FRC Blogged-Standard District Point Structure

[magnets]

I can't say I'm too happy about the point system.

It builds on my opinion that the culture of FIRST has changed drastically over the past 5-10 years. It's less about robots/engineering/competitions, and more about education, spreading the word, and getting more teams involved. While this may get FIRST out to the public, it's making sacrifices to competitive teams.

This means that when you go to your district championship, you're going to have a rookie team, that's gotten lucky, and they have the rookie team bonus of winning an extra five matches, but they can't really play, so they end up on the winning alliance. Then, at championships, you'll have teams who can't really play either. Right now, with the current flawed system (this new one will only be worse), you have about 6 matches per championship division where an alliance scores less than 10 points. That means that there are enough non-scoring teams playing in eliminations, that in 140 matches there are multiple matches where 3 non-scoring teams are put together.

For instance, in 2011, the championship was (in my humble opinion) ruined by the whole will.i.am thing. They sacrificed the fun that some teams would have in order to spread FIRST. Again, in 2013, we had a pathetic 8 matches per team at CMP. Why? So that many teams could come, not to compete and to be the 400 or so most competitive teams there are, but to be inspired.

In pretty much every event, there are a handful of competitive teams that will be playing in elims for sure, and are usually alliance captains. My way of judging the competitiveness of robots at an event is the competitiveness of the last few picks. We're getting to a point where the cmp elims 1st seeded alliance's second pick is a below average robot, and worse than 100's of robots that didn't qualify

It's also possible to build a competitive robot without any engineering at all. Just put together the kitbot, wire together the control system (both of which have detailed manuals), and download an already written piece of software, no understanding of computers required. Bolt a tray on top of the robot, and drive in a straight line to the low goal, hit it, and the discs fly in. Make a passive ten point climber, and you're already in the top 50% for weeks 1, 2, and 3, all without writing a single piece of code, without adding a single motor, and only doing one thing (hanging) in teleop.

It all comes down to the balance of competition vs. spreading FIRST/inspiring new teams. For some people, the engineering/competing/innovation aspect is most important.

[PVCpirate]

The rookie bonus does not apply to the rankings within an event, so rookies will not advance to eliminations based on this bonus.

[Chris Fultz]

If you have specific issues or questions, please send them to the link in the blog, so that they can be reviewed and addressed.

I will make a few comments that might help.

Every change that was made was modeled to see how it would have impacted previous years results. The FiM database and MAR databases of results are exceptional and helped us significantly.

Just about every comment made in the posts so far was also discussed by the team while we worked through this. The panel was diverse in experience, philosophy, approach to each point. We tried every angle.

While there might be a specific item you don't like or agree with, step back and look at the total system and what it accomplishes.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

While there might be a specific item you don't like or agree with, step back and look at the total system and what it accomplishes.

It's much easier to criticize something than stand in somebody else's shoes and understand their decisions. Many of the people voicing concerns (myself included) probably do view this as a great step forward. With the number of regions in districts increasing, it was necessary to unify a points system so cross-district play is an option.

Although there are a few things I would have done differently, I'm very excited by this update.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

If you have specific issues or questions, please send them to the link in the blog, so that they can be reviewed and addressed.

I will make a few comments that might help.

Every change that was made was modeled to see how it would have impacted previous years results. The FiM database and MAR databases of results are exceptional and helped us significantly.

Just about every comment made in the posts so far was also discussed by the team while we worked through this. The panel was diverse in experience, philosophy, approach to each point. We tried every angle.

While there might be a specific item you don't like or agree with, step back and look at the total system and what it accomplishes.

I really agree with this. There are a few things I'm not a fan of, but it's really important to look at the big picture. Coming from a team that's been to a ton of competitions, we realize how confusing and difficult it must be for a rookie team to be competitive. There are so many little things to make sure that the team does right (like charging batteries/quick bumper mounts) that rookie teams won't know about.

Some of the points that magnets brings up are true, but FIRST wouldn't really be FIRST if we didn't spread the word and end up with all the awesome sponsors who make everything possible.

I'm excited for districts in 2013!
Does anybody know if the NE districts will be getting the robot access period that FiM and MAR got last year?

[PVCpirate]

I already posted this to the blog, but wondering if anyone here knows: When are the team age points applied? Each event, after both district events, or at some other time?

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by magnets View Post We're getting to a point where the cmp elims 1st seeded alliance's second pick is a below average robot

I'm sorry, but this is about as ridiculous as it gets. My only possible thought is that you were watching Newton this year and didn't understand 1538's reasoning, here are some numbers:
2013 Championships second picks by #1 seeded alliance:
Archimedes: 2959, OPR = 72.3
Curie: 862(I think) OPR = 67.8
Galileo: 4039, OPR = 55.7
Newton: 217, OPR = 23.2

Average 2013 OPR: 17.4

[Akash Rastogi]

I'll share my perspective on the Rookie/2nd year team points bonus; however, my experience may not be the same as the majority of rookie teams in FRC.

