Winning Multiple Regionals

[E. Wood]

I would love to play against a team that won three regional. My team (1629) actually did this year (1024 in buckeye). We beat them in our first semi-final match and i must say it was one of my proudest moments. Beating a team that has beaten everyone else, even if it is only once, is an awesome experince. I consider it an honor to get to play with these teams. I also have yet to meet a team that plays with a "win at all cost"mentality. Also think about this. How satisfying would it be to win only because the superpower stopped trying?

[The Lucas]

I have been lightly following this thread and its parent (it is time consuming to follow it in depth). One word keeps coming to mind when reading the arguments but I haven't heard anyone say it. I searched that word in both threads and no results. The word I am thinking of is:

parity

If I can just steer the discussion ( aka threadjack ) a bit and ask:

Do we need parity of competitive skill in FIRST?
If we need it, how would we go about achieving it?

I'll hold my opinions on those questions for a bit because I'm interested in other people's opinions on this. Here are a few of my subjective observations on parity. Parity does seem to vary significantly by game. The 2005-present 3 robot alliances seems to increase parity over the 2 robot alliances.

The NFL believes it needs parity for its fanbase, does FIRST need parity for inspiration?

[DanTod97]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

I have been lightly following this thread and its parent (it is time consuming to follow it in depth). One word keeps coming to mind when reading the arguments but I haven't heard anyone say it. I searched that word in both threads and no results. The word I am thinking of is:

parity

If I can just steer the discussion ( aka threadjack ) a bit and ask:

Do we need parity of competitive skill in FIRST?
If we need it, how would we go about achieving it?

I'll hold my opinions on those questions for a bit because I'm interested in other people's opinions on this. Here are a few of my subjective observations on parity. Parity does seem to vary significantly by game. The 2005-present 3 robot alliances seems to increase parity over the 2 robot alliances.

The NFL believes it needs parity for its fanbase, does FIRST need parity for inspiration?

Not necessarily for its inspiration but why does everything about the way its run have to soely be about inspiration? I think this program no matter how its run is going to be amazing for inspiration, but then once inside theres no reason things like this cant change for other reasons.

[Chris27]

Originally Posted by DanTod97

I just think its rediculous that people actually consider teams going through and winning sometimes three seperate regionals, what on earth is going through their heads as they take that third win? I just dont see how that can be helpful or inspiring in anyway, even if you want to argue that it can be inspiring to some people, I think there are much better ways to inspire people than to dominate them after completing 6 weeks of hard work. Its just unnecessary.

Edit: this is almost a separate argument, its unnecessary weather it has to do with student mentor ratio or not.

I couldn't disagree more. I guess you can either feel jealous about those teams and mope about or you can consider why these robots are good, and try to make one of the same caliber the following year, or even modify your current robot if you are competing at another regional. At times I've shared similar feelings that you have had, where I felt that our robot lost and our run was cut short by an unfair playing field. If you want, I have a somewhat infamous post you can dig up. A few years ago, I believed that overly defensive teams were ruining it for the offensive teams that really put their heart and soul into meeting the games challenge, which at the time I interpreted as scoring the most points. However, my team did not stop looking forward and compensated for our weakness with a modification we called "the magic foot". We learned the valuable lesson that defense is part of the game, to deal with it, and to not skimp out on the drive train (now we have an awesome swerve drive). My team was fortunate enough to make it to the championship our rookie year. Our team was also fortunate to get our asses handed to us on a silver platter (If I recall correctly we ended up dead last in our division). We got to see what the pro's did and what it took to compete. Without this experience, I don't think we have built the bot in this match
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z7fep3iJ5e8. (We are the fridge, ugly yet effective )

Instead of complaining about the unfairness of the playing field, it would be much more productive to find out what you have to do to beat these super teams. Trust me, It can be done. Even if you don't succeed, well Isn't the privilege of getting to play with these teams enough? Your attitude determines your enjoyment and what you get out of the competition. Why focus on the negatives? And this is coming from a pessimist...

[DanTod97]

Originally Posted by Chris27

I couldn't disagree more. I guess you can either feel jealous about those teams and mope

...

