair, as they seem to rely far too much on seniority. FIRST, to me, has always been an experience where students get to work right alongside with engineers and technically skilled people - they're seniors, if you will. There was a certain sense of equity to that aspect of FIRST, and it made it really appealing.

Now, though, that sense of equity is gone. Automatically allowing the original 28 teams to enroll is near-sighted and ridiculous. Just because a team. . . .a number, really.... has been around for 11 years shouldn't allow the assumption that they're somehow deserving or better than a rookie, or sophomore team.

Performance based qualifiers make a bit more sense, I think. . . but why does performance in last year's competition matter?

I get a strong impression that the Walt Disney Co. and Walt Disney Attractions had a heavy hand in this decision. The new fees associated with staying offsite, for example, seem to reinforce that notion.

Christina and I have been working our behind's off at school trying to complete Dean's homework assignment. . .we've been trying to get our University involved in as many ways, shapes, and forms as possible. This morning, at the SBPLI Long Island FIRST Kick-Off ceremony, we finally managed to align ourselves with a rookie school district and begin to start the process of creating a team. We talked at length with the advisors from the new school about the competitions and how thrilling and worthwhile they were. Particularly, we stressed how Nationals was unimaginably better than a regional competition in terms of excitement and amazement. I'm disappointed knowing that I'll now have to contact her and let her know that, as a rookie team, we probably won't have a place at Nationals.

Of course, maybe we'll get lucky and get assigned an even number.

Wow. . .I can't begin to express how disappointed I am by all of this. FIRST has done a terrible injustice to itself and the entire FIRST community by deciding to adopt these crooked, misconceived limits on the Championship event. I hope they reconsider.

I wonder which regional is closest to Disneyland?

[Bill Gold]

First of all, I totally agree with Andy B. We should stop saying how disapointed we are with FIRST's decision with regard to Nationals.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise to any of us, especially those who attended a team forum Aug 1st. They started this process last year when they capped Nationals at 330 or so teams. Ever since then there have been rumors going around that the maximum number of teams that FIRST could possibly let attend next year's Nationals would be 250~280.

So instead of voicing our disaproval and trying to convince FIRST to change its mind... let's try to work with what we've got...

I'm looking at this in two different ways:
1. Our team gives it our usual best effort. We would attend 2 Regionals, and hopefully win a Technical award or possilby even win a Regional, although we have only won one during the past 5 years. IF this happens, then we could be taking another team's "spot" that they could've won by winning the Technical Award or winning the Regional. Realistically, there could be some teams who would feel animosity towards us and our kids. Knowing how the students on team 45 are, they would not feel good about winning an award that could've been another team's ticket to Nationals. This is not fair to our students. They deserve to be proud of any award or accomplishment our team gets.

2. We could try not to get any awards... while this would initially give the appearance of being good sports, this could turn in to appearing arrogant. We try hard for multiple reasons, and one of them is to win. Competition is healthy, and going into a Regional trying not to win would be a difficult pill to swallow.

Andy B.

I really hadn't given much thought to the auto-birth for teams who have been around since 1992. Mainly because my team isn't one of them, but I agree with Andy's analysis of this new rule. It does seem like a team with the talent of the TechnoKats (among others) might be seen as stealing some other team's ticket to Nationals. I've got a huge problem with this... I think it's completely unfair to the TechnoKats that they should be in a position where they have to decide between the two previously stated choices (selling their robot and students short, or being possibly hated by a team that had their Nationals birth taken from them).

3. Teams may qualify through performance during the prior year (2001) based a point system. Five (5) points are required...
a. Regional or National Devisional winner - 3 points
b. Regional or National Divisional finalist - 2 points
c. Judged Award winner at Regional or National Event - 2 points
d. Top Seed at Regional or National Event - 1 point
e. Top Rookie Seed at Regional or National Event - 1 point

-FIRST

Now that I think a little harder about this set of new rules I'm starting to have a few issues with these...

Ex 1: team 71. They won Nationals and at least one Regional last year. So they're qualified to register for Nationals this year, but if they win a Regional and a few awards this year they could possibly be taking a ticket to Nationals away from some other team. Now some people may argue that they're just preserving their spot for the next year's Nationals (if FIRST keeps these rules), but they're also an odd team. So they'd be able to register for Nationals in 2003 anyway...

Ex 2: team 258 (my team). We're an even team so we can register for Nats... although we've never won anything yet, let's assume that we win a Regional and are a finalist in another Regional. We could be taking someone's ticket to Nationals by finishing so well in our Regionals, but we'd also be fighting to register for the 2003 Nationals...

