Should teams be allowed to attend multiple regionals?

[dubious elise]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Shouldn't it really be the other way around - for every new FRC (or VEX or FLL) team that a FRC team creates, should they be paid a reward by FIRST?
-dave

Well, I for one wouldn't complain!
I'll admit that paying to attend multiple regionals is a stretch for any team, but money-management is just another facet of the yearly challenge. Developing new fundraisers, finding new sponsors, and eventually, finding the time to create a new team are all integral parts of FIRST that are oftentimes harder than creating the robot itself.

[Keith Chester]

Should teams be allowed more than one regional?

Of course!

FIRST is about inspiration, and some of the most inspiring moments comes from seeing people from other regions, sometimes even other COUNTRIES, compete with the same ideals as you. Looking across the pits and seeing a crew of high schoolers from South Carolina that you would have never met in your life otherwise and seeing them studying their machine the same way you were seconds before. Being able to go up to them, completely comfortable in doing so, and ask them for aide, knowing that I'd recieve an affirmative. Asking them questions about their robot, knowing that a friendly conversation would ensue. Forgetting all about the warnings our parents gave about not trusting strangers at all. Or looking at the eyes of a fellow drive coach after a vicious match, where an opponent lay on the field damaged, and without words traded between either of you, knowing that you are both going to rush over to the aid of that wounded bot. Seeing more refreshing and widespread signs of good in this world.

Being able to travel to more than your home regional allows you to see that FIRST is truly working. It allows you to learn more about how the world works than within your own home state, which some of us won't get to leave until college, if that.

Or I could just be rambling. My apologies. It's late for me.

Also - you work for countless hours on your robot. Of COURSE you want to be able to compete with it multiple times. Unfortunately, yes, there is budget restrictions on some teams that disallow them from traveling to a second regional and even nationals. It is a sad but true part of life in FIRST. But for those that do have the money, why not?

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by AJunx

Again, my memory of his exact message is suspect at best, but I do believe that Mr. Kamen has explicitly told us to do everything in our power (whether that includes funds or not) to inspire those who have not yet been inspired.

My only issue with a lot of the comments in this thread, is that it all seems to be based around funding. True inspiration does NOT come from funding. And a lot of the teams with financial resources, may not have an overabundance of engineering resources. Take our team. We have a very stable and very generous sponsor: Harris Corporation. However, when it came down to the six weeks, we really had about 10 engineers (for 30 students). And probably half of those were part time (meaning they could only make it a few times a week). Looking at these numbers, next year, I would not start another team. I would use the engineers I have to give quality time to the kids that we have. I feel its better to give a smaller number of students a truely inspiring experience, than it is to give a large number of students a mediocre experience. Additionally, the logistics that go into starting and running an additional team are HUGE! I spent over 45 hours a week outside my job just to get 1511 up and running, and get everyone organized. There is no way we could have handled doing that for a second team. My hat goes off to teams like the triplets of Toronto who can gather, organize, sustain and put forth multiple teams.

Additionally, further support for my "inspiration does not come from money" pitch, is that we can go to the middle schools with our robot for free, do presentations and mini seminars for them for FREE. We can introduce other schools to FIRST for FREE... at zero cost to us. We even held a large community scrimmage for 10 local teams, and we paid under $500 for EVERYTHING! It was still a very fun, very inspiring event.

So in the end, if teams have the funds to attend multiple regionals, I still say go for it. Give the students as much competition for their hard work that year as you can afford. And especially now that Championships are not "anyone can register" a lot of teams are using multiple regionals to 1. give the same experience, or 2. to have a better shot at getting their kids to championships. Plus think about your seniors... this may be there last shot... shouldnt they get as much out of this year as possible??

[The Lucas]

Here is my theory on the matter:
Teams that attend more than one Regional reduce the cost for all teams to attend Regionals. This promotes the growth of FIRST by increasing the number of teams and Regionals

I’ve never been part of a Regional planning committee so I don’t know the exact costs involved in hosting a Regional. However, I think it is safe to assume that:
1) Fixed costs (site rental, playing field, etc...) are high
2) Marginal costs to add one more team (power, spare parts, etc…) are less than the marginal revenue ($4000 fee) until the venue reaches maximum capacity.
(Sorry bout the economic jargon, but its nice to see my minor in Economics is coming in handy )

The optimal number of teams at a Regional is the maximum capacity, from a profit-maximizing standpoint (loss-minimizing in FIRST’s case). FIRST has 30 Regionals and let’s say about 900 teams because it’s a nice number. If teams were only allowed to attend one Regional, the average Regional would only have 30 teams. This is significantly less than the capacity of the smallest venue (41 at Philly) and less than half the capacity of some of the larger Regional. To make up for this loss in revenue, FIRST would have to raise the cost of the kit and registration for a Regional (currently $6000) and/or reduce the number of Regionals.

