Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Mr. Freeman

I'm not sure how the number of top tier teams is related to the number of regionals teams can enter.

If teams are only limited to one regional, then there would be a lot of teams who are Regional Champions. But when you can attend multiple regionals, the really good teams win multiple awards at multiple competitions and place themselves a cut above the rest.

These are the teams that inspire; the ones that engineer awe-inspiring designs or build rock solid machines, or have been able to start more FRC teams than one can count on both hands. These are the role models for FIRST.

Lowering the bar to force equality upon a group of participants is never a good idea. It's a horrible idea as No Child Left Behind, and it would be a horrible idea in FIRST. The only thing it would do is drag down the top tier teams, which are the usually role model teams and some of the strongest for growing, expanding and inspiring in the program.

[Tim Delles]

Newton Division Winners:

330 - 67 - 503 (2005)
968 - 233 - 60 (2008)

Archimedes Division Winners:

245 - 217 - 766 (2005)
1124 - 1024 - 177 (2008)

Galileo Division Winners:

56 - 254 - 64 (2005)
1114 - 217 - 148 (2008)

Curie Division Winners:

175 - 33 - 108 (2005)
67 - 16 - 348 (2008)

This shows that there has been an increase in the average team number of the divisional winning alliance... (if you look at all the divisional winners since say 2000 i believe this would hold true as well)

Now taking a loot at how many teams above 1000+ where involved in the eliminations we get:

Newton: 10 (2056, 1574, 2016, 1251, 1625, 1502, 1714, 1086, 1806, 2591)
Archimedes: 8 (2166, 1124, 1024, 2081, 1218, 2335, 1598, 1771)
Galileo: 8 (1114, 1717, 2340, 1450, 1983, 2046, 1089, 1503)
Curie: 8 (1592, 1126, 1511, 2337, 2171, 1071, 1649, 2344)

so that is 34 teams out of 128 teams were numbers 1000+, considering these teams have only been in first since 2003 (so this would be there 6th year).

Also looking at the teams we have:

the #1 alliance on curie was made up of ALL teams being over 1000.
the #2 alliance on curie was led by team 2337
of the 8 alliances made on curie 5 of them were led by teams over 1000.
of the 8 alliances on newton 6 of them were led by teams over 1000
the #2 alliance was led by a 2nd year team
the #3 alliance was led by team 1574 (on of the Israel teams)
the #5 seeded alliance on archimedes was made up entirely of teams above 1200.
the #1, 2, and 3 alliances on Galileo were captained by teams over 1000 (1114, 1717, and 2340)


In all honesty i think that teams over 1000 are doing exceptionally well for being as new as a lot of them are. and its part of the challenge right?


As for being able to go to multiple regionals i'd say that that is perfectly fine... there was a statement made that 1114 went to 3 regionals, won them all and took awards home. Honestly if i was to attend a regional that was suppose to be dominated by a team it would give me that much more drive to beat them.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by skippy178

Whether you realised it or not, you saw it happen this weekend in Atlanta, where the highest ever team number to be a Championship Winner in the finals alliance was team 1114. That means there are over half the teams with numbers above that who have NEVER been to that dizzying level.

Looking at

http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/eve...in/awards.html

the Rookie awards were for teams 2352 and 2599, who are 1200+ team numbers AFTER those in the Winners alliance. How many years will it be before we see those teams being part of the winning alliances ?

I don't know about those particular teams, but I was astonished to see a rookie team, 2340, seeded 3rd on Galileo. In Curie, 2337 was seeded 2nd; they even made it to their division semifinals. With this kind of performance from rookies, I wouldn't be too concerned about who wins the Championship. It could very well be one of them next year.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by skippy178

I'm not against "teaching". I am against the idea that a well-resourced team with (relatively) massive amounts of sponsorship funding, mentors and facilities can travel around squashing the "little guys", who are the new rookie teams that Dean Kamen and others so desparately want to attract to this competition.

