Bad News for teams on Waiting List

[Nawaid Ladak]

i say work on this system...

NO OPEN REGESTRATION

Everything happens depending on the regionals

things taken into consideration.

# of teams at regionals
Awards won (Regional Champions, Regionals Finalists, Chairmans Engineering Insparition and any other banner awards,+ Rookie All Star)

At each regional, the judges are given a number of AT LARGE bids for teams, Those at large teams aren't announced until the TUESDAY after that regional.

1-9 Teams = 1 At Large Bid
10-19 Teams = 2 At Large Bids
20-29 Teams = 3 At Large Bids

You guys get the idea...

That way, what the judges see as the best robots or the most deserve worthy of going to nationals gets to go.

How would you guys like that

It would probally lead to the same # of teams, just better performing teams will be there

or maybe a nationals event instead of international championship,

so regionals > nationals > championship

i think that would work too

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

At each regional, the judges are given a number of AT LARGE bids for teams, Those at large teams aren't announced until the TUESDAY after that regional.

1-9 Teams = 1 At Large Bid
10-19 Teams = 2 At Large Bids
20-29 Teams = 3 At Large Bids

I'd say this wouldn't work. It's too open for human factors to play a part (what if the judge missed your robot, or was a mentor for a certain team, etc). It'd be better to simply reduce the number of pre-qualified teams from each regional. If you think we get whiny threads NOW about ref decisions, wait until the first box-on-wheels robot that got top seed because of luck doesn't get picked to go to championships, or a quite deserving robot doesn't get picked at a high-skill regional because there were so many deserving robots.

so regionals > nationals > championship

i think that would work too

It'd probably cost too much money for individual teams to attend any kind of a tiered tournament structure. I was reading a pamphlet posted in the "how to attract sponsors" thread, and for the team whose pamphlet it was, it cost them $17,000 to go to Atlanta. Just imagine having to go to another city to prove you need to go to Atlanta.


My idea would be to simply extend the length of the current championship. Have two super-divisions, let's call them A and B. Within A and B would basically be an entire championship. There'd be a Newton-A, a Curie-A, etc.
All wednesday: A qualifiers
Thursday: A finishes qualifiers at noon, rest of day A temporarily packs their robots off to the side and B uncrates
Friday: B qualifiers
Saturday: B finishes qualifiers at noon, the finals alliances for each division are picked (top 4 picking instead of top 8 picking), and elimination rounds start.

Perhaps reduce finals alliances to top-4 in each division so that eliminations take the same time as they currently do.

Advantages:
-Teams don't have to attend a third tier of competitions, which would cost them lots of money
-It doesn't take up twice as much room (since only one division is fully active at once) as simply having two simultaneous championships, but it does take twice as much time
-Since finals alliances are picked on saturday, A doesn't have a strategizing advantage over B. If you allow both super-divisions to pick any robot in A or B, then A doesn't have a scouting advantage either.

Problems in mine:
-It's kinda confusing
-It'd cost A teams more money since they'd have to have the full team there for all days, while B teams could send a scouting and uncrating contingent on wednesday and send the full team in on friday.
-For A, having to re-crate your robot and pit somewhere in the Georgiadome while B was playing on Friday-Saturday would be annoying
-It's not really extendable for when champs grows twice as big as it is now. At some point, another tier of competitions will have to happen.

[Donut]

I can think of another factor driving the open registration system; travel planning. If all teams had to win a regional event or award at a regional to attend the Championship, I think you would see ALOT of teams that could never go to the Championship, because they need to setup all the travel arrangements very early on (mine would have severe problems; our district wants out of state travel approval a year in advance, and paying for things through a purchase order takes an average of 6 weeks to do, meaning it's incredibly difficult, and often impossible, to do last minute travel things). Excluding teams that have schools with strange and confusing travel rules doesn't seem too fair either.

I think FIRST should keep some kind of open registration system, but when it starts to be time to reduce those numbers, they may have to implement the tier system a little more heavily (for example, no team that went the previous year gets in on the tier system, or just keep the current system but cut the open spots by close to half).

