MI is the best?

[Jim Schaddelee]

Be from Michigan this is a little hard to say but, I think we need to step up our game.The idea that Michigan teams are the best might be bit arrogant. If I am correct we had zero teams in the finals this year, and only 2 on the Einstein field. Here are my thoughts on what is going on.
I believe in the past districts helped our teams by allowing us more matches and gain more experience but, this advantage is going away.Also based on the number of teams we have I think our districts are getting watered down. I can not tell you before the season we need to go to "X" district if we want to play with the best teams. And if I could I am not sure we could get in due to having home districts. which I totally understand is done to save teams travel expenses.
My point is this ,If you what to be the best you need to play with the best.and learn from the best.Currently we play with the best at State champs, but by then its to late to make improvements. So, Here is my ideas. How about a "super district" event early in the season were the best teams based on the previous year get a invite to come and play. How you pick the teams I don't know but it needs to be based on performance. I think FIM has done a great job in building a great number of team , Now that we have them how do we get better?

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

Be from Michigan this is a little hard to say but, I think we need to step up our game.The idea that Michigan teams are the best might be bit arrogant. If I am correct we had zero teams in the finals this year, and only 2 on the Einstein field. Here are my thoughts on what is going on.

3 MI teams on Einstein. 217 Captained the 7th alliance. 5050 was the 2nd pick of the #1 alliance. 3538 was the 2nd pick of the #4 alliance.

[Cam_Team 2619]

The notion of having a "super-district" competition/invitational competition seems extremely elitist in nature. Not only does this mean that there would be separate levels for "good" and "bad" teams, but there would be no chance for less experienced teams to compete with the pros, which can help teams improve in ways no one would ever expect.

Districts are meant to allow teams to compete where they wish, and play with a relatively diverse field of teams. Leave the "best playing the best" for the district/world championships.

[Basel A]

This seems to happen on its own pretty often. A number of top Michigan teams competed at Waterford in Week 1 when they could have just as easily switched to Southfield (nearby, Week 1, much weaker field).

[Moskowapplepi]

I had heard but never believed FIM valued elite play over inspiring people in their communoty, but I was sadly mistaken

[JackN]

I think Michigan is still probably one of the strongest regions in FIRST. Yes we did not put quite as many teams onto Einstein, but the depth of the state continues to grow. By my count, 52 teams from Michigan were either captains or selected for the elimination rounds at the championship. This is the THIRD year in a row where there were more teams from Michigan playing in the elimination rounds at championship than there were playing at the Michigan State Championship.

I do think that increasing the number of districts has hurt some of the upper level teams in terms of competitiveness on the world level. I thought the biggest event ever season was always the Troy district because it would pit five or six of the best teams in the state against each other and you would see the first glimpses of the highest levels of a game being played. But the explosive growth in Districts has built a very robust second and third tier of teams that did not exist even three years ago.

[angelah]

I don't think you can use this year's championship to judge that.

It would be better to look at performance over several years, and probably not even including this year.

[Anthony Galea]

Michigan has the longest standing Einstein streak, going at least to 2002, and I'm not sure about anything before that due to incomplete data. Teams that don't even make playoffs at MSC make it to the playoffs at Champs, and in one case, Einstein (3538). Michigan might not have a 1678 type, where they make Einstein every year (469 from 2010-2014 would be the best comparison) but the depth of teams in Michigan is what makes FiM great.

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Originally Posted by JackN

I do think that increasing the number of districts has hurt some of the upper level teams in terms of competitiveness on the world level. I thought the biggest event ever season was always the Troy district because it would pit five or six of the best teams in the state against each other and you would see the first glimpses of the highest levels of a game being played. But the explosive growth in Districts has built a very robust second and third tier of teams that did not exist even three years ago.

I think that people are assuming that having a small but incredibly elite cohort of teams is what makes Michigan successful, but I have to disagree. The district system may have "watered down" competitions in the sense that the most competitive teams are no longer playing together at every event, but it allows a large number of teams to play with and learn from them.