While on 3929, our team focused on creating a competitive robot to play in eliminations, but we also focused most of our energy on the rookie awards. We happened to get lucky and win a district with 25 and 222, but I don't think I would have minded if we did not qualify for MAR Champs. What my team experienced was rookies who were way better than us, for example 3974 and 4342. What our 3 rookie teams showed is that you can still earn a spot at your Regional Championship without needing a special boost, even if it does take luck and hard work. 3929 focused on awards, and the other two earned their way through better robots. I just don't see the need for an added bonus.

By just giving us points to get ahead, it would have discouraged veteran teams who aren't as lucky to have experienced mentors. A team's age doesn't mean that people on that team have been members for a long period of time, so age in FRC does not inherently equal experience. I think this would be pretty discouraging for both the rookies and weak veterans.

Adding a bonus for the age of the team makes sense from the perspective of someone on the outside-looking-in, but I think some rookie teams might take it as a sign of pity, I believe many of my students would have. They worked hard to earn their rookie awards, but if we happened to earn more points over a veteran who is stronger than us simply because we were a rookie, I would feel pretty bad about it.

These are just my thoughts based on my mentorship of 3929, not necessarily the views of 3929.

[Allison K]

Preface: This is opinion ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as I've been in Michigan since the dawn of districts and am most likely suffering from resistance-to-change syndrome (rather prevalent at times here on CD).

I question the points for rookies and second year teams. As noted both earlier in this thread and in many other threads, the mark of a good system is not how it ranks the very top teams, but how it ranks teams at the cutoff. 10 points is a pretty big boost at that level. Michigan is currently sitting at 49 rookies, so we are infusing at least 490 points into the system before the season even starts (not counting the bonus for second year teams). I understand that it's important to keep rookies and second year teams inspired and coming back, but bonus points just on team age are sending them to states at the expense of some other team who has also worked hard, and quite possibly hasn't been to states in four years or more. I have stats I'll pull up later about the number of veteran teams in Michigan who either have never been to states, or haven't been in the past four years.

I'm glad that EI is worth points now, as previously it was neither worth points nor was it worth a bid.

It'll be interesting to see how the Chairman's auto bid affects the invite list for states. Barring a change in venue, the MI District Champs have capacity for 64 teams, so 20% of the teams there will be attending on an auto bid (13/64).

Overall it seems like the changes are somewhat diluting the value of robot performance in favor of cultural factors. Not necessarily good or bad, just an observation.

Allison

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by Allison K

... I have stats I'll pull up later about the number of veteran teams in Michigan who either have never been to states, or haven't been in the past four years.
...

I looked it up. This year in Michigan we have 170 teams that are 3rd year and older (not rookies or second year). Of that 170...

54 (32%) have NEVER been to District Championship
5 (3%) last attended in 2009
11 (6%) last attended in 2010
16 (9%) last attended in 2011
24 (14%) last attended in 2012
60 (35%) last attended in 2013

70 out of 170 (41%) 3rd year and above teams have zero students that have ever experienced states. These teams are arguably more in need of a culture boost than rookie and second year teams are, yet they don't have any special points allotted.

Allison

PS - I attached the spreadsheet with data if anybody else wants to play. Be forewarned that it's a bit messy.

[scottandme]

It would be helpful to share the MAR/FiM databases. I ran (an extremely fast) model of MAR from last year here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...0E&usp=sharing

(I know we're gaining more slots this year, but.....)

Team 11 and 2016 would "eat" two of MAR's slots (winner in Palmetto and RCA at Buckeye)

Compared to actual results:
Teams 303, 193, and 293 no longer qualify for World CMP
Rookie team 4460 attends in their place - buoyed by (edit:45) award points at MAR CMP (Entrepreneurship, 10pt rookie).

Seems like it's taking a few step away from what the Michigan point model was designed to encourage (best performing robots earning the most points), at least from what I understood via the excellent EWCP cast with Jim Zondag.

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by scottandme

Rookie team 4460 attends in their place - buoyed by 60 award points at MAR CMP (Highest Rookie Seed, Entrepreneurship, 10pt rookie)

Highest Rookie Seed in the new system is worth 0 points:

Note that Teams only get points for judged Team awards. If an award is not judged, for example, Rookie Highest Seed,
or is not for a Team, for example, the Dean’s List Award, no points are earned.

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

Highest Rookie Seed in the new system is worth 0 points:

Thanks for catching that - no change in CMP slots though, they slip from #1 in points to #2.

[MARS_James]

I really hope that the 10 and 5 points are a one time thing for each team and not at each competition. Or else you are looking 20 points for rookie teams, and then since it says that all teams will earn x3 points at championship rookies who attend are at 50 points walking in to finals.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by scottandme

Team 11 and 2016 would "eat" two of MAR's slots (winner in Palmetto and RCA at Buckeye)

Compared to actual results:
Teams 303, 193, and 293 no longer qualify for World CMP
Rookie team 4460 attends in their place - buoyed by (edit:45) award points at MAR CMP (Entrepreneurship, 10pt rookie).

It probably would have been pretty awkward on over at MORT when Beta can't attend CMP because 11 won Palmetto.

Or when you just blocked an Einstein team from attending CMP.