Well.... I'm rambling now... So I'll cut this short...

-Bill

[patrickrd]

I think it is important that FIRST teams try to work with FIRST, not agains FIRST, with this decision. FIRST was faced with a situation this year that they quite simply did not have enough time to prepare for. Just a few years ago, Disney said they would continue to grow as FIRST grows. Now, situations have changed, and FIRST has become aware that Disney can not hold that promise. Nationals takes over a year of hard planning to make it happen. The 2002 nationals has probably been in the works for about a year now. As the number of teams took off over the past couple years and Disney suddenly says we can't get any bigger, FIRST can't simply switch venues or plans very quickly. Moving to another venue would probably require about a couple years of planning.... Look how long it takes to organize the Olympics (and hey, we're almost getting as big as them ).

While many of us may be disappointed with FIRST's decision and may have disagreements with certain details, I urge teams to look beyond what FIRST has done for this season. At the same time, I urge FIRST (if they haven't started already) to look at all options, and find a long term solution that will satisfy the needs of all teams. If we need to limit nationals, so be it, but let's give all teams a shot of getting there, and give no team a free pass.

Patrick

[tjrage_25]

As for using the team number to determine who gets the "extra" slots, my feeling on this is that they were looking for a way to still give every team a chance to attend at least every other year, and limiting the teams that can use the "unassigned" slots by even or odd team numbers seems to be no better than any other way that they could determine who got to use the remaining slots...

www.dictionary.com defines discrimination as "Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit"

I have no problem with the concept for competing with hopes to place high enough to attend. However, being dismissed based only upon our team number (odd/even) is neither "gracious" nor "professional", its just discriminatory. Is that what FIRST stands for?

[Bill Gold]

www.dictionary.com defines discrimination as "Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit"

I have no problem with the concept for competing with hopes to place high enough to attend. However, being dismissed based only upon our team number (odd/even) is neither "gracious" nor "professional", its just discriminatory. Is that what FIRST stands for?
tjrage_25

I respectfully disagree with your statement implying that FIRST's decision was purely discriminatory. From what I've learned about FIRST during my three years of involvement is that FIRST wants to let teams that don't necessarily perform well participate in Regionals and the National Competition. Since FIRST's mission is supposedly to get students excited in engineering/robotics/etc, I don't think they ever intended on only allowing "the best" robots to compete at the National Competition. I think FIRST made this even/odd rule with the intention that rookie and second year teams that don't have "elite" robots could be able to compete with and against some of the more established teams. This isn't to say that we're throwing these rookies into the fire pan, but hopefully they can learn from the more experienced teams by talking to them in the pit and on the field. I know that as a third year team in 2001 my team learned a lot by talking to Andy Baker, seeing how the ChiefDelphi 'bot worked, and talking to Wildstang's team. IMHO, I think it's in FIRST's best interest to let this kind of interaction continue at Nationals...

Getting back to your statement tjrage_25.... It's not like every seed at Nationals is decided by the even/odd thing. The good teams will be able to go no matter what their number is.

-Bill

[M. Faticanti]

Having now digested the qualifying process I have but one Question…. WHY???? Why does FIRST always make things so complicated??? 12 items to consider for qualifying YET only 3 have anything to do with THIS years competition!!!!!!!!! AND even one of those 3 has nothing to do with robot performance!! Yes... we needed to limit the nationals.. Yes.... we did say over and over that we did not think qualifying was the way to go. So be it BUT WHY????? What does past Chairman’s award winners have to do with this years robot and game???? What does ANYTHING to do with last year competition have to do with this year???? Think of this… You are the number 2 seed in one of the more experienced (stronger) regionals with 50 plus teams. (and you do not do multiple regionals) You lose to the number one seed and you do not get any awards. YOU DON’T QUALIFY FOR THE NATIONALS!!!!!!!!! WELLLLLL not until next year then you start out with 2 points.
DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE??????????????
Think of the rookies!!!!!

17 regionals, Top 8 seeds and their first Alliance partner (16 teams) Qualify.. 17 x 16 = 272
OR maybe top 4 seeds and there 3 Alliance partners (depending upon the game!!!) 4 x 4 x 17 regionals still equals 272 pretty close to 288 isn’t it???
SIMPLE!!!!!!!
AND all based upon THIS years performance/robot/game etc……..

