District/Regional Format

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I was referencing if there was NO bag and tag system or ship date that Collin mentioned earlier and in several other threads before. What is keeping a team from waiting until good teams compete in week one and the build their robot in the following weeks to do exactly what team X does but better and have it for week 5 all ready to go? It is definitely a very low thing for a team to do, but I am sure that there are teams out there who would do it.

Yes it doesn't happen now because we have ship date and teams can only hold back 40lbs of weight, but I was replying to FIRST moving to a no ship date and every team keeps their robot in between competitions.

VRC teams do exactly this. It's not something low, it's copying in a way... how many teams are currently trying to tried to copy 469 after they saw them at Cass Tech?

I like the idea of ship date, leave that no ship date to FLL, FTC and VRC

[FoleyParent]

I have been a part of FIRST since 2005 when my son was a freshman in high school and have always enjoyed reading Chief Delphi for as many years. But, I have never officially registered or posted. This is my first, so please go easy on me .

My team, 910 really enjoys the playing time we get for our money with FiM, but we too have really missed the opportunities to play and get to know other teams from outside of our state. We do not have the extra money required to pay for both travel and registration for an out-of-state regional in additional to FiM.

Right now in FiM, when there are open slots available at a district event, teams can register for a third district for $500. Registration for these open slots occurs after regular registration (your first two choices) is closed. Last year we were able to play in 3 district events. This year we were not.

I propose that a team’s third event (for that same $500) can ONLY be for open slots in district level events outside your home state/region (which operate in the same or similar format as FiM). This would go in both directions, thus providing teams outside Michigan to compete within Michigan, as well as essentially reserving the extra slots for only outside teams. Only your 2 district events within your state/region would count toward your qualifying points for your state/regional championship event.

In terms of off-season events to get in extra play... The mid-west has many off-season events also. Our team tries to attend as many of them as we can for all of the reasons stated in earlier posts. I would encourage all teams to participate in them. But I do not feel that it replaces or takes away from all of the positive aspects of the FiM structure.

In response to State lines not working for all states, I do not think that ‘conferences’ (to steal a word from sports) has to be based along single or multiple state lines. It might be more cost effective for some of the teams in the upper peninsula of MI to play in a ‘conference’ out of Chicago or the North Central US. Or maybe, for teams in northern CA to be a part of a Northwest US/Southwest Canada 'conference'. There is no reason why the lines couldn’t change and/or the district format evolve as FIRST grows… continuous improvement .

Getting excited for Atlanta... see you there!

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by FoleyParent

I have been a part of FIRST since 2005 when my son was a freshman in high school and have always enjoyed reading Chief Delphi for as many years. But, I have never officially registered or posted. This is my first, so please go easy on me .

There are some really great ideas in this post. Welcome to the CD Community. If the rest of the posts are anything like this one, you'll be a valued member very quickly.

Originally Posted by FoleyParent

Right now in FiM, when there are open slots available at a district event, teams can register for a third district for $500. Registration for these open slots occurs after regular registration (your first two choices) is closed. Last year we were able to play in 3 district events. This year we were not.

I propose that a team’s third event (for that same $500) can ONLY be for open slots in district level events outside your home state/region (which operate in the same or similar format as FiM). This would go in both directions, thus providing teams outside Michigan to compete within Michigan, as well as essentially reserving the extra slots for only outside teams. Only your 2 district events within your state/region would count toward your qualifying points for your state/regional championship event.

I really like this idea and think that it can be implemented the quickest of any of the other ideas proposed here with the current FiM structure. It could be a first come / first served for "outside" teams. I would love for our team to come see how a district competition operates and how the model could be expanded to other regions. What better way than to let them compete. A few caveats I think that would need to be in place: 1) Since there would be so few spots available - the "outside" team would get no Championship qualification from these events. Since a Michigan team cannot qualify for Championships simply by winning a district, why should a team from another state? Also, to make sure none of the Michigan teams lose point earning oppotunities at that district, what if the "outside" team was not able to win any judged awards, at least during the learning phase of the "team swap"? It would stink not being able to win awards at a competition, but that's a price you pay to go to this extra event for so cheap.

