**FIRST EMAIL**/FIRST Adds District Event Model Alternative to FRC Program

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

FIRST is a company providing a service for a fee -- this is "customer feedback," not "whining." I think your point would be better made if you didn't take shots at other teams.

Sorry Rick, point taken.

I attempted to use the word "whining" as short hand for "insistence that no team have an unfair advantage over another team, even if this means reducing the benefit to all teams involved". From my limited point of view, I see many instances where fairness is over or under weighted, and this type of request has the definite potential to be one such instance. No particular team would be hurt if EricLeifermann's team played as if they were in Wisconsin, but a Detroit team could use it to insist that they be allowed to play as if they were in Ohio. Rather than tell the hypothetical team to suck it up, the uP team could be penalized with very expensive travel.

I do believe that there are entities in FIRST that are whiny, but I also believe that the hypothetical entities are "whinier" than the real ones.

[Tetraman]

Here is one thing I kinda wonder about: Would it be possible to just pick 8-12 regionals that are around each other and have them be "Districts"? All you'd have to do is set up a "Regional Championship".

[Paul Copioli]

The apparent lack of changes to the points system is upsetting, since then the choice between districts and events also requires planners to factor in how much they want to shift the way awards are valued at events. It seems like what are extremely important issues to at least me (devaluing of Chairman's and EI awards with respect to qualifying, practically no reward for winning FIRST's most important awards, other issues that have been beaten to death) remain unchanged here, so I guess for the intents and purposes of state competition, the state events shift more toward "the best robots and oh here's this other award stuff too".

I was really hoping at least as many points as the winning alliance for Chairman's / EI, or culture changing awards not being completely irrelevant for qualifications. I mean you get what you celebrate, right?

I will start this post with stating that I agree with you that I think the points for the culture changing awards should be 5, just like the tech awards.

However, it is a philosophical argument only. The fact is that 95% of chairman's award capable teams would have qualified under the FiM district point system anyway. In Michigan, all 7 teams easily qualified for the state championship.

In addition (this one will raise some eyebrows), we are trying to change the culture. In order to do that we need to get the random person's attention. Who is going to do that better? A Chairman's award winner like team 27, 33, or 1114 or some team who puts so much energy on the chairman's award that they forget that they have to compete with a robot? Seriously, a chairman's team is well rounded. Well rounded! To me, that means they should be an example in every aspect, not just the ones judged in the chairman's judging room.

Just like it is not all about the robots, it is not all about winning the Chairman's Award.

Paul

[Katie_UPS]

"My name is Paul Coplioli and I make good points"

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Seriously, a chairman's team is well rounded. Well rounded! To me, that means they should be an example in every aspect, not just the ones judged in the chairman's judging room.

Just like it is not all about the robots, it is not all about winning the Chairman's Award.

Paul

Well said, Paul. Adam Heard and I were just discussing this yesterday actually. A true Chairmans winner should not only boast confidence & competitiveness off the field, but on the field as well.

[GaryVoshol]

I concur with Paul's opinion, that the number of points granted for awards doesn't have an effect. I did a study on FiM team rankings, adding in points for Chairmans, EI, Rookie AS, in proportion to the points given for Winners, Finalists, Semi-finalists, plus 5 points for all awards whether cultural or technical. While it juggled the positions somewhat, it did not substantially change who would be invited to the MI Championship. The last 3 teams that qualified would have been bumped lower in the order, replaced with teams that under the current structure ended up about 5 or 10 positions below. But because some teams that qualified declined their invitations, all these teams involved ended up at the MI Championship anyway. In fact all through districts, there were people who were looking for a team to serve as a "poster child" to argue the points should have been awarded: Look, here's a team that got XXX super award and couldn't go to the Championship. Didn't happen.

So the counterargument can be made, why not have a point structure that recognizes the importance of awards like Chairmans. It doesn't matter in the overall qualifications to the Championship. It just increases the point totals of some of the teams that qualify. So why not do it, only for symbolism?