Preparing for the Town Hall Meeting on the New Championships Format

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by ezygmont708

It is about the KIDS!
In talking with a freshman today, I asked what he thought about FIRST Champs as it is his first experience with an event outside the district model>
Reaction > AMAZING!!! "I love seeing the teams and the different ways they solved the same problem"

I agree, I think it's a shame that so many people are focusing on the 'two world champions' thing.

The real problem with the championsplit is that those students will not see many of the unique ways to solve the problem. Your students will never see the unique solutions that 254, 148, 118, 1678, 1983, 16 or any of the other great Houston-Champs teams will build.

I wonder, how many people were inspired to build a PTO after seeing 254's climber at champs in 2013?

[BrennanB]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I will concede that my energies are better spent not performing the internet equivalent of talking to a brick wall.

It doesn't help either that the community "against" two championships doesn't exactly have a unified idea on why two championships is bad. We waste our time talking about individual preferences which may or may not be the biggest issue.

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I agree, I think it's a shame that so many people are focusing on the 'two world champions' thing.

The real problem with the championsplit is that those students will not see many of the unique ways to solve the problem. Your students will never see the unique solutions that 254, 148, 118, 1678, 1983, 16 or any of the other great Houston-Champs teams will build.

I wonder, how many people were inspired to build a PTO after seeing 254's climber at champs in 2013?

This is the fundamental issue. The world isn't coming to one spot to compete and inspire. The community is cut in half no matter how much you try to "stitch it together" with spots for the other side of the world to join your championships.

Originally Posted by GKrotkov

That would certainly be a start towards solving the "region locking" - I can't see any downsides at the moment. Is there something I've missed?

Then you have good teams trading to one side or the other. A conspiracy to make the "real" champs where the good teams go, and the "bleh champs" where everyone else goes. You could do it completely randomly, but then... no travel cost reduction.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by GKrotkov

On the subject of potential solutions; I seem to remember Siri floating a "exchange" possibility on the first thread - where teams going to one championships would have the ability to trade their slot with a team going to the other championships.

That would certainly be a start towards solving the "region locking" - I can't see any downsides at the moment. Is there something I've missed?

I believe that that is one of the things FIRST is looking at--see the recap posts earlier in this thread.

My personal preference would be that two "exchanges" would be in play.
1) Region exchange. Basically, random-draw the regions every year, or swap X regions every year. Somewhat easy to manage, if it was done early enough (let's just say in August).
2) Team exchange. Teams that for whatever reason want to (or need to) go to the "wrong" championship can trade with teams at that championship with the same dilemma.

That being said, I think that the effect on teams of the announcement--and then any perceived stonewalling at the town hall--is a very definite negative. Having a little bit more openness--including an announcement about how "changing eligibility to maintain a reasonable size at Championship is very difficult, so we are looking at other options, does anybody have any ideas"--from the start would have been, I think, much better received. And they'd have gotten a lot more constructive feedback before making the call--now, I think they'd have made the same call, but there are different ways to put things that can give a much different "reaction". See "spin" in the politicians' dictionary.

[David Lame]

I don't have a strong opinion about how to solve the growth problem. If you want to start with thousands of teams, and narrow things down to a single championship match, you have to have various "layers" of competition (i.e. districts->district championship/regional->8 divisions->4 rounds at Einstein.)
As the number of teams grows, you either have to lower the number of teams that advance to each new layer, or add layers, or knock off the top layer. If you add layers, (like with super-regionals) that means extra cost and extra time off school for students. There's no "easy" answer of how to handle that growth.

Nevertheless, it disturbs me that some people who have chosen one solution to the problem don't even seem to understand, or even want to understand, the tradeoffs involved with the other solutions. In particular, an awful lot of people who favor the "two championship" model, don't see to realize that there is something lost with that solution. An awful lot of people, including what would appear to be the people at HQ, seem to think that the "single championship" model has something to do with determining the best team. It doesn't. Sports don't really do that, ever. Some sports come closer than others. Our sport doesn't even come close. There's a huge amount of luck in most of our games, and the alliance selection process totally destroys the idea that the winning alliance is made up of the best teams. No, it is not the best teams that end up with the blue banners.

And that doesn't matter. What we are doing this weekend is still a real championship, and what we will do in 2017 will not be a real championship. That matters.

Does it matter enough to make one decision better than the others? I'll leave that to the professionals to decide, but I would feel better about it if I were convinced they understood why it matters.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There's plenty to be displeased about with the championship format. The "true champion" gripe is simply not legitimate. We don't have a "true champion" now as it stands.

Furthermore, of all the concerns it is probably the single easiest item to fix.

