FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure

[Steven Donow]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...ng-System-2014

As some of you are aware, we have had a team working on developing a standard points ranking system for use in all four of the Districts we will have in 2014. Members of the team in addition to me included:

Jessica Boucher – New England District Representative, FRC Chief Volunteer Coordinator, Team 237 “Black Magic” Student Alumna
Patrick Felty – Regional Director for Central and South Texas (Alamo Region)
Chris Fultz – Woodie Flowers Award Winner, Team 234 “Cyber Blue” Mentor
Jon Jack – Chairman’s Award winning Team 1538 “The Holy Cows” Mentor, Woodie Flowers Finalist Award Winner
Ed Petrillo – Mid-Atlantic Robotics District Representative, Woodie Flowers Finalist Award Winner, Team 293 “S.P.I.K.E.” Mentor
Kevin Ross – Pacific Northwest District Representative, Founder of Washington FIRST Robotics, Woodie Flowers Finalist Award Winner, Team 4089 “Stealth Robotics” Mentor
Jim Zondag – Michigan District Representative, Woodie Flowers Finalist Award Winner, Team 33 “Killer Bees” Mentor

I want to thank this team for the many hours of work they’ve put in over the last few months to develop this new system. Our discussions weren’t always easy; but they were always honest, and every team member came to the table with the intention to work together to develop the best possible system for FRC. It was a wonderful experience – individuals with sometimes strongly differing views listening carefully to each other and eventually coming to consensus – a great example of Gracious Professionalism in action.

While this system will be used by all Districts in 2014, it is not set in stone. Our intention is to periodically review the system, making improvements for later years as we see the need. It’s our additional intent that every year, all Districts will use the standard points ranking system that is in place for that year. This will help facilitate the potential introduction of inter-District play, which we intend to develop for the 2015 season.

You may find the details of the system, along with some explanation of the various components, here.

I recognize this system may generate some feedback. Please put your comments below, or if you prefer, you may email them to frcteams@usfirst.org . If we get a sufficient number of common questions or comments, We’ll address them at a later time.

I’ll blog again soon.

Frank

Points system here

Some changes from MAR/FiM of year's past:
The way Elim points are given out; it's basically the same as the past, however it seems to be worded differently so that if a backup is called in, you get points for what you play. Also, IIRC 2nd picks/backups got different points based off finish; this is now eliminated
10 points for Chairmans, 8 for EI/RAS, 5 for judged awards. Interestingly with this, Chairman's still grants auto-bid
Age-based points, 10 for Rookies, 5 for second-years

[Ian Curtis]

I would love to hear Jim Zondag (or any of the Michigan district folks) chime in on the merit of the Rookie and 2nd year team points. I know they have done a lot of work in showing what makes the point structure good, and am curious how that moves things. I would imagine this probably has its largest effect in teams near the make-it cut off.

EDIT: Or perhaps there is a "valley of death" in rookie and 2nd year team goodness where they either have already made it on their own merit or are out of contention.

[dag0620]

I'm mostly okay with this system, and glad to see we have a uniformed system. I'm still going through and analyzing, however there is one thing I am strongly against that did pop out.

 Regional Participation
District Teams do not earn points for their actions at any Regionals they may attend, but are still eligible for Team
awards at those events, and any benefits that may go along with winning those awards, such as earning their way to the
FIRST Championship. However, if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional
event, that slot does count against the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season.

(Emphasis Mine.)

I don't think this is exactly a fair system. I personally believe that a District's allotment of teams should not be affected by it's teams earning slots at events outside of that District's competition structure.

I hope FIRST might consider changing that policy going forward.

Edit: Chris most of wrote his post while I was working on mine as I didn't see it before posting. Never the less I hope me brining this up adds to the point that this particular policy should be revisited.

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I would love to hear Jim Zondag (or any of the Michigan district folks) chime in on the merit of the Rookie and 2nd year team points.

Great dialog:
I worked on this committee for most of the summer with all of the members listed in Frank's Blog. This was a very interesting, challenging, and fulfilling experience. We had representation from many regions of country, and numerous very experienced FRC mentors and leaders. This was much like our original FiM development in 2008 only bigger: We started with a diverse group of leaders with differing backgrounds and priorities, we combined everyone's input into an action plan, and then we did a lot of analytics on every aspect of all the various proposals using many years of District and League wide FRC back history as a reference. The result is the system as it was presented in Frank's Blog. It is a derivation of the system we have been using in FiM/MAR for the past 5 years. IMHO and by my analyses, the changes are improvements to the original design and will improve the overall FRC competition experience for everyone.