Is it more effective to have the top 10 teams at one district, or to have each of those teams at a different district? If you spread them out, younger and more inexperienced teams have the opportunity to interact with powerhouse teams and learn from them. While it might be more exciting to witness a bunch of them gathered at one competition, it's really not helping teams improve.

Rising tides lift all boats. If we work together to support our low resource and newer teams, we will create a stronger FIRST community as a whole.

[Jefferson]

Originally Posted by Moskowapplepi

I had heard but never believed FIM valued elite play over inspiring people in their communoty, but I was sadly mistaken

You made quite a leap there. I don't see anything in this thread so far that even hints at what you're suggesting. Robot performance and STEM inspiration are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd argue they go hand in hand.

[JackN]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

I think that people are assuming that having a small but incredibly elite cohort of teams is what makes Michigan successful, but I have to disagree. The district system may have "watered down" competitions in the sense that the most competitive teams are no longer playing together at every event, but it allows a large number of teams to play with and learn from them.

Is it more effective to have the top 10 teams at one district, or to have each of those teams at a different district? If you spread them out, younger and more inexperienced teams have the opportunity to interact with powerhouse teams and learn from them. While it might be more exciting to witness a bunch of them gathered at one competition, it's really not helping teams improve.

Rising tides lift all boats. If we work together to support our low resource and newer teams, we will create a stronger FIRST community as a whole.

I 100% agree with you, maybe my post doesn't necessarily reflect that the way I wanted it to.

Having few districts with more concentrated teams benefited those teams and helped them get to a level before MSC that was a significant advantage over the rest of the world.

I think what has helped teams the most is how often newer teams are getting to run their own alliances in events where it never happened before. The biggest way to learn how to compete in eliminations is to actually get a chance to do it. We saw this pay off big time at MSC with all of the new teams that captained alliances in elims.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jefferson

You made quite a leap there. I don't see anything in this thread so far that even hints at what you're suggesting. Robot performance and STEM inspiration are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd argue they go hand in hand.

The OP is, essentially, saying that MI teams aren't competitive enough at Worlds. They aren't "the best". (That's what I'm getting from the OP, rather shortened of course.) I could also point to MULTIPLE discussions back when districts were first introduced that had a similar sort of bent. Trust me, some folks (not necessarily in this thread) seem to think this is a robotics competition for the competition's sake, and are thus apparently missing the bigger picture of "this is for INSPIRATION".

I can't say for sure that robot performance and STEM inspiration are tied together, either. They're related, but not the same. And it's going to be really hard to determine exactly what the relationship is.

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by Cam_Team 2619

there would be no chance for less experienced teams to compete with the pros, which can help teams improve in ways no one would ever expect.

Pretty sure they were suggesting an additional event. What takes place now would continue to take place. You'd have the mix at the range of regional events. Their suggestion is to add an additional event using the past season as a prediction of who is going to be successful this season and give them an extra chance to play against strong teams and push themselves going into the season.

In theory, this would have a bit of a waterfall effect. These teams would compete, get ideas, improve before their regionals, and spread these improvements to other teams at the regionals. I'm not sure where it'd hurt anyone.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

Be from Michigan this is a little hard to say but, I think we need to step up our game.The idea that Michigan teams are the best might be bit arrogant. If I am correct we had zero teams in the finals this year, and only 2 on the Einstein field. Here are my thoughts on what is going on.
I believe in the past districts helped our teams by allowing us more matches and gain more experience but, this advantage is going away.Also based on the number of teams we have I think our districts are getting watered down. I can not tell you before the season we need to go to "X" district if we want to play with the best teams. And if I could I am not sure we could get in due to having home districts. which I totally understand is done to save teams travel expenses.
My point is this ,If you what to be the best you need to play with the best.and learn from the best.Currently we play with the best at State champs, but by then its to late to make improvements. So, Here is my ideas. How about a "super district" event early in the season were the best teams based on the previous year get a invite to come and play. How you pick the teams I don't know but it needs to be based on performance. I think FIM has done a great job in building a great number of team , Now that we have them how do we get better?

