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

[EricH]

Originally Posted by johnr

Winning a cultural award at a traditional regional doesn't give you a right to play in that regionals finals or the next one you attend. Why should winning one at a district count for more or am i missing something?

Winning a cultural award at a traditional regional gives you the right to play at the Championship. Why shouldn't winning one at a district give you an automatic qualification to play at the State championship ?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Jared341

I, and many other FIRSTers, also agree that culture changing awards deserve fair recognition. Again, who is to say that 2009's point structure is the only way that this will work?

Well, seeing as the BoD didn't change it, I'm pretty sure that the district model will be using the points system.

Originally Posted by johnr

Winning a cultural award at a traditional regional doesn't give you a right to play in that regionals finals or the next one you attend. Why should winning one at a district count for more or am i missing something?

Winning a technical award at a regional doesn't make you more likely to participate in the Championship either. Granted, the actual Championship doesn't have a points system (and I like it better with the prepay option), so you can't really compare the two. Winning Chairman's gets you to compete in Atlanta, rather than just watching Atlanta and talking to judges, and I don't really know who would prefer it that way...

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by EricH

Winning a cultural award at a traditional regional gives you the right to play at the Championship. Why shouldn't winning one at a district give you an automatic qualification to play at the State championship ?

I would still counter with what Paul said:

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

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.

Emphasis mine.

[Chris is me]

It's not a philosophical-only argument for many regions of the country, in my opinion. Just because it was a moot point last year doesn't mean it will be a moot point every year (catastrophic technical failure, strategy misjudge, etc. that don't factor into Chairman's could eliminate a team from the State Championships, and just the possibility of that is something that really bothers me. Perhaps it's motivated by selfishness (being that my team has won RCAs with non-competitive robots before), but all excluding the culture change winners would do is turn FIRST that much more into a robotics competition. What harm would come from including them "for sure"?

[johnr]

Wow, i never knew that you could actually win the most pretigious award in FIRST and not open the kop. After thinking about it, why not give the dca winners a bid. Most of those invites would be given back and used by the next team done the line.

[Francis-134]

The highlights of the recent Michigan District Event Model survey include:

- 94% of team leaders, mentors and team members rated their District Model experience as “good” or “excellent;”

...

- 80% of prior participants rated their District Event Model experience as the same or better than their experience in 2008 on multiple measures;
- 94% of tournament volunteers reported it was “likely” or “very likely” that they would volunteer next year and were satisfied with the training and support they received;

The statistician in me wants to know if these numbers are at all significant. Was this survey also given out a regional events? If so, are the numbers presented better, worse or about the same as a regional experience?

Just a thought.

With regards to the district system, I am a huge fan of being able to travel to distant regionals. If the district system does not allow for this, I will be greatly disappointed.

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by Francis-134

With regards to the district system, I am a huge fan of being able to travel to distant regionals. If the district system does not allow for this, I will be greatly disappointed.

This past spring we at the NJ regional team have been working hard on a model similar to the Michigan model but with our events on weekends at the very start of the competition season window. It might allow travel to distant Regionals in the later weeks. We wanted to implement in 2010 but it looks now like that will not happen.

It is true that teams who normally stay close to home would benefit from the large increase in the playing times and get a bigger bang for their buck from the robot. This appeals to many. FIRST would also see a reduction in Fedex usage- something that overpowered them this year.

I however agree with you that I would find it hard to support a model that took up the entire competition season and disallowed for travel to other regions. Frankly for us it is the travel and playing with new friends in other parts of the country that makes FIRST enjoyable. I would hate to think of being restricted to playing the same teams over and over again because of a restrictive model. No offense to the local teams but we see each other all the time and we do have an extensive off season calendar here in the NE.

The Championships might offer a travel op but I do not have much faith in what I am hearing about locations for the future. Sorry.

Of course the proper way to do all this is to have a much more extensive competition season with a local tier followed by a tier series of regionals and the championship. I cant see that big a change occurring any time soon since it would cost $$$ and lots of time for the volunteer base.