Originally Posted by FoleyParent

In response to State lines not working for all states, I do not think that ‘conferences’ (to steal a word from sports) has to be based along single or multiple state lines. It might be more cost effective for some of the teams in the upper peninsula of MI to play in a ‘conference’ out of Chicago or the North Central US. Or maybe, for teams in northern CA to be a part of a Northwest US/Southwest Canada 'conference'. There is no reason why the lines couldn’t change and/or the district format evolve as FIRST grows… continuous improvement .

I love this idea. What if, every three years you had to declare your "region"? This would put the onus on the teams to figure out where it fits best for them to play. You would be limited to only select from say 3 regions surrounding your general geographic location, but the choice would still be yours. This can be implemented while there is a mix of districts and regionals, too. Why can't, after two years of trying it, a team from Michigan decide they don't want to do the FiM structure? Why can't a team from a state close to Michigan decide that, for the next three years, they are going to be a "Michigan" team?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

How exactly is it a "very low" thing to do? FIRST allows you to hold back 65 lbs. If most teams wanted to, they could have rebuilt their robots into a 469/67 type looper. Our frame + drive + electronics is easily over 55 lbs. We'll have had 3.5 weeks between Boilermaker and Championships. Did we do this? Nope. We've been working on making the robot we designed better (improved autonomous, better ball grabber, driver practice). Is it fair that we have a second robot and room to build part of a field while other teams cannot? NO WAY! To me, it's much more fair for teams to just never have to ship their robots. Then, all teams going to Week 5 events would be in the same boat. I would bet that if a team tried to build a "better" 469 in the weeks between Week 1 and their competition, they'd end up with an inferior robot on the field. Very few teams in FIRST can prototype, design, and fabricate a robot that quickly (then practice, break, fix, and debug that same robot).

In this hypothetical situation, if the team did pull off creating a better version of another robot, I would applaud their efforts and know that they worked their butts off. But don't forget, the good teams that figure out these "dominant" strategies early enough to build a great robot are CONSTANTLY improving their strategies, driving skills, autonomous, and every other aspect of the robot between their competitions, too.

The goal of FIRST is to Inspire. In my opinion, all three options I laid out can only help grow FIRST to reach its goal of Inspiring as many kids as possible.

Take as an example, 33 last year. (Sorry Jim) After seeing 67's dominant machine they rebuilt their robot to be a wide dumper similar to 67's. They had the added benefit of a crab drive system underneath. LOGICALLY they should have been better than 67 because the upper structure was nearly identical and the drive train was imho better. Why did 67 win another blue banner while 33 got knocked out in the semi's? I always attribute it to driver practice. Their drivers practiced playing one way but the new system required a different style of play. Winning in FRC isn't all about the robot, it is about the drivers practicing and communicating.

Please note, this is NOT knocking 33. There are very few teams that consistently awe me with every aspect of their program.

[Jim Zondag]

Andrew,
No problem...our efforts last year were just an extreme example of what we never stop doing: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT. We made a 39.8 lb replacement part for the Championship. This took considerable time and effort, but it was something we felt that we needed to last year.
I personally have never truly understood FIRST's motivation to restrict our access to the machines. I know that many believe that it is to make things more fair, but in realility all it really does is widen the gap between the teams with a lot of resources and the teams with less. There is no other machine sport on earth that I know of where they take your machine away from you.
Shipping/bagging is a vestige of a time in which most teams went to a single event. The now that we are playing a SEASON it no longer makes sense.
To me the most tragic thing about shipping/bagging is the fact that it prevents teams from self-promoting effectively precisely when we have the best opportunity to do so. You build hype BEFORE the big game, not AFTER. We are Robotics teams, and showing people our robots is the single best way to fulfill Dean's homework assignement and get outsiders to our events.
Teams are their own best advocates, by taking away the robots, FIRST takes away our best promotional tool. If Dean wants us to complete his homework, then he should eliminate these obsolete rules to allow us to do this effectively.