[epylko]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Hi, i am student.

Big thing to think about, 400 teams will be about 800 miles away, never to be seen by you. You will not be able to see them, see how they tackled the challenge, compete against and with them, and learn how they work. Teams like us cant afford either to spend a few grand to go to stuff like IRI or Chezy Champs, so teams like us will never interact with teams in Israel or New York, and vice versa.

I don't understand this logic at all. I've seen others make similar statements about not being able to see all the teams, so please don't take this as specific to you.

Let's do the math:

4 days of competition (half day Wednesday/Sunday, full days Thursday/Friday/Saturday)
24 hours/day
60 minutes/hour

If you have 800 teams at one location, that gives you 4*24*60 minutes to meet with 800 teams. Assuming no eating, sleeping, walking between teams, or actually competing, you end up with a best case scenario of being able to spend 7.2 minutes per team. In that timeframe, how can you "...see them, see how they tackled the challenge, compete against and with them, and learn how they work." Even if you go to 400 teams, you're still at 14.4 minutes for a best case scenario.

Now that's only for you. What about those top tier teams? Can they deal with new people coming to their pit every 7.2 minutes for 4 days straight? Maybe think of it this way: at 7.2 minutes per person, a team could only meet/talk with 800 people.

FIRST estimates 3,000 teams this year and 75,000 students involved. If you took 800 teams to a single championship and the proportionate number of students, you would have 20,000 students. That does not include mentors, family members, and the general public that would attend as well. How can a small fraction of those meet all the teams they want? It's impossible.

If you want to argue that you might not be able to see your favorite teams, I can agree with that. However, you will have other teams you will get to see that you normally might not.

And sure, it's cool to see all the different robots. I get that.

This is change and people don't like change. I think it will all work out in the end. After all, is there ANY sport that claims a true, single WORLD champion? The World Series winner never plays baseball teams from Cuba or Japan. The SuperBowl champions never play teams from Finland or Belarus (I just looked those up - they play football or gridiron). Stanley Cup winners don't play Latvia or Sweden.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by epylko

I don't understand this logic at all. I've seen others make similar statements about not being able to see all the teams, so please don't take this as specific to you.

Let's do the math:

4 days of competition (half day Wednesday/Sunday, full days Thursday/Friday/Saturday)
24 hours/day
60 minutes/hour

If you have 800 teams at one location, that gives you 4*24*60 minutes to meet with 800 teams. Assuming no eating, sleeping, walking between teams, or actually competing, you end up with a best case scenario of being able to spend 7.2 minutes per team. In that timeframe, how can you "...see them, see how they tackled the challenge, compete against and with them, and learn how they work." Even if you go to 400 teams, you're still at 14.4 minutes for a best case scenario.

Cant deny that, its not exactly possible. That doesnt mean you cant at least marvel at their robot for a few seconds, and talk to only the teams you really want to talk to.

With the other 400, you just dont see them, and that is truly missing out on some great teams, which is one of the main issues.

Originally Posted by epylko

This is change and people don't like change. I think it will all work out in the end. After all, is there ANY sport that claims a true, single WORLD champion? The World Series winner never plays baseball teams from Cuba or Japan. The SuperBowl champions never play teams from Finland or Belarus (I just looked those up - they play football or gridiron). Stanley Cup winners don't play Latvia or Sweden.

Both Baseball and Football are predominantly american, and we (and we i mean the viewers of the sport) dont exactly want outside competition in those, i cant say the same about hockey.

There is also Olympic versions of these too. you can consider those "World Champions."

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by epylko

I don't understand this logic at all. I've seen others make similar statements about not being able to see all the teams, so please don't take this as specific to you.

Let's do the math:

4 days of competition (half day Wednesday/Sunday, full days Thursday/Friday/Saturday)
24 hours/day
60 minutes/hour

If you have 800 teams at one location, that gives you 4*24*60 minutes to meet with 800 teams. Assuming no eating, sleeping, walking between teams, or actually competing, you end up with a best case scenario of being able to spend 7.2 minutes per team. In that timeframe, how can you "...see them, see how they tackled the challenge, compete against and with them, and learn how they work." Even if you go to 400 teams, you're still at 14.4 minutes for a best case scenario.

Now that's only for you. What about those top tier teams? Can they deal with new people coming to their pit every 7.2 minutes for 4 days straight? Maybe think of it this way: at 7.2 minutes per person, a team could only meet/talk with 800 people.

FIRST estimates 3,000 teams this year and 75,000 students involved. If you took 800 teams to a single championship and the proportionate number of students, you would have 20,000 students. That does not include mentors, family members, and the general public that would attend as well. How can a small fraction of those meet all the teams they want? It's impossible.