Travel to new regions, especially warm ones after a cold hard build season, can be a great incentive for the team and a goal to work for. And if I wanted to play the locals continuously I would go back to coaching sports.


OK - off the soap box

WC

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by johnr

Wow, i never knew that you could actually win the most pretigious award in FIRST and not open the kop. After thinking about it, why not give the dca winners a bid. Most of those invites would be given back and used by the next team done the line.

If it took just opening the KoP to qualify for the State Championship, then there would be no need for a points system. Your last line illustrates my thoughts on the matter as contradictory as it seems; it would have little actual effect in most areas but it would just ensure that Chairman's doesn't get excluded.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Well, seeing as the BoD didn't change it, I'm pretty sure that the district model will be using the points system.

I should have been more specific. I believe that the point system is here to stay, but the actual points awarded for each accomplishment are not necessarily fixed to their 2008 values.

[Fe_Will]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Travel to new regions, especially warm ones after a cold hard build season, can be a great incentive for the team and a goal to work for. And if I wanted to play the locals continuously I would go back to coaching sports.

We feel the same way... March is always a good time to get away from the wet

[IKE]

I hope that FIRST never stops changing things. For almost 2 decades they have been trying and experimenting with different ways of doing things. If you ever get a chance to read some of the old manuals, go check them out. There has been a lot of change, and most of it has been for the better.

One of my favorite stories that the old timers on the team (I personally am a young pup with only 5 years under my belt) is one of the first years our team was involved with FIRST, they had a material mandate. They wanted a net to hold a bunch of balls, and you were only allowed to use certain materials. One poor student spent the entire build season unraveling some rope (allowed) and then re-weaving it into a net (you could not purchase netting).

I am glad that things have changed from those days. I hope things continue to change, and I hope I have the flexibility to adapt to those changes.

[Paul Copioli]

That sounds like 1999. We did the same thing!

[kmcclary]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

On a personal note, my contributions in the district system, and what I am able to bring to the table in it are so limited, I will have to seriously consider if I will continue to participate in FIRST.

Don't be in a rush to sell yourself short... The whole point of having a large cadre of volunteers is that any one person's task become simpler.

I'm a multi-year volunteer at GLR in MI, at what this year become the State Championship. (I am not an organizer though, so I can't speak for them. I am only a lowly volunteer there.)

I was curious as to how this year's MI Volunteer Rules would affect the volunteer system. During the build some people expressed grave concern with the new MI rules because we knew that to fulfill the volunteer requirements many smaller teams with limited mentors would have to turn to random relatives and others with no FIRST robotics experience whatsoever. We knew they couldn't spare their current adult force from team tasks.

In fact, AFAICD a large number of my area's teams did exactly that, and filled their slots with random people. Many teams had different people cover their teams at different venues, limiting their 'prior experience' even further.

At first glance, one fears a flood of "volunteer newbies" may be a potential formula for disaster... I feared we could very well end up with a lot of "Event Volunteer Virgins" at even the State Championship level.

But to my pleasant surprise, the organizers handled it very well. The tasks were divided up and organized SO well in MI by FiM that most of the new-to-FIRST volunteers I talked to said it was a breeze, they had a fantastic experience, and are looking forward doing it again next year! <wow>

Bear in mind that given ENOUGH volunteers to spread the work over, you actually end up with a HUGE number of Basic Tasks that require very little training needed to do (eg traffic flow control, man a booth with a checklist, shuffling random paperwork, etc...)

But even more important - with proper formatting and ENOUGH people, it CAN allow each person to complete their tasks easily with only a small percentage of the multi-day event requiring their attention. (IOW, you have bursts of activity here and there, interspersed with long stretches of available time).

This allows the volunteers the time to actually ENJOY the event. (Wow... What a concept!) It isn't true for ALL volunteers, but many did say they had some free time and did get to enjoy the show...