Keeping the cost of the kit and entry down is important since it is the minimum annual cost of fielding a FIRST team. If this cost increases, less potential new teams will be able to raise the money for the entry fee. Also, more existing teams would have financial difficulties and possibly go bankrupt (dropout of FIRST).

If teams could only attend one Regional, there would not be enough participants to support 30 Regionals. Some Regionals are more popular than others, so the less popular Regionals would be starved for competitors. This year, the Waterloo Regional had the bare minimum of 24 teams in attendance. I don’t think teams 40 and 68 would have traveled to this regional if it meant they would not be allowed to attend BAE and GLR as well.

Is it fair that some teams attend more Regionals than others? No, but FIRST isn’t fair and never will be. Some teams will always have advantages (money, experience, engineers, etc…) over other teams.

In FIRST, it doesn’t really matter if the competition is totally fair, as long as the competition is fun. The actual competition aspect of FIRST has always been a means to an end. The competitions are fun so teams keep coming back and more teams join. More Regionals are added, increasing FIRST’s exposure in that region. More teams join because they have a local Regional now. FIRST continues to grow. Along the way more and more students every year are learning that engineering is more than just difficult equations for geeks. Engineering can be a fun and rewarding experience that everyone can do if they try. The culture of young people around the world changes for the better simply because robotic competitions are fun.

[Meyerman]

I personally feel the more you attend the better. You spend 6 weeks working on a robot , why wouldnt you want to use it as much as you possibly could this year team 56 went to the Sacramento Regional, New Jersey Regional, and Philadelphia Regional and being we won the Philadelphia Regional we are now also goin to Nationals. This took a lot of work out of all the students on the team not so much to get the money for regionals but we were able to raise $15,000 in 2 weeks to be able to send half of our team to nationals. i think it will definately be worth all the work because we get to use our bot once again! and cant wait to see how we do. ATTEND AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE ITS WORTH IT.

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Uunnnhhh, perhaps there is a different reason. Yes, the $3500 limit was initiated to help level the playing field at a reasonable level (i.e. ensure that well-backed teams could not buy an unlimited amount of machining and out-sourced services while other teams struggled to purchase minimal supplies). -dave

What if FIRST tried to place a cap of, say $5000 of "value added" on INSOURCED machining provided by the teams' sponsoring organization? Boy, would that ever change things!!

More on-topic is this. I feel a team should be allowed to attend as many regionals as they want, but my 10 years in FIRST says that two is the right number. You need more than one to get the driver experience and robot debugging necessary to be competitive at the Championship, but attending three or four regionals takes kids out of too much school and most mentors away from work too much.

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by AJunx

...

Assuming, now, that had this $5,000 not been spent on participating in an additional regional, that the $5,000 would still be in the team treasury. (That is, the team would be able to spend it however it desired.)

Depending on where/who the money is from, it may go back to the team treasury, it may not. I know with my high school team, any money the school gave us that we didn't use went back to the school at the close of the school year. So if we got $15k in September and spent $10k, the remaining $5k would go back to the school district in June.

Regardless, I agree with most of the above posts; if teams can afford the time and money to go to more than one regional let them. As it is, isn't there a 3 regional per team cap right now?

[dhitchco]

As a rookie team,
we attended three (3) regionals

Did it cost a lot of money? YES
Could we "afford" it? OBVIOUSLY, we did.

Could the same funds have been otherwise spent? MAYBE

Will we spend the funds in the same manner next year? MAYBE

Each team should be empowered to spend their funds just like a real corporation does to earn the maximum RETURN ON THEIR INVESTMENT.

I will tell you that going to all three regionals for a rookie team has had a HUGE value on each one of us in many ways more than just additional practice with the robot itself.

