3rd Regional Question

[moogboy]

Hi all,

I'm a little bit curious about why FIRST allows teams to sign up for a third regional. I would assume this is a somewhat localized thing to areas where there are a lot of teams, like my own state, Michigan.

Anyway, why is this allowed? What was the spirit of the creation of this provision?

I ask because my team is going to a week 6 regional (Bedford if you're curious) where 27 or 28 of the teams registered have already had 2 competitions. One look at the teams list would lead someone with knowledge of FiM to see that it will be an AMAZING competition with some very strong competitors. This got me thinking, however, about why third events are allowed and whether situations like this are really the most appropriate thing. Obviously this is something of an extreme case that is highly unlikely, but it is conceivable that the 27/28 teams whose performance at Bedford will not affect their standings in the state could contribute all 24 of the robots in eliminations. That just doesn't sit well with me. It seems to me that in a situation like that, where a significant number of teams competed in eliminations but received no points for it when other teams could have received those points, it's kind of cheating those other teams out of an event...if that makes sense?

I totally understand that there are reasons that so many teams are having their 3rd event at Bedford (the reasons why really aren't very important to me, I'm just using Bedford as an example because that was what sparked my thinking about it) and I want to emphasize that I am really just looking to understand the spirit of the law, so to speak, as it pertains to teams getting a third event.

Thanks in advance, and please don't get all angry or overly argumentative over this...

[Anupam Goli]

From the Q&A posted here:

A10: One of our primary goals is to increase FRC team participation wherever possible. In pursuit of this goal, we feel that offering vacant slots to teams who want them serves the goals of FIRST and FiM better than leaving them empty. While this does give additional playing time to some teams, all teams who wish to play at an additional event are free to enroll in the annual lottery for these available slots. All teams have equal opportunity for these lottery slots.
Also, if we left these spots empty, we would be giving additional advantage to any team attending a partially unfilled event. Mathematically, the system is fairer overall if the events are all fully attended. We want all events to have the same statistical significance in our system.
We add events in units of 40 slots. Growth forces us to add events each time we add 20 new teams. Usually the number of teams/40 leaves a remainder of 15-20 spots open. We prefer to fill these for event balancing.

[Christopher149]

Just so no one gets confused, he means third district event, not regional.

[SoccerTaco]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

Just so no one gets confused, he means third district event, not regional.

There are also teams that do three regionals. At the Smoky Mountain regional this weekend, there will be two teams attending their third regional. Team 1319, Flash, has also been to Palmetto and Peachtree. Team 3196, SPORK, has also been to Palmetto and North Carolina.

I'm worn out with 2 myself - I 'm looking forward to seeing these teams that are crazy enough to go to 3 regionals!!

[Bob Steele]

How would you feel if you were one of those teams and someone told you that they would rather leave slots empty than let you in because you had already competed twice?

[Allison K]

It might be a little depressing to attend a district with only 12 teams competing (I say this as one of the teams attending Bedford as our 2nd district). As previously noted, Jim's whitepaper covers the mathematical reasoning. The 3rd district lottery is the best solution to filling open spaces at districts. I suppose it would be ideal if the 3rd district teams were a bit more spread out between events, however I imagine there isn't much the FiM staff could do about that as the actual number of teams in the state didn't seem to be finalized until well after initial registration, by which time most teams had already been sorted into events and rearranging them to spread out the 3rd event spaces would have been logistically challenging.

[nikeairmancurry]

Originally Posted by Allison K

It might be a little depressing to attend a district with only 12 teams competing (I say this as one of the teams attending Bedford as our 2nd district). As previously noted, Jim's whitepaper covers the mathematical reasoning. The 3rd district lottery is the best solution to filling open spaces at districts. I suppose it would be ideal if the 3rd district teams were a bit more spread out between events, however I imagine there isn't much the FiM staff could do about that as the actual number of teams in the state didn't seem to be finalized until well after initial registration, by which time most teams had already been sorted into events and rearranging them to spread out the 3rd event spaces would have been logistically challenging.

Alot of this happened because Bedford was added so late. Also there are teams at Troy and Livonia who are competing at their 3rd district..

[dodar]

Originally Posted by moogboy

Hi all,

I'm a little bit curious about why FIRST allows teams to sign up for a third regional. I would assume this is a somewhat localized thing to areas where there are a lot of teams, like my own state, Michigan.

Anyway, why is this allowed? What was the spirit of the creation of this provision?

I ask because my team is going to a week 6 regional (Bedford if you're curious) where 27 or 28 of the teams registered have already had 2 competitions. One look at the teams list would lead someone with knowledge of FiM to see that it will be an AMAZING competition with some very strong competitors. This got me thinking, however, about why third events are allowed and whether situations like this are really the most appropriate thing. Obviously this is something of an extreme case that is highly unlikely, but it is conceivable that the 27/28 teams whose performance at Bedford will not affect their standings in the state could contribute all 24 of the robots in eliminations. That just doesn't sit well with me. It seems to me that in a situation like that, where a significant number of teams competed in eliminations but received no points for it when other teams could have received those points, it's kind of cheating those other teams out of an event...if that makes sense?

I totally understand that there are reasons that so many teams are having their 3rd event at Bedford (the reasons why really aren't very important to me, I'm just using Bedford as an example because that was what sparked my thinking about it) and I want to emphasize that I am really just looking to understand the spirit of the law, so to speak, as it pertains to teams getting a third event.