Whether you realised it or not, you saw it happen this weekend in Atlanta, where the highest ever team number to be a Championship Winner in the finals alliance was team 1114. That means there are over half the teams with numbers above that who have NEVER been to that dizzying level.

Looking at

http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/eve...in/awards.html

the Rookie awards were for teams 2352 and 2599, who are 1200+ team numbers AFTER those in the Winners alliance. How many years will it be before we see those teams being part of the winning alliances ?

J

I am a bit unsure of the point you are trying to make with this post. Are you suggesting that if the "powerhouse" teams did not go to multiple regionals that higher numbered teams would magically start appearing on Einstein?

Would 1114 or 330 or 968 or any other powerhouse team be any worse at Championships because they only went to one regional? Yes, they would have less time to make and test tweaks in a competition situation. They would also have less time driving in a competition situation (although for many or all of the powerhouse teams, not less time driving period due to practice bots). However, I would suggest that even with these teams limited to one regional they would still be the ones that come out of the heap at Championships.

The reason for this is experience. Not necessarily experience in terms of number of competitions (although I think this does help some), but experience in terms of number of robots built and number of different games played. These lower numbered teams have a lot of knowledge built up through experience. There are a lot of things that seem good on paper, but don't work quite as well in the actuality of a FIRST competition, the lower numbered teams have seen these or even tried them themselves and built up the information on their success or failure. Each year these teams have been able to look at the things that have gone well and the things that didn't go so well and have been able to improve for the next year. These teams have not remained powerhouse teams through sitting stagnant, the rest of FIRST would have long since passed them by if this were the case. These teams are constantly evaluating and improving themselves to stay at the top. You can limit them to one regional, but they will still be the teams left standing when all is said and done on Einstein.

I am personally extremely inspired by these powerhouse teams and seek to bring our team up to their level, not them down to ours. I think that these powerhouses establish themselves through competing at multiple regionals, so I would like to see the rules regarding this remain the way they are.

[Shankar M]

I'd like to address a couple of things here.

Firstly, I think the idea of teams attending multiple regionals allows for opportunities that would not otherwise be possible in terms of exposure. I'll point out a couple of personal examples.
It's always amazing to see some of the incredible robots that are at the Waterloo Regional and the Greater Toronto Regional. We have a multitude of home-grown talent, but there are always some American teams who make the trip up north that add so much to the competition. Some very impressive teams such as 68, 176, 217, 229, and 703 have made the trip up, however, if regional attendance were to be limited, I'm not so sure we would see so many of these teams up in Canada. Seeing some of these great teams is a rare opportunity, and allowing for teams to travel to regionals as they please is really the only way to encourage this sort of exposure. Great things can come about as a result of this exposure. For four years Team 4/22 and Team 188 had an international exchange program that saw us travel to the each other's "home" regional. Everyone involved had tremendous experiences as a result of the program, and many of us still remain in contact to this day. However, none of it would have been possible with a capped regional attendance system. Winning is not the goal in what we do. I think if people look beyond that aspect of the competition, and took the time to embrace everything else that makes up FIRST, everyone will come away much more enlightened, much more inspired, and much happier.

Secondly, it seems a lot of these sorts of threads are coming about as a result of disdain towards successful teams. People need to stop vilifying these teams and instead see them for the valuable sources of inspiration that they are. Talk to them, ask them questions, they will tell you all about anything you want to know. That's how you can improve. Also, the prospect of facing up to these "powerhouse" teams should never discourage anyone. It should instead be seen as a challenge that, like every other challenge during the FIRST season, one must find some way of overcoming. Team 188 has faced some pretty stacked alliances in the past few years (1114/1503 in '06, 254/330 in '07, 1114/2056 in both '07 and '08). However, despite who we are up against, we are never willing to settle for anything less than our very best attempt to beat our opponents. We may fall short in our efforts, but that only makes us hungrier to try again.