[Al3+]

It's been my impression that the purpose of ship date is to impose on us an artificial time constraint. 6 weeks is hardly enough time to build a robot. But it just means we have to exercise good time management.

This is why team 840 did not hold back anything this year, even though we really could have used some drive practice, we believed it was against the spirit of the competition.

Also, having no ship date would intrinsically cause some unfairness. Say that Team A and Team B both attend only 1 regional, Team A's event is on week 1 and Team B's event is on week 5. Team B gets 4 extra weeks to build their robot! Even if they don't try to "copy" successful designs, it doesn't change the fact that they are much more prepared for their event than Team A is.

Then again this is assuming both teams only attend 1 event, which wouldn't be the case under the district system. Still, timing differences would be an issue. With ship date, the same deadline is imposed on every team.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Al3+

It's been my impression that the purpose of ship date is to impose on us an artificial time constraint. 6 weeks is hardly enough time to build a robot. But it just means we have to exercise good time management.

This is why team 840 did not hold back anything this year, even though we really could have used some drive practice, we believed it was against the spirit of the competition.

Also, having no ship date would intrinsically cause some unfairness. Say that Team A and Team B both attend only 1 regional, Team A's event is on week 1 and Team B's event is on week 5. Team B gets 4 extra weeks to build their robot! Even if they don't try to "copy" successful designs, it doesn't change the fact that they are much more prepared for their event than Team A is.

Then again this is assuming both teams only attend 1 event, which wouldn't be the case under the district system. Still, timing differences would be an issue. With ship date, the same deadline is imposed on every team.

Team A would compete against teams who have a similar disadvantage. Now, at the Championship level it could be a problem but if all teams get their robot back and have time to work on it after their events this difference goes away.

[kwotremb]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

To me the most tragic thing about shipping/bagging is the fact that it prevents teams from self-promoting effectively precisely when we have the best opportunity to do so. You build hype BEFORE the big game, not AFTER. We are Robotics teams, and showing people our robots is the single best way to fulfill Dean's homework assignement and get outsiders to our events.
Teams are their own best advocates, by taking away the robots, FIRST takes away our best promotional tool. If Dean wants us to complete his homework, then he should eliminate these obsolete rules to allow us to do this effectively.

I think this is one of the better reasons I have heard to not have a ship/bag-tag date. This would work really well for those teams that made it to championships but need a few more dollars to get there. They can bring their robot around to local companies and be able to show them their robot itself. Without this all you can do is show them pictures, but having a robot there would make it easier to get them as a sponsor. Personally I can see positives to both sides.

As far as districts go I do hope they do this nation wide. It is a good way to get out and be able to play a lot of matches/events. Like many it will depend on how they split up the nation. Overall I think natural geography rather than state lines should play more of a role into where teams land. I dont think teams should be able to change the district they compete in, but allowing them to play in a 3rd event outside of there district if theres room would be a decent idea. Hope they do it and curious to see where the lines end up. Sounded like last year this would probably happen after the competition this year.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by kwotremb

I think this is one of the better reasons I have heard to not have a ship/bag-tag date. This would work really well for those teams that made it to championships but need a few more dollars to get there. They can bring their robot around to local companies and be able to show them their robot itself. Without this all you can do is show them pictures, but having a robot there would make it easier to get them as a sponsor. Personally I can see positives to both sides.

As far as districts go I do hope they do this nation wide. It is a good way to get out and be able to play a lot of matches/events. Like many it will depend on how they split up the nation. Overall I think natural geography rather than state lines should play more of a role into where teams land. I dont think teams should be able to change the district they compete in, but allowing them to play in a 3rd event outside of there district if theres room would be a decent idea. Hope they do it and curious to see where the lines end up. Sounded like last year this would probably happen after the competition this year.