If you want to argue that you might not be able to see your favorite teams, I can agree with that. However, you will have other teams you will get to see that you normally might not.

And sure, it's cool to see all the different robots. I get that.

This is change and people don't like change. I think it will all work out in the end. After all, is there ANY sport that claims a true, single WORLD champion? The World Series winner never plays baseball teams from Cuba or Japan. The SuperBowl champions never play teams from Finland or Belarus (I just looked those up - they play football or gridiron). Stanley Cup winners don't play Latvia or Sweden.

The most famous sporting event in the world (probably beating out the Olympics, even) is the FIFA World Cup.

I also don't think anyone has wondered why they didn't go for a single 800 team venue. That's insane.

[IKE]

From the notes I took and some personal thoughts about the meeting:

FIRST said they would open with about half the meeting explaining their thoughts and what went into the decision. The discussion would try to answer/cover what they deemed the 5 most frequently requested questions of:

Questions:

- What are FIRST's objectives with this decision?
- What process was used to make this decision, and why wasn't the FIRST community asked for input?
- How does this reduce travel costs, especially for West Coast teams?
- Doesn't having two championships weaken the competition aspect that helps make any sport exciting?
- What elements of the decision are set in stone and what elements can the community still help decide?

***************************************
Don Started with Objectives and Core Values and the importance of the organization to stay mission focused.
They wanted a solution taht scales. They wanted more kids to have access to the life changing experience of FIRST and FIRST Championship.
Enable more teams to participate in the FIRST Championship by reducing travel distances and transportation costs for a significant number of teams.
They reviewed a nice graphic that showed the growth of FIRST and the relative portion of population that attend FRC championship throughout the years.
Don brought up the desire to get to around 20% (up from 15%), and cited the 600 team events this year and next as the current method followed by teh 2 event as the follow on method.
Don frequently stated that in the 9 months of working towards the current plan, they did not find what they felt was an ideal solution, but did feel that what they found was the best options that they had.
Don mentioned some of the dificulties from a venue size and more importantly availability out through 2020. Don mentioned that the convention industry has had a lot of growth since their last contract award (IE going to St. Louis) which only makes sense from an eceonomy standpoint. (In MY Opinion, Don seemed to reference that some locations they really wanted were just not available until some time after 2020).
They mentioned again that the locations were chosen in part due to the number of teams within a given mileage (600 miles), that they cited as the range for persons to drive to the event. They basically cited that they felt really bad about California, and especially PNW, but it sounded like their hands were tied from venues standpoint.
There was some commentary on the weakening due to two events, but frankly that one was glazed over during this portion and they went into what was set in stone vs. what was flexible:

Non-negotiable:
2 "Championships" through 2020
400 FRC teams at each event (800 total)
Must have FIRST Progression of programs at each event (IE FLL/FTC/FRC).


FIRST is "exploring":

- Options for a post-season, broadcasted, event between winning alliances
- Opening a percentage of slots at each Championship to teams from the other Championship region
- Other options for adding to the value of Championship for teams

At the end, they covered that FRC used the bulk of floorspace citing about 80-90%.

This opened to Q&A. People were asked to go to Mics (there were two), they asked persons to keep their questions to about 30 seconds, and they would be allowed a follow up if they didn't feel their questions was adequately covered. They did remind people of "Gracious Professionalism". People giving Questions were asked to give Name, Location, and team affiliation. I will save names and teams, but will cite location as it seemed relevant for some:

From NH mentor: Asked if there could be a focus on conferences and other Championship items be brought to District Champs and Regionals.
I believe Frank ansered that it was an idea that would be investigated. NH mentor asked how to get involved and Frank asked her to email him.

CA mentor #1: Asked why "Community" was not engaged in decision making process. Don Bossi cited the need when negotiating for venues that they cannot involve everyone, but the survey they sent out hopes that they can keep the good and important stuff of th championship at both events. My notes are bad on CA mentor's follow up as it was something about Michigan Model and FIRST Core values (more on this later).

NY Mentor- FIRST time at Champs wanted to know more about location selection. ?? cited that FIRST from a geopgraphy standpoint would have liked Salt Lake City Utah & Detroit, but that could not be worked out.

CT Mentor: Brought up the need for this to follow the sports model and the need for a Champion (1 champion). Compared this to a divorce and splitting up the kids. This was more of a statement than a question.