If a powerhouse team is at the same regional as you are, I think to a degree you have to almost want face them. You have to be driven to want to beat the best. There is really only one way to get better as a team, and that is to play against teams that are better than yourself. You don't have to beat stronger teams to get better, but I certainly think that the only way to get better is to be forced to push the envelope against stronger teams.

[IKE]

Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair? Right Idea, but you are asking the wrong question.

Soapbox time: (Please read because I think I am stating a new point for this thread even though it is not new to FRC)
Does competing in multiple regionals make you better? For most of the teams that compete yes.
Should the awards be limited?
They currently are. For several awards you are only allowed to submit at 1 regional.
Should teams be limited by geography? This one is interesting to me being a Michigan team. For the last several years we have competed in only in Michigan. This year we went to Midwest.
End of the year results: 1 second place, 2 tech awards. We were the #2 pick on Curie (I take this to mean we had a strong team) where as a 2 time regional champion was not picked. Would it be "fair" to those starting michigan teams to have to go up against: 67, 27, 217, 47, ......... Not really if fair is defined by everyone have an even playing field. That being said you will hear no complaints from 2337. They were the #2 seed on Curie because they got some experience by going against those strong teams at multiple regionals.

How many kids would want to play soccer if they had to do drills for 4 hours a night and all day Saturday for 6 weeks just to get to play 1 soccer game that decides whether or not they get the opportunity to play a second soccer game. Not many.

The right questions that we should be spending our time on is how to get low budget teams to be able to compete several times.
How to get a $10,000 season to include 3 local events, maybe 1 or 2 large regionals, and then a national?
How can we set up these events to not have too much out of school time and too much time away from work?
How do we get every team up to the level of these marquis teams?
How do we get people to come and see these events? (as Dean always says, if they see it they will get it)

Let me take a moment to compare arguably the best robot and best competition team this year and compare them to a sports team (the model we were told we are trying to follow). These is only from the information I have read and from talking with them.

There machine is elegant. If you really look at it the machine itself is incredibly simply. Given a 1114 kit, most teams could get that made in 6 weeks. For football, most schools have enough atheletes to field a team. 1114 attended 3 events. Most high school football teams attend about 10 games. 1114 practices. Almost every high school sports team practices 4 or more times a week for 3+ months. By High School Sports team standards, they would just be an average team. Below average in many respects, and really only above average in terms of their success. My conclusion would be that it must be a pretty weak sport.

With 1500 teams nationwide FIRST is ready and needs to take the next quantum leap into figuring out how to truly give every student an opportunity to compete. IMO they have done this by having lower budget competitions Like FTC. If you don't have the budget to have a killer FRC team maybe FTC might be a better fit.

At one point in time having a full size basketball court and gym was considered an unfair advantage to High Budget schools. Now it is considered the norm. I would like those that feel that "high budget" teams have too big of an advantage to talk with those teams an you might be surprised by the number of these teams working very hard to reduce the price events and make them more readily avaialbe so everyone can compete at their level. If you don't beleive me stop by the pits of team 33 and talk to Jim Zondag. The arguments I present here are a lot of the arguments he has expressed to me. Look up pretty much any WFA winner from a team that has been around more than 4 years and hear what they have to say.

One task for low budget teams: review your situation and think hard about how you too can attend a second regional (Better use of funds, possibly comp and pitcrew only to 1 regional and everybody to the second, more sponsorship, better off-season fundraising). Read up on Chairman Award winning teams because the answers are usually there. Once you figure that out, the rest is easy.

My task for FIRST is to come up with a way to be more like a sport and not cost $20,000 to have a strong team. Their answer may very well may be FTC.

I am stepping down from my soapbox now. Thanks for reading and good luck.

