ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective

[EricH]

I’m seeing a lot of discussion about various forms of 2-Championship-splitting, many attempting to get one true World Champion. But there’s another factor to play in. FIRST specifically stated that the reason for the ChampionSplit was to increase the inspiration of Championship by allowing more teams and still being able to fit in. Whether you have to attend Championship to be inspired is a matter for discussing elsewhere.

I think I know somewhat of WHY they made that choice—it’s consistent with FIRST’s goals from the get-go—I just think they made a mistake by overlooking the competitive spirit of the teams. I’ve been around a while, so bear with me. I’m going to take us all way, way, way back to before this whole thing got started…

Most of us have heard the name “Dr. William Murphy” at events. He’s the one who founded the Woodie Flowers Award. But he’s also one of the people directly responsible for FIRST.

Your reading for today comes from Popular Science—the relevant portion is quoted, but the entire article is a good read.

In 1987, a doctor named William Murphy died and left his most prized possessions to his son, a doctor named William Murphy Jr. Not long after that, Murphy Jr. invited Kamen, who was already a successful inventor of medical devices, to his home. When, through casual conversation, Kamen learned that neglected somewhere in his friend's house, jammed into a cluttered closet or packed in a box, there was a Nobel Prize — the actual Nobel Prize diploma that his friend's father had received in 1934 for his treatment of anemia — something fired in Kamen's brain. Suddenly he could see it clearly: We're celebrating the wrong stuff. We should celebrate the heroes in science and technology the way we celebrate sports figures and entertainers. We need an organization directed at kids that exists solely for inspiration and recognition of science and technology.

Take a very close look at that last line. Remember that. I want to say that I remember hearing that Dean was helping clean out said closet and helped find said Nobel—probably a legend, though.

In 1989, Dean founded a non-profit. To give it its full moniker, the United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (USFIRST, or as it is far more commonly known, FIRST) was founded for exactly that purpose. This foundation has a vision:

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

And a mission:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

(Both from http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision)

Sometime around then, Dean met a certain distinguished MIT professor with a ponytail: Dr. Woodie Flowers. Woodie taught one of MIT’s most popular classes, which happened to include an engineering competition (which itself was wildly popular). Dean apparently thought this was a really great idea to accomplish the mission, vision, goal, and name of FIRST.

In 1992, the FIRST Robotics Competition made its debut, in a high school gym in Manchester, NH. 28 teams, playing on a “corny” field, with robots built from, among other things, parts from a dot-matrix printer. These robots were about the size of an FTC or VRC robot; their controls were tethered. But the next year, 26 teams came back (or for the first time, joined in). And the next year there were more. And more. And more. By 1996, there were regionals in a few places; the National competition was held at Epcot in various places. In 1999, alliances were added: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” had taken hold in strategy, knocking off a lot of top robots, and so collusion, which wasn’t preventable, was required! By 2003, Epcot had been outgrown, so the FIRST Championship moved to Houston, then to Atlanta, and is now in St. Louis. Robots have gotten bigger, faster, more powerful—by the time I saw my first FRC robot (1997, in a post-season demo), they were nearly the current size. And FIRST has expanded its offerings: FLL in 2001, FTC starting around 2006 (depending on who you ask), JFLL in 2004.

FIRST has always tried to maximize the teams attending the Championship: in addition to qualifying by winning/RCA/EI/RAS, they’ve used a variety of methods to try to maintain 25% attendance, or once every 4 years. This has included even/odd team numbers in even/odd years and a points-based system (win award, get points, get over X points and go or something like that). Currently, it’s win/RCA/EI/RAS, Legacy/HoF, District rank, or the waitlist based on “longer time means more chances”. (Bonus trivia: It wasn’t until around the time alliances came along that there were ANY restrictions on attendance, besides attending one regional. That’s right, any team in FIRST could attend, just by paying for it. My, how times have changed.)

But there’s been one message that’s been piped through, year after year after year after year (OK, repeat that about another 20 times). “It’s not about the robots.” From the 2003 (or so) Kickoff: "at some point in the next six weeks you are going to start feeling like you are involved in a robot building contest. Then you are in serious trouble" -Dean Kamen (Note: I found this by a spotlight search.) If you’ve watched a Kickoff, or a Championship, Dean always gives homework: the homework is always about either growing FIRST or inspiring more people, or both.

Given some of the responses to the ChampionSplit, which is specifically to increase the Inspiration, I think some folks “are in serious trouble” (y’all know who you are). FIRST’s goal, FIRST’s reason for existence, is Inspiration. Not Competition (the C in FRC—incidentally, this is the only FIRST program that uses “competition” in its name). This move is about maximizing the Inspiration, with just a little easier time finding venues to boot (and maybe some other benefits that may or may not actually materialize).

This was never about Competition. Except as much as Competition contributes to Inspiration.

That being said, because the vehicle of choice is in fact a competition, I do believe that one world championship alliance does need to be crowned, OR the championships need to be specifically designated as “North” and “South” or some other designation that emphasizes their status as completely separate events. But intentionally splitting the championships so that all the competitive teams are at one and everybody else is at the other is probably not going to help maximize the Inspiration factor. My challenge to everybody is this: Find a way to maintain the Inspiration at or above current levels, at both sides of the ChampionSplit, and still get a single World Champion Alliance. Maybe there is no solution at all to this problem. Maybe it’s simple. Maybe it’s complicated. Bring it on, there’s more than 6 weeks to go, so if we can’t solve this I don’t know what we’re doing here.