Thanks in advance, and please don't get all angry or overly argumentative over this...

Because they can? If a team wants to maximize the time and effort put into a season why should they be limited to 1 regional/district or 2 regionals/districts? FiM and MAR cant really be used as a way to argue against teams going to more competitions because the price is so much lower to register, travel, house, and the vicinity is close enough to allow teams to more easily attend events. I know you arent arguing against teams being allowed to do this, but this topic has been thoroughly covered before; try searching the forums before posting.

[EricH]

FIRST has always allowed teams to sign up for as many regionals as they want to attend (that number currently being a maximum of 7 due to the impossibility of the same team competing in two events during the same week).

As for the 3rd District event question, Jim Zondag just put up a whitepaper with the answer at http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2804. If you haven't read it, you might want to, as this is one of the FAQs for FiM.

Whether or not there should be a limit to the number of events a team can attend other than the calendar limitations, and how a district system allowing more districts than the number counted should deal with a number of teams in eliminations who can't get points (and are presumably blocking out others who need the points to get to State/Region Championships), are currently wide open questions.

[moogboy]

Sorry for the confusion about districts/regionals. The distinction has never been clear to me.

Originally Posted by EricH

Whether or not there should be a limit to the number of events a team can attend other than the calendar limitations, and how a district system allowing more districts than the number counted should deal with a number of teams in eliminations who can't get points (and are presumably blocking out others who need the points to get to State/Region Championships), are currently wide open questions.

^This is more my question. I tend to think that if Bedford were my second regional and all or most of the teams competing in eliminations were ineligible for earning the qualifying points from it that I would feel a bit cheated, because aside from the awards (which I would never want to minimize), it would be akin to competing in only one regional.

Is my logic flawed? Am I insane? Should I just shut up and accept it? I am just curious and looking to understand it a little bit better.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by moogboy

^This is more my question. I tend to think that if Bedford were my second regional and all or most of the teams competing in eliminations were ineligible for earning the qualifying points from it that I would feel a bit cheated, because aside from the awards (which I would never want to minimize), it would be akin to competing in only one regional.

Is my logic flawed? Am I insane? Should I just shut up and accept it? I am just curious and looking to understand it a little bit better.

You raise good points which my team has only begun discussing. We are in MAR not FiM. When we chose our 3rd District event we were thinking mainly about being able to compete a 3rd time for only an additional $1K. We often have a tight budget and this is quite a bargain for an extra 12 matches.

Unlike your situation I believe we are the only team that is going into its 3rd district (unless others registered after I last looked). The 3rd one we signed up for fell between our other 2, and it still had 9 open spots when we played this past weekend.

Just setting the background, the potential ethical issues remain. We are currently 32nd in MAR and likely to reach the MAR championship, but there are many teams behind us that have played once and are competing with us at the final MAR event next week. It would obviously be to our advantage for the teams behind us to stay behind us; while it is very unlikely that 20 odd teams will gain enough points to pass us I can't say its mathmatically impossible. There may even be times in our 3rd event where losing may be more to our advantage than winning. This situation has cropped up before for some teams at some regionals, and was sometimes a factor in coopertition in previous seasons.

There is only one ethical way to handle things when you are in this position: play as hard as you can to win at all times. This is really the essence of all sport (and life): play hard, fairly, and honestly at all times. Ignoring that karma often comes back to bite those who don't play fairly, personal honor must always be valued above personal gain.

I don't think you are crazy, you have honest concerns. All you can do is go out and do your best, trust others will do the same, and let the chips fall where they may.
From Samurai to Klingons to GP Robotic Teams its a good day to die, as long as you do so with honor.
Sorry, got all geeky there for a minute.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by omalleyj

Unlike your situation I believe we are the only team that is going into its 3rd district (unless others registered after I last looked).

You are not the only team going to a third district in MAR, there are three: 303, 1279, 3314.

However this brings up an interesting point; there are only three teams attending a third district in MAR, but over twenty-seven in Michigan. Why? Is it because the third Michigan district is only $500 while it is $1000 in MAR?

Are there usually this many teams signed up for a third Michigan district?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

However this brings up an interesting point; there are only three teams attending a third district in MAR, but over twenty-seven in Michigan. Why? Is it because the third Michigan district is only $500 while it is $1000 in MAR?

It's a combination of fewer extra event slots in MAR combined with local teams' preference for going to out-of-district regionals that leads to less MAR teams doing local districts. I don't think price is the issue since teams are paying 5 times as much to compete elsewhere.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

It's a combination of fewer extra event slots in MAR combined with local teams' preference for going to out-of-district regionals that leads to less MAR teams doing local districts. I don't think price is the issue since teams are paying 5 times as much to compete elsewhere.

Not sure if its the extra slots, 9 were open at Lenape (a great event btw). I suspect its mostly playing 'for nothing', you can't qualify for the MAR championships. Teams with more resources may prefer non-MAR regionals We'll do them when we are able, we miss the friends we've made in NY, DC, etc..

But I am very surprised that more teams, especially rookies or newish teams don't take advantge of the extra experience. (and fun, and days out of school )

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by omalleyj

But I am very surprised that more teams, especially rookies or newish teams don't take advantge of the extra experience. (and fun, and days out of school )

I think the "days out of school" factor is more likely to keep teams from going to another competition than it is to encourage them to attend. District events do only eat up a Friday, but getting even one more day off work isn't always easy for mentors.