[jasper.s.jacobs]

there is no reason why teams should ever be limited in the regionals they go to no matter where it is. It would be quite different if someone like 1114 or 987 went to one regional every weekend just so they could beat the bejesus out of every team possible, but no one would want to do that anyway because it is way too time consuming. Regardless, limiting the regionals a team can go to ruins the competitive spirit of the game, and if rookie teams want it to be easier to compete then they shouldn't be in first in the first place; they should be striving to be the best they possibly can be. That to me at least is what first is all about.

also, there may be a reason that teams travel far to go to regionals, maybe they are looking to finding better competition, so they go to regionals where other teams go. I find it very hard to believe that a good team would travel a long distance just to go to a regional that would be easier for them to trample the competition.

on a side note, I dont understand why people have been making such a big fuss about teams that won 3 regionals like 1114. They may have won 3 regionals, but that is only because they went to 3 regionals. My team only went to two regionals, and we won all of them

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by skippy178

I'm not against "teaching". I am against the idea that a well-resourced team with (relatively) massive amounts of sponsorship funding, mentors and facilities can travel around squashing the "little guys", who are the new rookie teams that Dean Kamen and others so desparately want to attract to this competition.

Whether you realised it or not, you saw it happen this weekend in Atlanta, where the highest ever team number to be a Championship Winner in the finals alliance was team 1114. That means there are over half the teams with numbers above that who have NEVER been to that dizzying level.

Looking at

http://www2.usfirst.org/2008comp/eve...in/awards.html

the Rookie awards were for teams 2352 and 2599, who are 1200+ team numbers AFTER those in the Winners alliance. How many years will it be before we see those teams being part of the winning alliances ?

J

Maybe 5 seasons from now, just like it took 1114 six seasons to get to where they are now? Or maybe far less. Do you realize that a rookie team was 2nd seed in Curie, and went on to the semi-finals, in which they won a match? And that a 2nd year team was in the Curie finals?

Originally Posted by dsm

It seems to me that you have a classic issue of "the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" -- and if that is a FIRST precept, then I must excuse myself and find another program to inspire students, because this one is clearly not for me.

I'm not sure where you get this. Rich teams get poor - at least one example was given in this thread. Poor teams get rich, by seeing what the rich teams do and emulating them. They go out and find more sponsors and mentors. They learn from the "rich" teams, most of whom are very willing to teach and mentor the other teams.

Originally Posted by dsm

I think the problem is not that the "Best Teams" excel, it is that in doing so, they often prevent "Pretty Good Teams" from excelling too. The answer is clearly NOT to keep the Best Teams from /going/ to additional regionals, because certainly they set an example of something to strive for, etc.

How can this be, since every "Best Team" that wins a regional does it with 2 other teams on their alliance?

Originally Posted by dsm

But the issue of how awards and Atlanta invitations are handled is a bit problematic, I think.

As it stands, I believe when a team wins a regional and already has a slot in Atlanta, their Championship slot is opened up to whoever happens to register for it first. This seems somewhat unfair to, for example, the alliance that just barely lost the last round of the finals at that regional. It would seem to make more sense if they awarded "deferred" slots (for lack of a better term) in some sort of logical order, rather than just randomly. After all, there are already open slots available for first-come-first-serve registration.

Please read the Championship eligibility criteria here: http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...nt.aspx?id=944 - something that has been posted since last fall. Teams that didn't go to the Championships last year had equal opportunity to sign up and pre-pay for Championships this year. When the available slots were not filled, they opened up Championship registration to every team. The waiting list for Champs was formed only after the registration process was opened to all teams. As the teams qualifying from regionals were determined, those teams next on the waiting list were contacted to finalize their Championship registrations.

Originally Posted by dsm

For awards, if one of the Best Teams does a lot of Award X kind of work, for example, and wins that award at three different regionals, it again seems unfair to the runner-up Pretty Good Teams also striving for Award X. Maybe some clause should be included that once you win an award at a regional, you forfeit that award at any other regionals? Something like that?

Some might say that this now seems unfair to the Best Teams. Why shouldn't they get Award X at every regional if they deserve it more than the Pretty Good Teams? After all, they're the Best at X. My answer to that is that I personally believe that you should share the opportunities, and that you should strive (and strive hard) to beat your opponents, but not to crush and humiliate them -- that is how you can be "professional" and win, but still be a "gracious" winner.

