New FIRST competition structure in Michigan

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Craig Roys

Three things:

First:
Why can't you take 40 kids when only three are presenting? I think it would be a wonderful show of team unity if the the entire team were to be present to support the CA presentation team. As a coach, I would be pretty upset if my team didn't want to go the the competition even though we weren't competing. Given that CA is the most prestigious award, my team would be going - robot or no robot.

Second:
As to the "nothing to do", why not have them volunteer for the competition or help out other teams or watch a fun competition w/out the stress (albeit fun stress ) of competing?

Third:
I believe that any team that is organized enough to win a District Level Chairman's Award would also manage to be one of the over 50% of MI teams who qualify for State's. If they're not, see first point above...

We could not justify time away from class for most of our students unless they were participating actively in a team activity. Watching a competition or volunteering at a competition are not, in my mind, important enough to warrant the time away.

Traveling to an event, even for a single day, represents a significant expense to our team. We are responsible for funding and arranging transportation and meals for many of our students -- so even something as simple as visiting an event might represent hundreds or thousands of dollars of additional cost.

All of this, of course, completely ignores my fundamental disagreement with eliminating mediocre or bad robots from competition. While I agree somewhat with ideas that a field of proven competitors increases accessibility by the public of FIRST programs, I also believe that students benefit tremendously by seeing the caliber of work of other students, mentors and teams.

How can you congratulate a team for doing the stuff that matters -- ostensibly the role of the Regional Chairman's Award -- while at the same time telling that they can't play along with the stuff that doesn't matter? If it's not about the robots, why not just let them bring it along and have some fun with it?

Or is it really about the robots?

[Applepwns]

I like how the new structure makes it cheaper for teams with hotel fee's and traveling costs, but i really liked traveling out of state last year

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Applepwns

I like how the new structure makes it cheaper for teams with hotel fee's and traveling costs, ...

That would depend on exactly where in MI you are located, correct? I would imagine some upper peninsula teams may incur quite a travel expense getting to their second event in-state.

This is one of the reasons why I hope and pray that my state, PA, does not go the district route any time in the near future. With a big gap in the middle of our state, we'd be straining our relatively young teams in Pittsburgh and really hamstringing many of our veterans in the Philadelphia region who have been great supporters of closer regionals (than Pittsburgh) in other states. We simply have no volunteer or team base in the middle third of the state.

If the district model works in MI, for MI, without stretching volunteers, schools, or resources too far, then great for MI. However, I will continue to wonder what other states this model could logically work in. Unless you have a somewhat even distribution of teams and volunteers throughout the entire state, it's hard to imagine that you'd be doing much good for all of the effort, but I've been wrong many times before.

[GaryVoshol]

In response to Rich's point, I think a big mistake in rolling this program out, if it is to be expanded to other areas, is calling the new event at Ypsi the Michigan State Championship. Michigan had the critical mass of teams available so that all the districts would be in one state, and so the championship happened to be the state level. If the district-qualifying-to-championship model gets spread to other areas, it likely will not be at the state level in most cases. For Rich's concern, perhaps there would several districts which make up a region in E-PA, NJ, DE, MD, and maybe VA. There certainly would be enough teams in that area to create a Mid-Atlantic Championship tournament. It could rotate around to various sites which currently have regionals in the area. The other regionals would be district sites, and an equal number of other district sites in smaller venues could be created.

The point about the UP (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the teams in the northern Lower) having increased travel costs to go to two district events is valid. It would also happen in states like ID, KY, NM, NE, MS, and at least a dozen others - states with only a few teams in them, adjacent to states with more teams and an existing structure that could be converted to districts. But the teams in those adjacent states would have to travel just as far to get to their first district as they do to a regional today, and then travel again to get a second district. Unless on the state level, such as been done in OK and MN, a big push is made to get new teams established and create a district in their own home state. We still have the problem of vast distances for some states, particularly AK and HI but also some other western states, plus the international teams.

Any new structure will not be ideal, no more than the existing structure is ideal. We won't know which is better unless we try. I've expressed some of my concerns in other posts. I'm hoping the concept will be given a fair trial, and that everyone will be open to suggestions for improvements if needed.

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

For Rich's concern, perhaps there would several districts which make up a region in E-PA, NJ, DE, MD, and maybe VA. There certainly would be enough teams in that area to create a Mid-Atlantic Championship tournament. It could rotate around to various sites which currently have regionals in the area. The other regionals would be district sites, and an equal number of other district sites in smaller venues could be created.

One of this program's biggest benefits was the reduced travel cost and assuming we have to travel to two district events in NY(Presumably one in Rochester) and the other in NYC? and then a Northeast Championship Event in NH? That's a lot more in travel then we do now going to FLR and Championship.

I think we all need to work on something that will work everywhere, not just MI. I think the MI Pilot will work there, I think if all the MI teams agree on the point structure then that's OK for them. I think we all can agree that there are changes that will need to be made to see if this system will be beneficial anywhere else.

[NEMentor470]

Originally Posted by 340x4xLife

I think we all need to work on something that will work everywhere, not just MI. I think the MI Pilot will work there, I think if all the MI teams agree on the point structure then that's OK for them.

Not ALL Michigan teams agree, nor were they all consulted in the planning stage. The plan was apparently mentioned as a possibility at some meeting to which not all were able to send representatives, but details were not discussed at that time. Michigan teams who were not part of the planning group found out about the change at the same time it was announced to the rest of the world.

We've been attending one Regional, GLRC, at Eastern Michigan U, right in our "backyard": No travel expenses. In order to participate this year we will have to rent a bus and/or other vehicles. This will probably cost $1,000 - $1,200 even though we are going to the closest two events possible. (so much for saving $1,000)

The idea of a district system has a lot of merit, but the roll out could have been less traumatic. I wish that FiM had made a greater effort to let ALL the teams know of their plans much further in advance. A year to plan and raise money would not be too long.

I hope that any future program changes will be considered by a wider group of leaders and input about logistics and costs will be sought from all teams. Every team is important, even if they haven't fielded a champion robot. The students still learn a lot and go on to be engineers. That's the real point of all this isn't it?

[DaveSparks]

I can WALK from the Cass tech regional to the Wayne state regional. My team (2673) is the Cass tech team and we wont even be leaving our zip code.

[chinckley]

Does anyone know where the sample Michigan District schedule is?
I know I saw one and now I cannot find it.
I have searched Chief Delphi through search and do not see it.

Carolyn

[GaryVoshol]

http://www.firstinmichigan.org/

and specifically http://www.firstinmichigan.org/stati...se_city_agenda

(I think the agendas for all the events are pretty much the same)

[chinckley]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

http://www.firstinmichigan.org/

and specifically http://www.firstinmichigan.org/stati...se_city_agenda

(I think the agendas for all the events are pretty much the same)

Thank you so much.

[IKE]

As some early feedback, I have been helping with a Rookie team this year. Their team leaders have helped other teams in the past (the other team number is around the 500s, so they have been around for a while). They are very excited about the new format as they can afford to go to 2 competitions for less than the price of 1 (when they were on other teams). Also because the 2 competitions are close enough, they can use school busses and do not require overnights at hotels.

[Aiyash]

It's funny how things turned out.

Don't knock it 'til you try it, folks.