Yes some of those teams will be duplicated because of doing multiple regionals BUT at least everyone has a chance Rookies and all
WHY??? WHY IS IT ALWAYS SO COMPLICATED ????????????

THIS YEARS GAME!!!! THIS YEARS BEST ROBOTS!!!!

THATS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE

IMHO thanks

[tjrage_25]

Getting back to your statement tjrage_25.... It's not like every seed at Nationals is decided by the even/odd thing. The good teams will be able to go no matter what their number is.
Bill Gold

I agree that the good teams will, in the end, get to the nationals. However, FIRST is going to give a first come/first serve opprotuntiy to some teams, it should be given to ALL teams.

[Joe Ross]

Originally posted by tjrage_25


I agree that the good teams will, in the end, get to the nationals. However, FIRST is going to give a first come/first serve opprotuntiy to some teams, it should be given to ALL teams.

I am quite glad that they didn't.

Right now, it seems that there are about 60 teams that have already qualified for nationals. Assuming that the game is 2 v 2 this year, there will be 34 regional winners, 17 regional chairman's awards winners, and an 68 technical award winners. After duplicates are removed, that will be somewhere in the range of 100 teams.

There are 288 spots - 100 who qualify this year - 60 who qualified based on previous years + an unknown number for more duplicates. This means that there are anywhere between 100-150 spots availibile first-come first serve. Last year there were 500 something teams. Add the 40 % growth rate and there will be 700 teams this coming year. Having all of those teams vying for a hundred spots is not a good thing. By making sure that only half the teams can try to get into nationals this year, FIRST has doubled the chance that you will actually get a spot.

[Bill Gold]

Thanks Joe. I couldn't have said that any better.

[Grivooga]

First off I'm not on a team any more. I graduated and have no intention of working with my team in the coming year (but that's internal team politics and you don't need to worryy about it). If I go it will be as a volunteer. Even as I say that though I look at my prospective schedule and that seems very unlikely. I greatly enjoyed going to every competition that I attended (10 competitions under my belt) and the 3 nationals will always be the greatest in my mind. I think that most people here will agree that realistically Nationals were just getting to BIG. If it were my decision I'd work it like this.

a. All former Chairman's Award winners AND finalists - I think all these teams, even the finalists, have given alot to their communities and deserve the spots.
b. All prior National winners and finalists - this is hard, it takes a truly top-notch team. I think they deserve a permanent spot.
c. Prior year National Divisional winners and finalists - they had it last year, I think they deserve a shot at the big time regardless of current year performance
d. Prior 2 year Regional Winners -same
e. Prior year Regional Finalists -same
f. Prior year Top Seed Nationals -same
g. Prior year Top Rookie Seed at any event - just because I like to support rookies that did really well
h. Current year Regional winners and finalists - duh
i. Current year Regional Chairman's Award Winner - same
j. Current year Technical Award winners at Regional Events - same
k. Current year Regional Top Seed - because I've seen some great teams not win regionals
l. Current year Regional Rookie Top Seed - give them a shot at the big time. after they did that well as a rookie are they really rookies anymore?
m. Teams with 3 or more points. 1 point for each of the following
a. current year rookie team - that's right a point just for being a rookie
b. previous 2 year judged award winner any event- this give alot of veteran's a bunch of point
c. previous 3 year regional winner or finalist -same
d. previous 3 year regional top seed -same
e. previous 4 year national top seed -same
f. current year regional top 15 seed -to fill spots and help the rookies
g. current year any other official award -same

I think that adds up to ALOT of teams. Of course I'm not in charge. That's just what I'm pulling off the top of my head. My final would probably be very different. You'll notice that I left out the original teams. I figure that if they can't qualify under these rules, that definitely favor veteran teams. Then they probably don't need to be going. More would probably have to be added to fill in the balance, because I just don't like the even/odd first come-first serve thing.
Just my opinion.

[tjrage_25]

Right now, it seems that there are about 60 teams that have already qualified for nationals. Assuming that the game is 2 v 2 this year, there will be 34 regional winners, 17 regional chairman's awards winners, and an 68 technical award winners. After duplicates are removed, that will be somewhere in the range of 100 teams.

That doesn't count the odds of actually winning a regional or award. Speaking of awards, why are they even including the regional chairman's award winners? That has NOTHING to do with the game that is being played, and is nothing close to a representation of how good your team is at the game.

If they are not going to offer first come/first serve opprotunities to all teams. They should throw out all of these rules and it should be based on the national ranking of all teams (Not counting those who won, they would be guaranteed a spot no matter what).