There is no need to do a three-peat at regionals to prove you're the best at X -- that's precisely what the Championship is for, after all.

Hmm, 1025 won the Motorola Quality award at Detroit, one of the regionals where Rush competed. 27 won it at Great Lakes and at Atlanta. If the "best at X" theory holds, why did they not win it at Detroit as well?

Originally Posted by jasper.s.jacobs

there is no reason why teams should ever be limited in the regionals they go to no matter where it is. It would be quite different if someone like 1114 or 987 went to one regional every weekend just so they could beat the bejesus out of every team possible, but no one would want to do that anyway because it is way too time consuming. Regardless, limiting the regionals a team can go to ruins the competitive spirit of the game, and if rookie teams want it to be easier to compete then they shouldn't be in first in the first place; they should be striving to be the best they possibly can be. That to me at least is what first is all about.

also, there may be a reason that teams travel far to go to regionals, maybe they are looking to finding better competition, so they go to regionals where other teams go. I find it very hard to believe that a good team would travel a long distance just to go to a regional that would be easier for them to trample the competition.

Precisely.

[gibbyrawr]

Being a part of team ULTIMATE 922, we are self sustained and have absolutely no corporate sponsors or engineers helping us. We struggle in creating a really good robot. Luckily for us, we are extremely strong in our marketing aspects that teams coming to our regional in addition to theirs has not effected us. regardless, we have been able to win some of the most prestigious awards. And ultimately if your as good as you believe, than other teams coming to your regional shouldent be a problem. Besides who doesnt like a little extra competition?

Although I do agree with a few teams on how you should only be able to win at one regional instead of winning multiple awards at many. If anything, allow teams to continue competing at other regionals but make as the chairman's award submission is. You in a way can only "submit" or in this case be eligible to receive an award at the regional you "submitted" at.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by KarenH

I don't know about those particular teams, but I was astonished to see a rookie team, 2340, seeded 3rd on Galileo. In Curie, 2337 was seeded 2nd; they even made it to their division semifinals. With this kind of performance from rookies, I wouldn't be too concerned about who wins the Championship. It could very well be one of them next year.

Anyone remember one of the 2006 rookies with the number 1902?

Division finalist, Archimedes (where 217 won before carrying their win to Einstein).

2007: Division champ. (Sorry, I don't remember the division, but they weren't Curie or Newton.)

I too wouldn't be too worried.

On to the topic: Yes. Any team with the funds can do it. Many teams do do two regionals.

For the "only win awards at one event" crowd--FLL already does that, at least for qualifying for the next level. There are some teams that aren't exactly happy about that. This might lead to teams intentionally seeking out weak regionals so they can qualify. I don't think that's what FIRST wants--or what you want. Do you really want to be trounced by a top team who came there only to add to their trophy collection or get into Championships?

And, a question for the OP: Is FIRST REALLY fair?

[01101101 011011]

I'm a parent with 1024. Here is our story:

We did not do very well, AT ALL, last year. Because of that and the cost of events, the team decided that they would go to the Midwest to see how the robot would work. We did not expect to win and the team doesn't really have the funds to attend mulitple events. 1024 sent a skeleton crew to Chicago and parents organized to send food with the kids to cut on cost. Parents also carpooled the crew up to avoid the cost of a commercial bus.

As an Indiana team the Boilermaker is one of the main events for us. Again because of cost, a local event is only the cost of the event. No hotel stays, no restaurant bills or commercial transportation costs. The kids and the parents pay for any of the extras... not the sponsors.

We were at the Buckeye, only because we had already paid for it, no refunds. Again parents got together and provided food and help.

For the Championship; The team set up some pretty strict criteria for travel to Atlanta. If you didn't fundraise a certain amount of money you didn't go.