To comment on a couple of points:
Rookie Bonus: I like this item and it is a great addition to the overall district promotion system. As big as FRC has become, we still have a long way to go to reach the penetration levels of mainstream sports. Growth needs to remain a priority and sustainability remains a big concern. League studies show that FRC teams are most likely to fold in their early years of existence. Providing young teams with improved opportunity for success is important to the long term health of FRC. Many young teams will tell you that the hardest year in the FRC actually the 2nd year. There are many advantages for 1st year teams but in year 2, you are just like everyone else. We collectively decided to soften this transition by spreading this initial opportunity over 2 years.

Operationally, the 10 point rookie bonus equates to about a 15% competitive opportunity for rookies in their first year for a 200+ team population like we have here in MI. Other new district regions will be similar in size. This bonus is significant, but not huge. Rookies still have to perform well in order to capitalize on this opportunity. Last year, no Rookies made it to the Michigan Championship. With the modifications, 3 would have made it (5%). All 3 of these team were also Rookie All Stars.
All 3 made Elims at both districts were very close to making the cut to MSC even without these adjustments. Historically, FRC had a fixed rookie promotional opportunity to CMP of about 17% for RAS. The district opportunity we are providing is less than that, in that it still requires young teams to perform at above average competitive levels in order to advance.

Compromises: While there were are few compromises made in this process, most of them were pretty minor. The main thing I saw through my experience on this committee was a growth of understanding by the various team members as to how a District system works. Initially, there were large difference in opinion amongst some of the team members but this gradually changed as we all worked together on this project. The big differences are that focus must shift somewhat when you move from a system in which most teams play only one event to a system in which all teams play at least two events. Accomplishments which are notable in the original context are not necessarily so in the new context due to the much larger number of instances. This can be hard to see from the outside. With Districts We are now playing a season, so individual event accomplishments are less important than . It took some time for everyone to come to a full understanding of this, and in the end, I did not feel that any of the committee members felt that we had made significant compromises for the sake of consensus. I think everyone on the committee is quite happy with the result and have a better understanding of what it expect as they transition to District play.

To echo Frank's point, this is an Iteration of the District promotional design: it is not the first and will not likely be be the last. As our sport grows and evolves, the dedicated people who work to make the FRC what it is will continue to adapt to the new challenges which will come with future growth and success.
I have been glad to have been part of this so far.

[Chris is me]

Wow, rookies get extra points for being rookies. I understand the desire to get rookies into district championships, but there already was a mechanism to give rookies extra help in rookie awards. Being a rookie is now just as important as winning the Chairman's Award, winning 5 qualifying matches, or winning an extra round in elims; at least in terms of qualifying for DCMP.

Does anyone know where this idea came from? I've never seen it suggested or implemented at any particular region before. I'm interested in hearing the rationale, I imagine it will make more sense to me then.

I'm also a little bugged by this line:

if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional event, that slot does count against the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season

Thus, any regional won by a team in a District system results in a Championship qualification spot that just disappears. The team then takes two slots for Champs, both the regional winner slot and one of the district slots.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Wow, rookies get extra points for being rookies. I understand the desire to get rookies into district championships, but there already was a mechanism to give rookies extra help in rookie awards. Being a rookie is now just as important as winning the Chairman's Award, winning 5 qualifying matches, or winning both the quarter and semifinals; at least in terms of qualifying for DCMP.

Does anyone know where this idea came from? I've never seen it suggested or implemented at any particular region before.

I'm also a little bugged by this line:


Thus, any regional won by a team in a District system results in a Championship qualification spot that just disappears. The team then takes two slots for Champs, both the regional winner slot and one of the district slots.

1. The justification for Rookie/2nd year points is:

Extra points are awarded to Rookie and second year Teams in recognition of the special challenges Teams face in those
early years, and to increase the chance that they will make it to the District Championship to compete with their robots.
Like our dedicated Rookie awards, these additional points are intended to recognize and motivate newer participants in
FRC

I'm kinda undecided how I feel about that/Chairman's now getting points; on one hand, Chairman's still gives an autobid(so being a rookie isn't exactly equal to a Chairman's), but I think it's kind of a stretch to give that many points...Something like 5 for Rookies/3 for 2nd year sounds a little better.

2. Wow. I missed that in my initial skim. On one hand, it seems kind of wrong for it to count against the district in the case of a team not going to the District Championship, and still technically getting one of that District's spots. On the other hand, I'm sure the FIRST justification for that is to at least somewhat mitigate the "more bids than spots" issues.