Bolded by me so that I could address some items:

1. Thinking that Michigan teams are the best is very arrogant (no "might be" to it). It would also be difficult to make that conclusion founded in any current logical argument other than relying on some historical data. I believe that most any of those metrics would likely have you pointing more towards CA for concentration of the Crem de la Crem (ironically you can think CA means Canada or California, and you would be able to make a good case for either).

2. Given the current need for points to attend MSC, having more than for "super" teams would have a high probability in one of them not even making it to MSC unless they win their second event (which can often be a coin toss). (check out 910s situation this year who BTW won Windsor and was a finalist in their division).

3rd Bold: In Michigan, we have put a big focus on bringing up the teams that are struggling. Some would refer to it as raising the floor. Overall, the teams did do very well over the weekend, with a lot of teams making elims, and even more advancing within their given division.

32 teams "made it to" Einstein. 3 of those were FiM teams or just shy of 10%. Michigan had 411 of 3124 FRC teams, or right at 13%. This would lead to the conclusion that FiM was "underrepresented", but anyone familiar with statistics would tell you that you are probably within the tolerance band. If you check out each division finals, you would see 7/48(ish) teams were FiM teams which is 14.5% (a little over-representation).

I do think you have observed something that could be real, and may deserve some discussion/reflection by teams wanting to play at Einstein level. For instance, very few Michigan teams focused on lightning fast can grabbers last year, and this year, I would have thought at least a couple "2 ball autos" would have been at MSC. If you want to play at Einstein level, you may want to ask yourself where do you need to be.

Lastly,
Many of the best teams in the world just keep upping their game. Sometimes loosing your position in the lead is not about going slower, but about the field just going a bit faster.

MSC was awesome to watch. There were tons of twists and turns and underdogs taking a stab at (and occasionally slaying) the favorite.

Does Michigan need to step up its game... probably, but so does everyone everywhere. We are getting this to a level that makes it fun to watch by spectators. This fun to watch brings crowds, which is what truly changes the culture in the way we are trying to change.

Which teams get confetti blown on their robot at the end of the season matters much less to me then coworkers, grandparents, and friends and family seeing and hearing about what we are doing and wanting to come be a part of it.*

To put it another way, would you want the top 10 contenders for Einstein to take up an additional 50-100 mentors (5-10 for each team) to have a 50/50 shot at improving from a finalist to a Champion, or would you rather those 50-100 mentors work with about 200-500 kids that currently do not even know about FIRST programs. In reality, this is often the difference. I am not saying that those mentors build the robots, but those mentors often give that extra attention/support that the students need to change a really good robot into a truly great one.

Moskowapplepi:
You were not mistaken. While some may focus solely their teams performance, many focus on what inspires a community. Some of what inspires a community is really great play. Some is having a lot of local teams to go see. Some is about getting many others engaged.

*Which team gets confetti in their robot does matter a lot to me, just not nearly as much as getting the community engaged. That was a factor why I left a great team in order to be an LRI at more events, and to help out other teams that were struggling.

[Jim Schaddelee]

Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog

I think that people are assuming that having a small but incredibly elite cohort of teams is what makes Michigan successful, but I have to disagree. The district system may have "watered down" competitions in the sense that the most competitive teams are no longer playing together at every event, but it allows a large number of teams to play with and learn from them.

Is it more effective to have the top 10 teams at one district, or to have each of those teams at a different district? If you spread them out, younger and more inexperienced teams have the opportunity to interact with powerhouse teams and learn from them. While it might be more exciting to witness a bunch of them gathered at one competition, it's really not helping teams improve.

Rising tides lift all boats. If we work together to support our low resource and newer teams, we will create a stronger FIRST community as a whole.

I agree with what you are saying ,totally. The purpose of a super regional is for these teams that compete and to spread the knowledge gained, not to be elitist. Teams compete at multiple districts every year and that how the knowledge gets out. Maybe we need to schedule more time at districts for training. I don't consider my team to be "elite" we are good and the only reason we are even "good" is because of "great" ie. ( 71 111 67 33 in the early days and teams like 2054 1114 ) teams inspire us to work hard to improve.