CT Mentor/Student: Brought up the importance of international teams and cultural exchange, and wanted to know how their location was decided. ??? responded that they were still working through details on that. Additional exchange about the importance of international with accidental "rip" on Canadians not being real international, but was OK as the person was Canadian... A small chuckle from the crowd, but only answer was "we understand it is important, but are still working through those details."

CA Mentor #2: Asked about Super Regional model rolled out a couple years ago, and why that was not being followed. Answer was that FIRST thought districts would be more widespread by now. Some discussion about local leadership needing to take on District efforts, and that FIRST could not force their hand. Some good back and forth about districts from mentor that posed question. Follow up question asked how many FIRST Alum are on FIRST Board. Answer was "0", and mentor mentioned that was an issue.

North Carolina Mentor: Brought up concern for Safety and bringing students to DETROIT. Don brought up the extra efforts FIRST does with Cities to ensure Safety. Brought up the extra police, and some of the newspaper reputation St. Louis has. Mentioned he has been to Michigan and Detroit and felt safe. Some back and forth with the mentor about concerns about Detroit. Concern about finding safe lodging "just outside the city" was follow up. No real answer by FIRST.*
*As someone that lives in Detroit Metro, I can assure you there is very very nice areas in the Metro area that are very reasonable drive to the city. I lived at 9.5 and Woodward for 5 years and loved the area. Downtown Detroit is actually really nice, but there are dangerous parts/areas, but that is pretty much every big city.

CA Mentor #1 Round 2: As this mentor had already discussed 2 topics, FIRST asked other questioners if they were OK waiting. They were, so CA Mentor discussed the District model, referenced people from FiM, and "its proven ability to generate new growth" and thus why 1 winner is needed. FIRST disagreed that the growth was primarily due to having a champion and instead cited growth as primarily FiM having a growth goal culture, engaging schools, sponsors, and engaging Gov. Snyder and State legislature to provide funding support for new teams. CA Mentor #1 referenced the need for 1 real world champion and the goal for that is a major driving force in his efforts.

NJ #1 Mentor: Asked why FIRST did not engage experts in decision. Cited airline experience and Detroit being a shrinking Hub. FIRST asked him to get to his question. He cited concerns about bringing kids to the most Dangerous City in the US. His follow up question was asking which FIRST member has vacationed in Detroit. FIRST cited some similar items about safety as earlier question, and the Mentor asked again who had vacationed in Detroit to which no one had.

*It should be noted that I believe there is a FIRST regional in or within 20 minutes of 7/10 of these most dangerous cities in the US, and St. Louis, current World Championship cite is #4... Just sayin....http://lawstreetmedia.com/crime-amer...ties-200000-2/
**Note there are several nice "I'm so tough I vacation in Detroit" T-Shirts available at various stores...

I got up to ask a comment/make a statement. I believe there were 2 more questions, one from:

CA Mentor #3, but I did not take notes.

NJ #2 Mentor, I also missed notes for his, but I think it was more of a comment than a question.

At that point, time was up.

These are my notes/shorthand. Overall, I thought a reasonable effort was given to explain their decision and their rationale. Like most town halls, there seemed to be a fair amount of airing of grievances and ensuring ones voice is heard. I admire the passion that all of the presenters and question askers showed for their topics.

I talked with one of the question/statement persons with regards to the need for 1 Champion. It was not terribly productive as I was trying to cite the "IMO" need for mindset beyond winning, and her and several supporters made it clear the need for role models that are pointed out by them winning.

As far as dodging questions, I really only felt that the "need for 1 champion" and "where are internationals teams going" were dodged. In general, the "need for 1 champion" weren't really questions and instead were statements of concerned persons. I can see how this may have come across as "dodgy", but again the comments seemed more like statements than questions when poised. In this scenario, those answering were likely wiser than I as they didn't try to change anyones mind, just asked if they had a question to follow their statement.

************************************************** ***
The statement that I wanted to bring up, but ran out of time was that the citing of Michigan growth was not due to crowning a champion. FYI, at MSC, you have 1 Champion alliance, 3 MSC Chairman winners, and 1 team that has the most points (often but not always a MSC event winner). Since 2009, I have never heard any of the 3 MSC CA winners complain abuot getting a dilluted award. I have heard others talk about how unfair or difficult it is to win and MSC CA, but no one I talked to was sad when they won. IMO, the really important part of FiM was giving every team an opportunity to compete, improve, and compete each season (which all districts currently do), and a focus on improving middle and bottom tier teams to make a stronger overall community. This lead to more widespread support which in turn lead to more events and more cities being involved which lead to more impact to the community which eventually lead to getting the Governor and other Legislative persons engaged in supporting FIRST in Michigan.

