Proof that districts work: PNW

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by AndrewPospeshil

I don't necessarily think Districts make teams better. At least, it's not the cause, it's the effect.

I disagree. Districts definitely make a large majority of teams better and we saw it in the PNW this year:

-More matches: Practice paid off and Increase in Strategic play at team's second events and the District Championship
-Unbag Time: Even several rookie teams made significant changes between events and saw great success later on, because of this. *Huge shout-out to 4980*. Iteration is a huge part of engineering

The list can go on and on. Just getting teams out to more events means more opportunities to get awards and opportunities to perform well. This can be a great source of motivation and inspiration for some.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

I disagree. Districts definitely make a large majority of teams better and we saw it in the PNW this year:

One of the biggest reasons that I think that districts make teams better is increased exposure to a variety of teams.

If you play in one event, you get a certain idea of what is required to be successful so you make some improvements to try to achieve the benchmark you saw. Then in your next event you see some teams that blew away anything you saw in your first event. Time to reset the benchmark.

Then you make it to the regional championship (I hate when it's called the district championship) and you realize how high the bar really is. Now you really have to figure out how to raise you game.

By the time you make it to World Championships, you've already seen the game at such a high level that you're ready for anything. The fact that the district system forces a higher level of competition results in the teams being much more prepared for what they'll see in St. Louis.

[Jscout11]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

One of the biggest reasons that I think that districts make teams better is increased exposure to a variety of teams.

If you play in one event, you get a certain idea of what is required to be successful so you make some improvements to try to achieve the benchmark you saw. Then in your next event you see some teams that blew away anything you saw in your first event. Time to reset the benchmark.

Then you make it to the regional championship (I hate when it's called the district championship) and you realize how high the bar really is. Now you really have to figure out how to raise you game.

By the time you make it to World Championships, you've already seen the game at such a high level that you're ready for anything. The fact that the district system forces a higher level of competition results in the teams being much more prepared for what they'll see in St. Louis.

I have to somewhat disagree. There were still a good number of teams unable to manipulate the ball at MAR champs and was certainly not at the championship level.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Jscout11

I have to somewhat disagree. There were still a good number of teams unable to manipulate the ball at MAR champs and was certainly not at the championship level.

I don't think I did a good job of making my point, so I'll try again.

(Aging myself here a bit...)

Back when "The Dream Team" dominated the Olympics way back when, there was debate about if a team dominating the Olympics was good for basketball. After all of the debate, the consensus was that having the Dream Team would cause the rest of the world to raise their level of play because now they knew what basketball at the highest level was like. In the end, that prediction came true because the USA has since been challenged and beaten - the rest of the world rose to the challenge.

I think the same effect happens to teams that compete in FIRST. The better the teams they compete against, the better they themselves will be. I know that we learned a lot from MSC that made us a way better team then we would've been without it.

There will always be teams that are happy with where they are. However, there are also a lot of teams that want to be very competitive and want to be the best. If your target of what is "the best" is higher than others targets, then I believe your higher target will naturally make you better.

[Lil' Lavery]

Here's a thread I created in 2009 to talk about FiM's success that year on Einstein. It should provide some interesting perspective based on the past few years. With more years and other regions, we have plenty more data since then. Additionally, you'll notice that the two factors I broke out specifically at the end have since been adopted outside of the district model.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=77045

Originally Posted by Jscout11

I have to somewhat disagree. There were still a good number of teams unable to manipulate the ball at MAR champs and was certainly not at the championship level.

Not sure if I agree with your assessment. There were certainly teams that didn't have effective ground loading methods, but almost every team at MAR championship could register a possession from the human player. That's a large part of what led to the creation of the "double exchange" strategy (firing a ball immediately back to the human player after getting a possession), which in turn was very popular this past weekend (including 2590's alliance using it to reach Einstein).

[PayneTrain]

I don't think a lot of people remember how averse a majority of the community was to districts until they actually played out so magnificently in Michigan. There was a lot of talk about it "not really being FIRST" and the like. Look at how far we have come!

[Jscout11]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There were certainly teams that didn't have effective ground loading methods, but almost every team at MAR championship could register a possession from the human player.

Sorry, this is what I meant. My point was that the level of competition was generally lower than at Champs and MSC.

