Understanding FiM State Qualification

[Mr. Pockets]

I was looking at the FiM results and rankings spreadsheet (found at firstinmichgian.org), and had a question. Some teams are shaded green, to show that they have already qualified for States. I was just curious how that information would be available at this point, as the Michigan Rules Supplement only states that the top ranked teams teams qualify (as do the winners of the state specific awards). Obviously some teams like 2474 are far enough ahead of the pack that it's obvious, but for the lower ones in that category, is it just a certain point threshold that must be passed?

Appreciate any clarification

[Brian Ha]

Good Evening Mr. Pockets,

The teams that are already highlighted green have either won a district or won an award. The former is the 3 teams who win finals. While the latter is the Chairman's Award Winners.

Hope that clears everything up for you,

Brian Ha

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally Posted by Brian Ha

Good Evening Mr. Pockets,

The teams that are already highlighted green have either won a district or won an award. The former is the 3 teams who win finals. While the latter is the Chairman's Award Winners.

Hope that clears everything up for you,

Brian Ha

That confuses me though, as my former team (1189), is currently highlighted despite only making it to semifinals at highest, and only winning two spirit awards.

[Wayne TenBrink]

64 teams will qualify for MSC. That number includes the District Chairman's Award winners from each event, and the balance consists of the teams with highest FiM ranking point totals. In the past, it has taken about 50 points or so to make the cut. That number will vary with the number of teams in MI, etc. It appears that FiM has identified some numbers (around 65 for teams with one event so far and 75 for teams with two events) that they consider to be a safe bet for qualifying, and they are just letting these teams know so they can plan ahead. Perhaps FiM has calculated numbers that are a mathematic lock. I don't know. I am sure that it isn't about winning awards or events. We are "green", but we tried to register with FIRST and they wouldn't let us yet.

[Brian Ha]

I believe Wayne is correct on this one. What they probably did was if they gave the "max score" to every other team, would you still qualify, i'm assuming that if this happened you would still qualify. It is a simplistic mathematical calculation.

So i going to give a shout-out to the person/people who do and thank them for this in advance.

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

64 teams will qualify for MSC. That number includes the District Chairman's Award winners from each event, and the balance consists of the teams with highest FiM ranking point totals. In the past, it has taken about 50 points or so to make the cut. That number will vary with the number of teams in MI, etc. It appears that FiM has identified some numbers (around 65 for teams with one event so far and 75 for teams with two events) that they consider to be a safe bet for qualifying, and they are just letting these teams know so they can plan ahead. Perhaps FiM has calculated numbers that are a mathematic lock. I don't know. I am sure that it isn't about winning awards or events. We are "green", but we tried to register with FIRST and they wouldn't let us yet.

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation, and hopefully we'll see you guys at states!

[Brian Ha]

Wait... Hold on i looked more carefully at the file and 910 isn't qualified, now if you all remember they ended up winning with 70 and 862 at Kettering. Unfortunately i think what might be going on is they might be having some issues with the green highlighting. I wouldn't trust it at this time unless you have won a district.

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by Brian Ha

Wait... Hold on i looked more carefully at the file and 910 isn't qualified, now if you all remember they ended up winning with 70 and 862 at Kettering. Unfortunately i think what might be going on is they might be having some issues with the green highlighting. I wouldn't trust it at this time unless you have won a district.

70 and 862 both have above 65 points, while 910 is below that threshold from just their first competition. As Wayne said above, 65 appears to be the number of points that FiM has identified as the magic number for teams that have only played one of their two districts. In addition, winning a district isn't necessarily a golden ticket, as there has been at least one team in past years that won a district and did not qualify (I do believe they won a third district rather than one of their first two, but in any case it's still mathematically possible to win one district and still not qualify if performance was rough enough at the other).

[Mr. Pockets]

Originally Posted by Allison K

70 and 862 both have above 65 points, while 910 is below that threshold from just their first competition. As Wayne said above, 65 appears to be the number of points that FiM has identified as the magic number for teams that have only played one of their two districts. In addition, winning a district isn't necessarily a golden ticket, as there has been at least one team in past years that won a district and did not qualify (I do believe they won a third district rather than one of their first two, but in any case it's still mathematically possible to win one district and still not qualify if performance was rough enough at the other).

The other thing to keep in mind was that 910 was the last pick for the winning alliance, so the points for that weren't actually as high as one would imagine they would be (it's 24 points, but they didn't have all that many wins at Kettering, so even with the winning position, they still only got 36 QP)

[Brian Ha]

Originally Posted by Allison K

70 and 862 both have above 65 points, while 910 is below that threshold from just their first competition. As Wayne said above, 65 appears to be the number of points that FiM has identified as the magic number for teams that have only played one of their two districts. In addition, winning a district isn't necessarily a golden ticket, as there has been at least one team in past years that won a district and did not qualify (I do believe they won a third district rather than one of their first two, but in any case it's still mathematically possible to win one district and still not qualify if performance was rough enough at the other).

While you are in some points correct, if you win a district (such that they are the ones you selected beforehand and not any additional districts) then you are qualified for states.

Also with what magichau said, yea i agree basically. The ones who have 70+ and only one district played are usually the district winners as well. Or usually around there.

I still believe there are some mistakes but they are doing a pretty good job and i say hold on to week 6 before being positive your going to actually make it.

[nikeairmancurry]

Winning a event does not grant you a spot at MSC. Also you can kind of figure out the cut off number points wise on your own. If you figure out the total points given out at one event and multiply it by 11 and divide it by the number of teams competing (times 2 for two events) you come up with a number of about 25 points per event, or 50 for the year. I think if you set that 50 as your mean on a normal distrubition, you can come up with a number close to the projected cut off. Which a few of us have found is to be around 60 points.

State Championship: Qualifying and Registering to Compete
Sixty four (64) teams will qualify for the State Championship:
The District Chairman’s Award Winner from each district event will automatically qualify for a spot.
The balance of the 64 State Championship spots will be filled by the top teams in ranked order based on their total points following the close of the district event season.

From the FiM supplement rules.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by Brian Ha

While you are in some points correct, if you win a district (such that they are the ones you selected beforehand and not any additional districts) then you are qualified for states.

This is not a correct statement. The only automatic way to qualify for the Michigan State Championship event is to win the District Chairman's Award. Winning an event earns you a significant amount of points. If you perform well at your second district, you will most likely be qualified, but it is not a direct guarantee that you will move on to the MSC.

[pathew100]

Case in point: There were three teams that were a 2nd pick for a winning alliance at a district last year (2012) that did not qualify for states.

[S.W.A.G Napper]

At this point, the rankings don't really matter because not every team has played two events, while it's great to see how your doing against other teams I think probably to stalk the rankings after the Bedford district, nothing is set in stone yet. Some people [at least on my team] argue you'll need 50 points and others say high 70s. We don't really know.

[MagiChau]

I would say if you have 70+ points you are 100% in for State.