Agreed! I think that districts too will have a better ability to help complete Dean's homework as they are more "local" events. It seems that more public comes to see some off-season events in Manchester such as River Rage than GSR. Yes, that assumption may be wrong a little, but I hear a ton of people walk in the doors saying they heard there was a robotics competition and decided to come in. How many people will travel 40+mins to a regional to watch a team compete from their local high school? Most likely only family and close, close friends would do that. If a state had several districts spread out, the public would have an easier time coming into the regional right down the street than a trip down the highway.

EDIT: I would like to apologize for two posts I made earlier in this thread as I did not think thoroughly through the idea and they were not related to this thread which is why they were deleted.

[Karibou]

Last year, I wasn't a fan of the District format. I hated it, because it meant no travelling out of state (going to Pittsburgh as my first FIRST event freshman year was the highlight of my season). Since then, I've been somewhat converted. In 2009, we would have been able to only go to one event, because of monetary issues. The district format allowed us to attend two events, and gave us time to fundraise for states. While MI doesn't have the worst economy in the nation (to my knowledge), we have one of the highest concentrations of FRC teams all badgering for the little money that's available. From a financial standpoint, FiM is great.

However, I don't support the idea of implementing the same system in other states, because of the travel constraints it would impose. If we were to shut out all of the events in the Northeast, all of the events in CA, and all of the events in MI...well, that would put the teams who don't live in those areas in a VERY difficult situation. Teams from Nevada wouldn't be able to go to their CA events. You wouldn't see 217 at FLR, and you wouldn't see a lot of the Canadian teams outside of Canada (Israel would be the one exception, though - open that up to Israel and Turkey and any other teams from the Middle East area, and it would be a great event. Especially given the struggles from this year). Somebody mentioned that MI kids aren't as exposed to the rest of the FRC world outside of MI, and I completely agree. Soon, very few MI kids will recognize names like Wildstang, MORT, Exploding Bacon, etc.

(my quick $0.02 while waiting for our team meeting to start)

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by FoleyParent

‘conferences’ (to steal a word from sports)

Yes! A word to define the geographical area which supports a championship - CONFERENCE. Let's push for that to be the official designation.

[Al3+]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Team A would compete against teams who have a similar disadvantage. Now, at the Championship level it could be a problem but if all teams get their robot back and have time to work on it after their events this difference goes away.

That's true. Event timing should ideally still be consistent for everyone, but with a team attending 2 district events in 4 weeks, variations in event timing probably won't influence performance by much either way.

Sounds like a good idea.

[Swan217]

Originally Posted by Karibou

However, I don't support the idea of implementing the same system in other states, because of the travel constraints it would impose. If we were to shut out all of the events in the Northeast, all of the events in CA, and all of the events in MI...well, that would put the teams who don't live in those areas in a VERY difficult situation. Teams from Nevada wouldn't be able to go to their CA events. You wouldn't see 217 at FLR, and you wouldn't see a lot of the Canadian teams outside of Canada... Somebody mentioned that MI kids aren't as exposed to the rest of the FRC world outside of MI, and I completely agree. Soon, very few MI kids will recognize names like Wildstang, MORT, Exploding Bacon, etc.

The district format has many positives from a robot perspective, yes. More matches, more robot access, more benefit to building a strong "winner" robot than a GP helper bot. But it's not a model that solves all problems, and it's not a model that works everywhere. I see it working in CA & MI, Florida maybe, and New England if you include all of the states and let outsiders "opt-in." One problem with districts is that you can't "Opt-Out." Tech Fusion was lucky because they're physically half-Ohio, but for the rest of MI teams, it would cost $11,000 to attend one competition if you didn't want to be part of MI. This puts teams in border areas like the UP at a disadvantage, because it may be easier for them to attend MN or WI regionals than MI districts. It also inconveniences border teams on the other side, that are forced to go to a regional, when there are two districts physically closer, but behind the Steel Curtain.