That strategy was a smart way to deal with the limitations of a lot of robots, but the lack of intake especially gave these robots little strategic depth beyond that, unlike the alliances at champs that used this strategy.

[Dunngeon]

The best part about the district model from my perspective, was that we were able to bring upgrade packages throughout the season. Increasing our competitiveness as the season progressed. This was likely helpful to many other teams, which overall increased the competitive nature of the PNW this year.

My biggest problem with districts, is how much school I've missed over the last month. Between 1 day for OSU, 2 for DCMP, and 3 for CMP, it's too much. Especially in the middle of AP study season.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Jscout11

Sorry, this is what I meant. My point was that the level of competition was generally lower than at Champs and MSC.

That strategy was a smart way to deal with the limitations of a lot of robots, but the lack of intake especially gave these robots little strategic depth beyond that, unlike the alliances at champs that used this strategy.

I could tell from watching that the standard at any of the District Championship events was significantly higher that either of the regionals I attended. I think There might even be some Michiganders with pretty graphs and data to back that assertion up.

[tsaksa]

Originally Posted by bduddy

I don't think any of the arguments against districts stated that districts would make teams in that area less competitive.

Very true. I think the long term effect on teams will be important to watch. Districts are much more expensive for many teams than the regional model, and I see several teams coming out of this season completely broke. It was a good year competitively, but it is too soon to say if that will be a good thing for the PNW in the long run.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by tsaksa

Very true. I think the long term effect on teams will be important to watch. Districts are much more expensive for many teams than the regional model, and I see several teams coming out of this season completely broke. It was a good year competitively, but it is too soon to say if that will be a good thing for the PNW in the long run.

I would not say that Districts are much more expensive for many teams. It certainly was more expensive for a number of teams particularly those from rural areas where there was not a District event near them and even more so for those teams that had traditionally only attended a single a Regional and then made it so DCMP. However in the long term there are plans to mitigate those effects.

In WA for those teams at a public school who took the time to apply for the OSPI grant that would have to travel to one or both of their district events they were given an additional travel stipend that was based on whether they were going to have to travel to one or two district events. I know that did not help teams based in OR.

One of the things that was discussed but was not implemented due to the fact that so much was going on was to encourage teams that lived near a District event to host teams that were traveling to the event. In fact I had one of the rookie teams that was attending an event at the next closest school contact me to put him in contact with another rookie team that was going to be traveling to that event to ask if they wanted to stay with their team members. I have not asked how that turned out but it is certainly something that I will follow up on. I plan on encouraging teams local to an event to reach out to those traveling to that event to make similar offers next season.

In the past in the PNW ~35% of the teams attended two Regionals. However the teams that attended DCMP included many teams who have never attended two Regionals. There were significant capital investments made to start up the district model that will not be needed in future seasons. So if we are able to continue to raise funds at past levels there should be some money to help those teams in need that make it to DCMP and possibly CMP too. However there was not a single team that earned an invite to DCMP that turned it down and only one team that earned an invite to CMP that turned it down and yes funding was a part of the problem of why they couldn't attend.

However as I said previously the real success stories are not the ~15% of teams that made it to CMP or the ~40% that made it to DCMP, it was the ~65% of teams that have never been able to attend more than one event that now were able to get the full engineering experience.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Mr V

However there was not a single team that earned an invite to DCMP that turned it down

Both 2550 and 4513 declined an invitation to DCMP. Invitations were then extended to 3237 and 2980. 2980 accepted and was in attendance.

There was no response tracked from 3237 on the District website or publicly otherwise. My guess would be they received the wait-list invitation late and did not respond. Due to this, an invitation was never passed down to 2374, who at the time was next in the point system. We ran one team shorter than originally specified (63/64).

[Koko Ed]

I knew Districts worked when FiM did their first championships back in 2009 and HOT was going to the championships with 85 matches under their belt to my teams dozen. I can't wait til New York goes District!

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I knew Districts worked when FiM did their first championships back in 2009 and HOT was going to the championships with 85 matches under their belt to my teams dozen. I can't wait til New York goes District!

^That.

I think the rather obvious conclusion that more matches--with the ability to improve between/during each event--makes for more competitive robots is, well, rather obvious.

Districts allow teams more matches and more time to work on their robots. If that *doesn't* improve teams, then teams are doing something wrong!