************************************************** ***

My favorite set of questions was CA Mentor #2. I too prefer the Super regional model and was curious why that seemed to go away. During the explanation, I sensed a great deal of frustration that the "District model" has not taken off in certain areas. I also thought that the question of "alumni" on the board was a very good point/question to make. When I was in high school, I was one of 2 Junior Leaders that sat on the fair council meetings. While we were outnumbered by adults, it was occasionally beneficial for them to get/understand the student perspective for decisions. I think having a former student or having a panel of say Dean's List students weighing in on some important questions might benefit FIRST a lot.

************************************************** ***

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

I was in the meeting and thought the notes posted were pretty accurate of the meeting. I guess what bothered me a little is that the only thing not really set in stone is what to do with the winners. Seems like there was no way to have them consider moving FLL and FTC into their own event and no one is world champs and one is world festival idea. It was really mostly just them telling us most things we already knew and hearing the communities complaints and saying okay. They also mentioned they expected backlash maybe not quite as much as what happened but went with it anyways without really letting us know.
***
I know they were talking about contracts and stuff but unless they sealed those last minute, I don't think there was a reason to not inform us. I know deans list winners are usually asked their opinions on major change ideas but this time we heard nothing. I wasn't even aware how they were doing the Dean's list ceremony. Alumni network hasn't gained much traction as far as I know but honestly Chief Delphi is the best alumni network we are going to get and is fine in my opinion. Maybe not the one FIRST wants but it works the best.
/dlw rant

Anyways though, it seems like nothing is really going to change and the meeting was more of a this is how it is going to be, get your frustration out now. Maybe they didn't intend it to be that way and so hostile on both ends but that's what it became and was.

I'm curious to know if they explained why each championship had to have 400 FRC teams, and some number of (J)FLL/FTC teams. I know they started off by saying that it's non-negotiable, but I want to know why. The 2 championships I understand cannot be changed due to contracting issues, but I don't see why they absolutely have to split up the teams within their own competitions.

[216Robochick288]

Originally Posted by IKE

NY Mentor- FIRST time at Champs wanted to know more about location selection. ?? cited that FIRST from a geopgraphy standpoint would have liked Salt Lake City Utah & Detroit, but that could not be worked out.

Im glad this was addressed, I was very curious myself. Salt Lake seemed like the logical location but if you cant get the venue you cant get it.

Originally Posted by IKE

NJ #1 Mentor: Asked why FIRST did not engage experts in decision. Cited airline experience and Detroit being a shrinking Hub. FIRST asked him to get to his question. He cited concerns about bringing kids to the most Dangerous City in the US. His follow up question was asking which FIRST member has vacationed in Detroit. FIRST cited some similar items about safety as earlier question, and the Mentor asked again who had vacationed in Detroit to which no one had.

*It should be noted that I believe there is a FIRST regional in or within 20 minutes of 7/10 of these most dangerous cities in the US, and St. Louis, current World Championship cite is #4... Just sayin....http://lawstreetmedia.com/crime-amer...ties-200000-2/
**Note there are several nice "I'm so tough I vacation in Detroit" T-Shirts available at various stores...

Gosh I wish people would stop ragging on Detroit. As you said, so many Events are hosted near "dangerous" cities, our lovely St. Louis being one of them.

Originally Posted by IKE

I also thought that the question of "alumni" on the board was a very good point/question to make. When I was in high school, I was one of 2 Junior Leaders that sat on the fair council meetings. While we were outnumbered by adults, it was occasionally beneficial for them to get/understand the student perspective for decisions. I think having a former student or having a panel of say Dean's List students weighing in on some important questions might benefit FIRST a lot.

Very, VERY good point.

Thank you greatly for your notes. I hope someone recorded it- I would love to see everything not-shorthand. Ill take what I can get, as it stands I was neck deep in sorting out the queue behind the curtains when this was going on. Thanks much for the time to write it all out

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

I'm curious to know if they explained why each championship had to have 400 FRC teams, and some number of (J)FLL/FTC teams. I know they started off by saying that it's non-negotiable, but I want to know why. The 2 championships I understand cannot be changed due to contracting issues, but I don't see why they absolutely have to split up the teams within their own competitions.

They mentioned the progression as a core value and cited that FLL and FTC are a small portion of the footprint of an event.

[PayneTrain]

From what I gather, there was no discussion of an "open/world" model?

[MrTechCenter]

You know what I still don't understand? The question about why the community wasn't involved beforehand and FIRST answers by saying that it was because of contract negotiations with the venues. That makes sense (kinda) but why not ask the community how they felt about splitting up Champs well BEFORE starting contract negotiations with the venues?