[Conor Ryan]

Here is the dilema, the Georgia World Congress Center can fit probably every single FIRST team under their roof comfortably (we only use a small fraction of the available space). The Georgia Dome itself cannot fit another field without closing the FVC or FLL tournament (remember its the FIRST Championships, not the FRC Championships). So without limiting the number of matches any more than it is already the Championship cannot grow anymore.

I think the best way to control the problem people have with the present system is to tighten up the At Large Bid system.

[rsilverstein]

At each regional there should be an award (like the judges award) called: you didn't win, and you don't necessarily have the best "program", but you have a GREAT robot that deserves to go to the Championship.
Maybe make it an optional award, but, for example, team 968 didn't qualify for Atlanta, but they have an amazing robot that the whole country/world should be exposed to. Robots like that should be able to go.

yes, I know, 968 and 254 are the same robot, but you get the idea.

[efoote868]

Well, I was disappointed when I saw this. I know that this year our robot would contend for nats more than ever, and we were something like 40th on the wait list. Looks like we'll just have to rock next year

IRI, here we come.

[dangerousdave]

I will stay on topic here. As Amy Prib said earlier in this thread "There's a nice long thread with previous discussions about where people think Championships should go after Atlanta contract is up…" It is disappointing to everyone especially the teams involved, that every team that wants to go to the Championship event can not. Our team has been fortunate and honored to qualify for Championship's since 2004.

As Connor Ryan said "The Georgia Dome itself cannot fit another field without closing the FVC or FLL tournament (remember its the FIRST Championships, not the FRC Championships)." Atlanta could handle more pit space in the GWCC buildings B & A.

If it is a competition space issue then I am not sure that any other domed stadium in the USA has a significantly higher amount of floor space than the GA Dome. The RCA Dome in Indianapolis has about 7,000 less square feet on the floor than the GA Dome. Perhaps the new stadium will have larger floor space. The Edward Jones dome in St. Louis may have more floor space.

The domes are built primarily to house a football field in. The new Univ. of Phoenix Stadium has a retractable side and field but I don't think there is a convention center next to it that could house the pits. Of course the competition could be moved outside of the USA but not likely anytime soon.

IndySam mentioned that Atlanta has Coke as a sugar daddy. I think that 2006 was the first year that Coke was a First sponsor and the event has been in Atlanta since 2004. I am not sure how much of an effect Coke has had.

Again, it is sad that all can not attend but I THINK that if you must be in a domed stadium then most of them have about the same floor size. Then you have to compare other things like hotels, transportation into and around the city, restaurants etc.

We local Atlanta people are of course extremely happy to have the event close by making travel much easier. However, when a site that is better suited for the Championship's is found we will be there!

Dave

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

The Georgia Dome itself cannot fit another field without closing the FVC or FLL tournament (remember its the FIRST Championships, not the FRC Championships).

And the FVC program is growing by leaps and bounds! We hope to have around 100 teams in Atlanta next month...

[Donut]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

The domes are built primarily to house a football field in. The new Univ. of Phoenix Stadium has a retractable side and field but I don't think there is a convention center next to it that could house the pits. Of course the competition could be moved outside of the USA but not likely anytime soon.

Since we bring up Phoenix, I thought I'd clarify that we do have the Phoenix Coyotes Arena sharing the same parking lot, and they're currently finding stores to add to the mall there. However there still aren't alot of hotels withint walking distance, and the public transportation system here is less than stellar (a light rail system will eventually go from the airport to the stadium, but not until 2016). Anyway, enough of that.

I'm surprised to see how many teams are at the Championships this year (376 pit spaces). I remember in 2004 when there were just 75 or 80 per division, and now we'll be up to 94 per division.

It will be interesting to watch the Championship over the next few years; if FIRST continues its trend of growing at rapid paces (300+ new teams a year) while retaining over 90% of veteran teams, the Championship process is going to have to adapt very quickly to a new system.