Bottom line: You can't minimize that effect of having sufficient people, organization, and the definitions set up front, such that any one person's task becomes easy. THAT IMHO is the -toughest- job of all (and I tip my hat to those hard working people that envision and organize the Volunteers!). But IF done right a large chunk of that work too CAN be done Up Front.

Looking back, I feel that is why we were all required to provide a certain number of workers. IMO it was actually a stroke of genius. Guaranteeing a large worker base up front allowed organizers a lot of flexibility in task definitions and planning, without fear.

So don't fear volunteering. It is actually a blast. After all, finding friendly people that CARE about the kids and the quality of the event is actually the best qualification for a volunteer one can ever hope to find.

- Keith

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

... excluding the culture change winners would do is turn FIRST that much more into a robotics competition. What harm would come from including them "for sure"?

While MI had 7 district events last year, they identified 16 geographical areas which might support regions in the future. Giving "for sure" bids to award winners, even biggie awards like Cmn and EI, would have created so many pre-allocated slots that there wouldn't be room at the State Championship for all robot winners. Thus the point system was devised, based on another "scholarship as sports"-type event competition model. In addition, the culture changing awards had special provision that if you won at a district but did not qualify on points, you still would present at State (but without bringing your robot). I had several serious reservations pre-season regarding the fairness of the point schedule, but they all worked out correctly. The only problem I still have is the philosophical discussion regarding the culture changing awards. If awarding or not awarding significant numbers of points for those awards doesn't change the invitation list, then why not award big points for big awards just for the symbolism of recognizing the significance of the awards?

Originally Posted by Francis-134

The statistician in me wants to know if these numbers are at all significant. Was this survey also given out a regional events? If so, are the numbers presented better, worse or about the same as a regional experience?

The survey was distributed the same way other FIRST surveys were: emailed to volunteers and team leaders, with the request to forward it to students. Several of the questions compared the district experience to former regional experiences. Assuming rookies didn't "stuff the ballot box" on those questions, the district model does compare well with previous regionals.

With regards to the district system, I am a huge fan of being able to travel to distant regionals. If the district system does not allow for this, I will be greatly disappointed.

MI teams could travel out of state to other regionals. Assuming the entire country doesn't switch to districts, this would still be available. You crated and shipped your robot as usual, and you paid the regular second-regional entry fee. About a dozen MI teams did this. Other MI teams treated more-remote districts as their travel event. After all, while getting out of the cold is a consideration, part of the travel experience is simply going someplace different and being with your teammates in the hotel. It doesn't matter how long the bus ride is or that you had to fly. Many other MI teams were able to stay close to home and conserve costs by not needing hotels. It was their choice.

One option that could be implemented in the future would be to allow teams to cross "State Championship" boundaries (whatever those events end up being called) and go to out-of-area districts. This could work several ways. A simple one would be to allow teams to schedule a 3rd district event out-of-area on a space available basis; points earned would not count toward their championship. Another would be to allow teams to request transfer to a different area, or request dual-area enrollment. This would allow remote teams like Houghton to request to transfer to the WI/MN area (if one would exist), or to request to play one of their districts in say, Green Bay and the other in Traverse City, declaring ahead of time which Championship event they were trying to qualify for.

[Paul Copioli]

So Jim Zondag and I were having a discussion last night as he is drafting a proposal to FiM to change the point system slightly. Two items regarding Culture Changing Awards (CCA), specifically the Chairman's Award (CA), came up:

1. If you are slotted to win the CA, which is decided Friday, you will not win a technical award or any other award. While this is not a written rule, look at the historical data and it is overwhelming.

2. You can only win this award at one district. All of the other awards do not have this restriction.

#2 above is the single biggest argument to give the CA more points. My opinion is 10 points (if someone wins GM Industrial Design twice they get 10 points, 2 * 5).

The automatic bid is not scalable and I still hold to my belief that if you are truly the best candidate to represent your State / Region then your robot and team should be able to attain more points than 50% of the other teams.

Paul