[AndyB]

The teams that have inspired me the most have been 1114, 71, 111, 47, 1024, 1503/1680, 217, 148, 233, 93, 118... etc...

What do they all have in common? They are GOOD teams. They win regionals. They take a challenge and they complete it to the best of their abilities. They are the guys that make me continue and that encourage me to try new things.

Not only do they challenge me because they are good, but when 1114 transforms from a robot into a ramp, 71 wins a match in the first 10 seconds, 111 shoots balls with near perfect accuracy while being pushed sideways in autonomous, and 118 swerves around the field with insane mobility and control, it inspires me to try to emulate there actions or better yet, try something even better.

Regionals are won by effective designs. Effective designs are cool. And cool inspires. Seeing a team win three regionals only makes me want to strive for a better robot, better sponsorships, better team organization, and in the end, I am a better person for it.

[DanTod97]

Considering this is a very opinionated topic there is not much way to argue it either way except to state scenarios and feelings about them, which will not get very far at persuading anyone either way. So unless anyone has something radical to say, I dont see this topic going much further.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by DanTod97

Considering this is a very opinionated topic there is not much way to argue it either way except to state scenarios and feelings about them, which will not get very far at persuading anyone either way. So unless anyone has something radical to say, I dont see this topic going much further.

One thing I am curious about and have not seen you answer is what your proposed solution is to this proposed problem.

Would you like to see teams restricted to one regional event per year?
Would you like to see teams withdraw from other regionals after winning one?
Would you like to see teams show up, but purposely "dog it" and then decline any alliance selection?

Without looking for solutions, constructive criticism is really just whining.

[DanTod97]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Would you like to see teams restricted to one regional event per year?
Would you like to see teams withdraw from other regionals after winning one?
Would you like to see teams show up, but purposely "dog it" and then decline any alliance selec

Thats what ive been trying to come up with. The whole concept of a regional IS you only go to one, in which if you win you move on to the nationals. On the other hand FIRST isnt a normal competition, but I guess I would have to say yes, restriction to one seems to be the best solution. Most will disagree with that since weve alreayd figured out we dissagree on the part about if FIRST is meant to be fair or not. The way I see it is its a competition, if its not meant to be fair then it should not be one to begin with, perhaps we can just have extremely large robot party's.

I also see fairness going along with equality and equality going along with gracious profesionalism, I dont see anything being gracious without being fair.

[MrForbes]

The neat thing about regionals, is that they ARE big robot parties!

My older son (college student) and I finally went to a regional where we weren't competing, it was a blast

[Mr. Freeman]

I think there might be a problem with the terminology here. Whether it is fair, GP, inspirational, or fun to win more than one regional.

I have fun at regionals and my team has never won any award nor anything past the semi-final rounds of the competition.

I feel inspired by seeing some of these "super-bots" that look like a professional team of engineers made them (very few are completely mentor-designed, but that's a different topic). Talking to the students who made these and seeing how they did it is a great part of the competition. Seeing how clever some of the mechanisms on some of these bots are amazes me. The inspiration comes from simply looking at the robots and seeing how they preform, not necessarily how they do competition-wise.

I can see where the OP is coming from, because it's never a really good feeling when you know that there's no way you're going to win against one of these "super-bots". But I don't think that makes them any less inspirational.
I wasn't particularly thrilled to know that the alliance I was on was going to have to beat winnovation to move past the semi-finals, but I'll eat my hat (the black one that says "FIRST" and has the red/white lightning over it, if you were at the CO. regional, you probably saw it) if anyone can convince me that their robot isn't inspirational. (And I did have fun playing against them).

On the other hand, we must ask "Is it fair or gracious for one team to win more than one regional and thus prevent other teams from making it to nationals?"
I can see both sides to this argument.
If one team has the resources and ability to win more than one regional, they should be allowed to do so.
However, to reach nationals teams should not be required to be the best robot out of every entry at 3 different regionals. After all, aren't the national competitions for determining the best robot out of every entry?
Also, I think FIRST wants as many people to attend nationals as possible which is why they fill empty spots in nationals with teams who have not attended nationals.