But, not to brag.....
Finger Lakes Regional....."Rookie All-Star" Award
Buckeye Regional.........."Highest Seeded Rookie" Award
Toronto Regional..........."Rookie Spirit" Award, "Rookie Inspiration" Award and #1 winning alliance.

[Mirza95vx]

I think that teams should be allowed to attend as many regionals as they choose. Our team has been to three regionals thus far. We planned this this way because it was our first year and if we didn't make it to nationals we would have had more experience for next year. It would have been real disappointing if we only went to one regional and then we didn't qualify for Nationals.

I see your point in using the money to inspire kids through science and technology but i also believe that one of the best ways to achieve inspiration is through experience and the FIRST competitions are so inspiring to participate in.

[Jessica Boucher]

It's a question of opportunity cost: would the quality of engineering outreach that a team would achieve by not attending another FIRST regional be better than the quality of engineering outreach the team is recieving at attending another regional?

From there, you need to define quality matrices (Percentage of students enrolling in engineering higher ed programs? Finishing engineering higher ed programs? Taking a job in science or technology-related fields? Enrollment/Demand for science and technology-based classes? Higher math standardized test scores?), and figure it out mathematically from there. I would definitely be interested in seeing the data on that.

But in the end....I don't mind teams going to more than one regional. Just a personal preference.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Teams should be able to attend as many regionals as they please. It is, after all, their money that they are spending. Teams that attend multiple regionals usually do a good amount of fundraising to attend these regionals.

Let teams use the money they've earned to do the things they want to do.

[XtremeEagle04]

Do you believe that this money could be better spent in the interests of achieving the goals of FIRST (to inspire in young people an interest in engineering and science) if the money was not spent on attending an additional regional event, but on engineering outreach instead?”

there is no better way for a student to be inspired to gain an interest in engineering and science than to attend an event with hundreds of their peers that share a common interest.

[AJunx]

Originally posted by Allison K:

Does participating in a regional not count as acheiving the goals of FIRST? Are you telling me that you are not inspired by attending regional events?

Ms. K, I’m very glad you have spotlighted this issue.

I think that attending a regional event ABSOLUTELY counts as achieving the goals of FIRST (particularly the Inspiration aspect). However, all regional attendance is not equal. What do I mean? I’ll explain.

I believe that there are two main ways in which a team may choose to attend a regional event:
1) The “full-team method.”
OR
2) The “drive-team method.”

The “full-team method” probably needs no explanation. But an example or two might prove useful.

Example A: Bluateam is planning to attend only one regional event this year. When it comes time for Bluateam to compete in their regional, the entire team attends. Maybe Bluateam is a large team, or maybe Bluateam is a small team; regardless of their size, every team member that is eligible to be with the team at the regional will do so. Bluateam members will go to the regional, they will get the joy of seeing their own creation come to life and compete against other works of engineering brilliance. In some cases, Bluateam wins awards for being the most spirited, for being the most gracious professionals (sportsmanship), or for truly exemplifying what FIRST is all about (Chairman’s). A perfect example of this sort of team is Team 364 (Sparky), out of Richmond, VA. At the NASA/VCU regional they embodied, in my humble opinion, the true spirit of FIRST. They were always spirited, helpful, and gracious professionals.

Example B: Bluateam is planning to attend two (or more) regional events this year. Bluateam sends its entire team to both regionals. Bluateam members are inspired at each competition. Again, in some cases, Bluateam wins awards for being the most spirited or for being the most gracious professionals (sportsmanship). Bluateam has many reasons for attending an additional regional event, but most of all they feel as if the entire team has benefited from the experience.

The “drive team method” is one that has been employed by a number of different teams. It is often used to gain a competitive advantage over other teams (which is not, specifically, up for debate in this thread).

Example: Redateam is planning to attend two regionals and nationals. To the first regional they attend, they send 3 students (the drive team) and some number of engineers (we’ll say 7). Those 10 Redateam members do not try to win any awards, other than those involving the design/success of the robot. Redateam has sent those 10 team members for two reasons: 1) to gain additional driving experience and 2) to gain an extra three days to build/fix the robot.

The question then, redefined, is this:
Do YOU believe that the $5,000 dollars (which is, I might add, a very low estimate) spent by Redateam to send their drive team and 7 engineers to an additional regional could be better spent in the interests of achieving the goals of FIRST (to inspire in young people an interest in engineering and science)?
In other words, do you believe that the money used to fund the "drive-team method," as described above, could not be used differently so as to inspire more people to become involved with science and engineering?