[David Brinza]

Yes, FIRST with >4,000 teams (a number WAY less than Dean's goal ) will be a very different animal.

The number of regional events will grow, team waiting lists for popular regionals will grow, the qualification criteria for going the Championships will get tougher (it wasn't long ago that design awards qualified a team for the Championship). I suspect many, many, more teams will never see the Championship venue. You cannot arbitrarily grow the size of the Championship: the event becomes unwieldy and even unnattractive to teams (imagine only playing four or five qualifying matches with only 1 out of 6 or 7 teams moving into the elimination rounds).

Maybe FIRST will create Divisions or Classes to separate the large, powerhouse, veteran teams from the rookies, or smaller teams with limited resources. Perhaps "Super Regional Tournaments" (North, South, East, West?) will be held on the road to a Final Championship. That can add another two weeks or so to the competition season.

Indeed, it will be interesting to watch FIRST grow. As FIRST participants, we need to make sure that in a few years we don't look back and think of these as "the good ol' days of FIRST".

Our ideas and opinions can strongly influence the direction of FIRST, if you see a way something that can be done better: speak up!

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

The RCA Dome in Indianapolis has about 7,000 less square feet on the floor than the GA Dome.

Found in this PDF file, the new one in Indianapolis will provide nearly 135,000 square feet of space, and will have a retractable roof.

[dangerousdave]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Found in this PDF file, the new one in Indianapolis will provide nearly 135,000 square feet of space, and will have a retractable roof.

I assume that you are talking about floor space between the seating areas for the competition fields. If so, then I believe that is about 33,000 more sq. ft. than the GA Dome. If there will be a good place close by for the pits, enough hotel rooms and adequate transportation and restaurants we may be heading to IN.
Dave

[GaryVoshol]

//snipped//

Originally Posted by David Brinza

Yes, FIRST with >4,000 teams (a number WAY less than Dean's goal ) will be a very different animal.

The number of regional events will grow, team waiting lists for popular regionals will grow, the qualification criteria for going the Championships will get tougher

Maybe FIRST will create Divisions or Classes

Perhaps "Super Regional Tournaments" (North, South, East, West?) will be held on the road to a Final Championship. That can add another two weeks or so to the competition season.

FIRST already has a model for that - FLL. It's different, because there are no alliances on the field. But a parallel structure could be created.

In Michigan this year there were about 400 FLL teams. They competed in 14 regionals. 1/4 of the teams at each regional advanced to the State Tournamants (we had 2 this year; in effect Michigan is now 2 FLL states, SE Mich and N&W Mich.) One Champion winner was selected at both State Tournaments - the rough equivalent of Chairmans, but it involves game play, technical awards, research and community outreach. These Champions, plus those from other states and countries, were invited to the World Festival in Atlanta.

That model will probably have to be translated to FVC in a year or two.

Once the number of FRC regional winners exceeds the number of spaces available for the Championship, FRC will have to come up with a multi-tiered qualification scheme. Maybe 4 weeks of qualifying regionals, winners (more than just 6, criteria TBD) would advance to 2 weeks of super-regionals. Winners from those super-regionals would advance to the Championships. It would extend the competition season from the current 7-8 weeks to 10 or 11 weeks. It could create more travel costs.

The first step might be to limit teams to entering only one regional.

Yes, an expanded FIRST will look far different than it does today.

[efoote868]

Indy is making a bid for the super bowl (where the standards are extremely high), so there will probably be more than adequate hotel and accommodations.

Also, it will be connected with the convention center (i think underground tunnel, but i'm not sure exactly), so if that is used for pits, it would make a pretty sweet setup. I guess the only thing that bums me out is that if not next year, then i'll have graduated.

[meatmanek]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

If there will be a good place close by for the pits, enough hotel rooms and adequate transportation and restaurants we may be heading to IN.
Dave

Hah, adequate transportation... This is Indianapolis we're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana...Transportation