I think a great advantage that I had as a student in FRC is the ability to go to Midwest and Epcot and see all of the teams from different cultures that you don't see with a homogeneous population. It gives you different perspectives, seeing how different areas of the country handle the engineering challenges. I've heard more than once how some people miss how the MI teams, the "West Coast Offense" of FIRST, come into a Midwest or Pitts or FLR, kick butt, and inspire their own teams to be more "Michigan." There's also an indescribable professionalism that I see with regionals that you miss out if you're stuck behind the Steel Curtain.

I agree that some things, like the crating procedures and the all-Thursday practice, are archaic, but the main benefit I see of the district format is that it has forced the FRC to compete with it. You see that this year with Thurs Quals next week, the pilot bagging at Pitts and KC, and faster match turnaround at regionals this year, leading to more matches. I think if we maintain the current status-quo, with an "opt-in/opt-out" clause, the two competitions FRC and FiM can feed off of each other and benefit each other by forcing the other to innovate and push the envelope.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by EricH

I don't think it's going to work in CA the same way it does in MI for a couple of years yet.

CA has: 0 regionals in the north geographic half of the state, 2 in the central portion, and 2 in the south. The team distribution (and the population distribution) follow this, so that doesn't really factor in.

What does factor in is that we've got two clusters of teams that are perpetually in the middle. The central coast teams like 973 have to go either up the coast and stay a few days or down the coast and do the same. The desert teams like 399 (Lancaster) and 1641 (Mojave) have to choose: California (typically L.A.), or Vegas/Arizona? It's not an easy question. It's like the MI UP teams, especially in the west end. I have yet to hear of a "good" solution for them (i.e., one that doesn't involve traveling a full day down and a full day back twice).

We've also got 4 main clusters, all around existing regionals.

But what really made FiM work well was the fact that there is one organization that assists the entire state. CA has no fewer than 3 (Team San Diego, SCRRF, and WRRF). They'd have to either coordinate or combine, and when you're separated by 2-9 hours between pockets of teams, and therefore organizations, it's a lot harder to do that.

For CA, a better short-term option might be to put a regional in the middle or expand one of the existing regionals to a double regional. If another regional was added, I'd suggest Bakersfield or Fresno--they're about in the middle, and could act as a meeting point for most of the teams. Long-term, yes, hopefully go district. But short-term, we don't have anywhere near the density MI does, and would want to build up more (and more sustainable) teams before going that route.


You can't just say, "You're going to use this model", because in this case, "this model" was developed in one area with one kind of needs, and those needs aren't necessarily the same in the rest of the country. You have to adapt the model to the area it's being adopted in. I've got some ideas how to adapt it to CA, but they'd need improvement, and you'd want another event or so.

There are 3 central coast teams; 973, 1388 and 1717. Also, we currently have to travel to every event, so I see no downside to the district system.

Making a central coast event would really be inappropriate in my opinion, there aren't a lot of good locations, every other team at the event would need to travel, and considering we're 120ish miles from 1717, it wouldn't be local to all the central coast teams.

[maltz1881]

Personally I love the districts. Before they were started our team would attend a regional, play 8 matches and we would call it good for the year. With the districts we play approx. 25 or more matches. That is triple from what we used to play.

One of the biggest reasons districts work is because of the volunteers. Each and every team must supply at least 2. On top of those great volunteers from the teams, we get others that are willing to give a piece of themselves. Michigan has some of the finest people who are willing to come lend a hand. Each event has at least 100 volunteers that are willing to do any job from being a judge to handing out safety glasses at the pit doors. Every job is extremely important.

Each host team works for months in advance to make sure everything runs smoothly. Setting up the field takes an incredible group of team leaders and students working side by side. The only rewards they get are a few pieces of pizza and the satisfaction in knowing they have accomplished something that many teams from around the world have never known.

While I seriously doubt that this would work for everybody. It would work in other areas that have well over 100 teams like MI. CA and FL come to mind for places that it would work.