Originally posted by Katie Reynolds:

As it is, isn't there a 3 regional per team cap right now?

I'm not 100% sure, but I do not believe that there is any rule that prevents a team from attending more than three regionals. As for last year, there was most definitely not a rule preventing teams from attending more than 3 (hence the 16 teams that attended 4 regionals).


The feedback so far has been absolutely great. Thanks to everyone who has posted their thoughts.

-Andrew

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by AJunx

The question then, redefined, is this:
Do YOU believe that the $5,000 dollars (which is, I might add, a very low estimate) spent by Redateam to send their drive team and 7 engineers to an additional regional could be better spent in the interests of achieving the goals of FIRST (to inspire in young people an interest in engineering and science)?
In other words, do you believe that the money used to fund the "drive-team method," as described above, could not be used differently so as to inspire more people to become involved with science and engineering?

There may be a few teams that use the so called "drive team method." I personally have not witnessed any. Ever. All I have ever seen from a FIRST team at a regional competition is passion and enthusiasm in all of the members. I have seen small teams, and from what I have seen they are just as inspired as the students on large teams, so doesn't that make the money worth it?

I will assume however that since you brought up this "drive team method" that you have somewhere witnessed a team using it. If that is the case, is it really worth taking away from the experience of students on all of the other teams by limiting all teams to one regional. It is my opinion that FIRST is not about lowering the bar to those with the smallest expectations, but helping helping all teams exceed the standards set by the best.

Originally Posted by Ajunx

"If teams should be allowed to do whatever they please with their money, should FIRST eliminate all restrictions on how teams spend their money?
If FIRST were to take this route, changes might include:
• Eliminating the $3500 limit on parts used for robots.
• Eliminating the 25-pound limit on fabricated spare/replacement/upgrade parts that you can bring to each regional event (since these parts do not count towards the $3500 limit).
• Eliminating the 120-pound weight limit for robots.
• Lengthening the 6-week build season.

FIRST already has restrictions on how teams can spend their money.
The reason for these restrictions, in my opinion, is twofold. The first is obviously to keep the playing field reasonably level. No one wants there to be teams that win simply by outspending other teams (this isn’t Major League Baseball )
The second reason is that FIRST doesn’t want teams spending every penny they have solely on the robotics competition.

If FIRST did want teams to spend all of their funding on the robotics competition, then why is there a 120-pound weight limit for robots? Why is the build season only 6 weeks long? Why can’t teams build $15,000 robots to compete? (note, a $15,000 robot could be pretty darn inspiring)"

If I were to guess, I would say that the $3,500 limit was put in place not to control the use of a team's funds, but to enhance the engineering experience. It would be a lot esier to build a competitive robot with $15,000. And that $15,000 robot may well be inspiring. But the $3,500 creates a much more realistic engineering experience with taking away any of it's inspiring qualities.

The six week build phase is similar to the monetary limit. I'm sure teams could build an amazing robot if they had an entire year (and $15,000) to build it in. But the six week build phase more realistically imitates a real world eningeering experience without comprismising the inspiration factor.

The 120 lb weight limit is another case of this. The real world has limits. There are deadlines and there are small budgets and there are project limitations. I think it's great that FIRST is able to achieve the number one goal of inspiration and still create such a wonderfully realistic engineering challenge.

FIRST rules are not about being negative and taking away to level the playing field. They are about creating a unique design challenge while still being an extremely positive experience. Limiting a team to one regional would take away from the experience without significant benefits.

~Allison

[nobrakes8]

With the amount of money it costs, I wish FIRST would include two regionals with their registration fee. Like this year it cost $6,000 to register for the KOP and 1 regional, I bet a lot of people would rather pay $8,000 for the KOP and 2 regionals, then $4,000 for every regional after those.

Obviosuly it's expensive to run these events, but you need to wonder how much money FIRST is really going to lose by offering a 2 regional package to every team. Plus this year several regionals had open spots, I'm sure FIRST would rather gain $2,000 on those open spots than have them remain empty. A lot teams that attened 2 regionals this year, would maybe attend three next year and I'm sure moneywise it might balance and work out.

(When I say FIRST gains money, I don't mean make a profit because FIRST is legit organization that puts the money back into the students and the compeition)