Additionally: Other teams get a chance when they are picked as part of an alliance. At both the Buckeye and Atlanta there was proof. 1024 picked 1386 and then we subbed in 2048. 2048 is in it's second year of FIRST and granted they weren't originally picked, they were high enough in ranking to sub into the finals. 1124 picked 177, because as the team captain stated (not quoting) that the points & ranking don't always show the quality of a team.
To say that the winning bots are out to squash the little guy is just not a fair stament.
Bottom line... if you are trying to say that teams with money get more chance to win. I think someone else also said, that it isn't only the robot ability, it is the mentors, parents, coaches, and students (and believe me a LOT of luck) who have the heart and drive to try to achieve what they want.....
Which, if I remember correctly, is Dean Kamen's goal.

[Bongle]

Restricting regionals wouldn't 'solve' this 'problem' anyway.

Let's say we restricted teams to 1 regional per year. To claim that this will somehow eliminate the spectre of powerhouse teams dominating regionals is incorrect. At least in my neck of the woods (Canada), there are 48 (Ohio), 68 (Detroit? I'm thinking of Truck-town, I may have got the # wrong), 188 (Toronto), 217 (Detroit again?), 1114 (St Cats), 1503 (Niagara), and 2056 (somewhere in Ontario) who are consistently high performers. Since that's more teams than there are regionals in my area, you can infer that it will STILL be very difficult to win nearby regionals. In fact, by reducing the number of powerhouse teams, you reduce the probability of anyone BUT the powerhouse teams winning by reducing the depth of the field at each regional. If there are only 2-3 of these top-tier teams at a regional, you pretty much guarantee that the #1 alliance will face little opposition as they pick the other powerhouse team and steamroll to a regional win.

I should note that I had the same negative opinion of multi-regional attendance until I was on a team that went to multiple regionals. Going to multiple regionals increases the enjoyable:miserable ratio of a FIRST season quite a bit by allowing you to have fun with your robot for longer. You spent thousands of man-hours building it, compete with it as much as you can! For large tracts of North America, there are multiple regionals in driving distance. If you can't afford to house everyone, get a hotel for a few select students, pay just the entry fee, and ask everyone else to bear their own costs. Multiple regionals is really the way to go.

My solution: Change the name from 'regional' to 'invitational' so that the name more closely matches how people actually treat it with regards to attendance.

[catsylve]

I think a lot of the reason that this thread is so interesting is the number of teams this year that qualified for championship at more than one regional, thus limiting the number of teams that qualified for championship. I see no problem whatsoever with teams competing at more than one regional, but perhaps FIRST should implement a procedure to fill the spot that may be lost to a repeating winner by another highly seeded team at that competition. Just a thought that might let the teams still compete together and still give teams hope for earning a spot to championship.

As for the fairness of going to multiple regionals, the only issue that I have is that some regionals will save spots for local teams, allowing them to register for other regionals while having a spot secured at home. This seems to cause problems when teams cannot get into other regionals. Since this is not a practice at every regional, it unbalances the system.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by catsylve

I see no problem whatsoever with teams competing at more than one regional, but perhaps FIRST should implement a procedure to fill the spot that may be lost to a repeating winner by another highly seeded team at that competition.

Those spots freed up by multiple regional winners, or when a team on the winning alliance also wins the RCA, EI or Rookie award, are offered to the teams on the waiting list. That list is created way back in the fall, so there's no reason for any team not to be on the list.

[mgurgol]

I do not have a problem with teams attending more than one regional if they have the funds available, but by attending the multiple regionals, it gives the team more time to work on the robot and make improvements.

Our team attended the St. Louis Regional this year (Feb 28, 29, Mar 1) and did not touch the robot again until Atlanta. We were not able to tweak any of the hybrid modes, or make any modifications outside of the practice day on Thursday, and even then, the practice fields were booked solid, so the only way to test was in the matches.

Should allowances be made for those robots that are not attending multiple regionals to have the robot shipped back before Atlanta to allow an additional window of time to work on the robot? If cost wasn't an issue, would spending the entry fee for a regional be worth the 3 days of being able to make improvements on the robot?