[EricDrost]

However, if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional event, that slot does count against the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season.

This is extremely disappointing. Until FIRST allows cross-district registration, this vilifies successful district teams that want to travel. The teams at the regional they attend will be upset with them for eating up a spot, and the teams in their district will be upset with them for eating up a spot. This just seems like a lose-lose way of limiting the number of teams per district that qualify for champs.

[Jscout11]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

This is extremely disappointing. Until FIRST allows cross-district registration, this villainizes successful district teams that want to travel. The teams at the regional they attend will be upset with them for eating up a spot, and the teams in their district will be upset with them for eating up a spot. This just seems like a lose-lose way of limiting the number of teams per district that qualify for champs.

I completely agree with this, from the perspective of a team who won both a regional and district event last year. Teams were already not too pleased that we took away possible points from other non-qualified teams by winning in districts when we were already qualified for St Louis (or taking a district chairman's slot for that matter). Hypothetically, with the new system, we would have not only taken away points from other teams, we would have also taken away a spot from the district as a whole (while subsequently taking away a spot from wherever we competed). I agree that the proportions from each region have to have some balance, but my issue is with the fact that teams in the district really have no control over the teams that may possibly win awards at other events, but are punished for it anyway. If a team at a regional happens to lose to a district team, they should "suffer the consequences" so to speak, and not the teams who were not even there.

It's already become much harder for districts teams to travel, and while I can respect the work that went into this system and support a lot of it, I feel like this is only making that specific issue worse.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I'm also a little bugged by this line:


Thus, any regional won by a team in a District system results in a Championship qualification spot that just disappears. The team then takes two slots for Champs, both the regional winner slot and one of the district slots.

This will just encourage teams to skip their district CMPs if they've qualified elsewhere. Watering down district championships is not the way to go, for outside qualifications or HoF teams or whatever qualification method.


Edit: I'm not wild about the large bonus for rookies and 2nd year teams, but I can see where it's coming from. Allotting points for the Chairman's Award is also questionable, but I definitely approve. It doesn't make a difference in district CMP qualification, but it does grant District (but not district cmp) Chairman's Awardees a preference in FRC Championship qualification. If a team has a better shot at going to the Championship if they won a team spirit award at a district, the same should be true for district Chairman's Awardees.

[MikeE]

From an initial reading of the system this seems a good compromise on some of the change proposals I'd heard.
Congratulations to all the people who worked on this and to FIRST for identifying and heading off the risk that different point systems could have on the coherence of FRC. I'm looking forward to seeing how the unified points system plays out in 2014 and to opportunities for inter-district play in future seasons.

Now on to my quibbles:
I am a little disappointed that points in Elimination matches only go to the winning Alliance for each series. One idea originating on CD was to reward alliances that push a series to a third match. It's a small benefit but would help a strong alliance that meets the ultimate winning alliance in the quarter finals.

But the issue that concerns me most is that it seems there are no further points for a team that withdraws during elimination matches. This would mean that there are potentially divergent motives between individual teams within an alliance. Does team X continue with a barely functional robot and possibly keep scoring points or call for backup and get nothing?

[Caleb Sykes]

I knew that they were going to value all awards the same. FIRST values culture change as much as they do robot performance.

I was also pretty sure that they would give the same points to all teams in the elimination alliance. Honestly I don't know how I feel about that.

EDIT: my math was wrong (I was so excited that I read through it too fast!)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by inkling16

Also the points given to alliance captains goes from 17 down to 10 instead of 16 down to 9, and the selected teams get points from 17 down to 2 instead of 16 down to 1.

I knew that they were going to value all awards the same. FIRST values culture change as much as they do robot performance.

I was also pretty sure that they would give the same points to all teams in the elimination alliance. Honestly I don't know how I feel about that.

Check your math on that one...

[brennonbrimhall]

Regardless of the inevitable merits or faults of a points system (let's face it, nothing is going to make everyone happy), I'm particularly encouraged by the promise of inter-district play. The concept of teams like 469, 67, 341, 195, and the rest playing on the same field, pre-Champs, is absolutely thrilling.

Just about as thrilling as Waterloo 2014...

[MikeE]

Originally Posted by brennonbrimhall

...I'm particularly encouraged by the promise of inter-district play

^^ This!

[MamaSpoldi]

I noticed that they did not state the number of championship slots that would be allocated at each of the regionals. Did I miss that somewhere else?