Personally, I'd like to see teams only win one regional, but I don't think this is likely to happen and it would restrict teams from competing in the elimination matches at secondary regionals, which isn't necessarily something I'd like to see.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DanTod97

Thats what ive been trying to come up with. The whole concept of a regional IS you only go to one, in which if you win you move on to the nationals. On the other hand FIRST isnt a normal competition, but I guess I would have to say yes, restriction to one seems to be the best solution. Most will disagree with that since weve alreayd figured out we dissagree on the part about if FIRST is meant to be fair or not. The way I see it is its a competition, if its not meant to be fair then it should not be one to begin with, perhaps we can just have extremely large robot party's.

I also see fairness going along with equality and equality going along with gracious profesionalism, I dont see anything being gracious without being fair.

Restriction to one event...Fairness...Equality...Hmm. I see something here. Before I get to that, I think it's fair to warn you that you aren't going to like what I am about to say.


Fairness first. The world isn't fair. I know, it's a cliche. But, it's a fact of life. Live with it. FIRST is already trying to level the playing field.

Equality second. This goes with fairness. A legacy team =/= a rookie team. There are rookies that play like veterans and rookies that play like rookies. You probably aren't going to get this either.

One other thing before I proceed: You don't have to win your way to the championship. If my team wanted to go and there was a slot available, we could plunk down our $5000 plus travel and go. It's been that way time out of mind. In the early days of FRC, you didn't even have to attend a regional to go to the championship (known then as nationals).

Back to the main topic: Restriction to one regional. There are teams that are right smack in the middle of two or three regionals that aren't the same weekend. None of them is really their "home" regional. And they're all in their "region". (E.g. what Easterners often think of CA--there are FOUR regionals in one "region", plus two more in the area. West Coast teams think differently.)And you say they should be restricted to one. There are going to be some very annoyed teams out there. Or you get the teams with no regionals in their area. should they not be allowed to compete, or should they choose the closest one?

What I'm saying is, you need to think a little bit more. At this point, it'll be hard to change.

Back to fairness for a moment: Is the NFL fair? Yes? Well, then, why do some teams DOMINATE the NFL? Why are some teams never heard of except in their own areas or when they play those teams?

It is possible to be gracious without being fair. I could, in the most gracious manner possible, tell you that a match that you lost due to my bad calls (which are final) will not be rescored or replayed. That isn't fair to you...but I would be gracious. (I would, however, not be professional.) I think the term you were looking for is actually "just".

One further point about a one-regional restriction. Let's look at college sports for this one. There are conferences within college sports--Pac-10, Big 10, etc. Those are like the regionals of FIRST, correct? But every team in every conference plays outside the conference for at least half the season, right? And those are competitions, right?

[Kmo]

Attending three regional and being able to win each one is pretty cool. Our team has attended three regional before and use those opportunities to give the members on our team the chance to gain the ability and confidence to be able to do what they want to do. While being able to do this we still try ourselves to win at the regional we attend. This whole competition, this whole program is about changing the culture, changing the way people think about science and technology. FIRST isn't about the robot it's about learning how to be a team, a leader, the confidence to do anything you want.

So if a team like 1114 attends more than one regional I would have to say I am very happy for them. They give there members the chance to experience the excitement and acknowledgement of what it is like to be part of the team that works together as one. I think any team would take up that opportunity if given the chance.

[James Mullenax]

Im just curious what you would want someone to do about winning multiple regionals... you want a team who built an excellent robot be punished for winning... if they go to multiple regionals you want them to be eliminated from the finals?? i feel that if they can let them do it and everyone could/would/should look up to those teams and try for the same in the future!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by James Mullenax

Im just curious what you would want someone to do about winning multiple regionals... you want a team who built an excellent robot be punished for winning... if they go to multiple regionals you want them to be eliminated from the finals?? i feel that if they can let them do it and everyone could/would/should look up to those teams and try for the same in the future!

By the way, FLL has this same rule. You can only qualify to go to the next level at ONE event. (Barring Local Events only, as those aren't for qualification.)

Some people weren't happy when the rule wasn't clear at the start.