Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[EricH]

And, then there are the awards to qualify. CA can be known (Say a 1/7-1/10), Rookie All-Star is about the same as CA, and EI is 1/50. This is assuming that all teams that enter competition for those awards have an equal chance. So your chance may actually fluctuate, depending on how many you enter for. (min 4, max 5)

[dtengineering]

Well, the first question would be what, exactly is FAIR?

It is a pretty nebulous concept. If what you are asking is "does competing at multiple regionals give teams a competitive advantage?" then the answer is clearly yes.

Statistically it has been shown (thank you to those who clarified the stats on the previous page) that "all else being equal" you have a greater chance of winning a regional (or an award of any kind, for that matter) the more regionals you attend. But "all else" is not equal.

At Seattle this year we had a huge competitive advantage over teams that had not played the game before, simply because our drive team had three days to practice in Portland, our programmers had three days to refine code, and our build team had a chance to analyze the game video, identify a problem with our "ball knocking" mechanism, and replace it with a more effective mechanism for Seattle.

My advice to teams doing only one regional is to try and find a first or second weekend event if they are concerned about competing on an "equal" footing.

As for fair... well, we all compete under the same set of rules. So that part is fair. Some teams... for whatever reasons... have access to more resources than others. If we are going to start asking if it is fair for different groups of people to have access to different resources, then that is a question much, much larger than FRC!

Jason

[nlknauss]

Many of us may also participate in other technological design competitions at our schools. Basically any competition where there is a problem given that you are given limited resources to develop a solution.

One of the many characteristics that sets FIRST apart from the rest of those competitions is that FIRST gives it students the opportunity to modify and redesign their submissions after a single demonstration or regional. We all have the same opportunity to do this through the guidelines that FIRST lays out annually. Competing at multiple regionals is all a part of the real life experience FIRST provides. All professionals are provided with resources, guidelines, and opportunities to develop and present products.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

And by fate, that worst robot could even win all it's matches due to help from partners, make brilliant alliance selections, and win the whole thing.

In my point of view, it's all about luck. Luck being hard work and preperation, matched with dedication.

Cass

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

flawed logic- just showing up doesnt give you an equal probability of winning anything. A robot can win multiple regionals due to quality play or be the worst robot at every regional.

I believe he was just giving a lesson in the proper method of calculating that probability, based on obviously simplified assumptions. So my thanks atleast to Nikhil for getting at least a bit of good math into the thread.

Now then, not to be too crass about such a noble subject as fairness and all that, but I grabbed all the team lists and tabulated a few numbers for regional wins and awards. First and foremost, over 25% of FRC teams attend more than one event. This is not some incredibly small minority of "powerhouse" teams that are taking an extra try at the brass ring. Second, there were 14 teams that won multiple regionals that represent, as should be obvious to anyone that followed this year, 16 total "extra" regional wins. So out of a minimum of 656 regional wins, 2.4% were "extra". So I think at the least, the concern about multiple regional teams taking up lots of regional wins is unfounded.

Now, as groups, 3+ regional attendees received, per team, more regional wins and awards (-RCA, -WFA, etc.) than did 2 regional attendees. Similarly, 2 regional attendees received more wins and awards per team than did single regional attendees. This is not interesting, however, and is probably expected. The interesting bit is the 3+ teams received more wins and awards per team per regional than 2+ teams. And 2 teams similarly did better on a per regional basis than 1 teams. Feel free to interpret this data as you wish, but I find is rather interesting.

Finally, to be as utterly crass and base as possible in a thread about "fairness", it simply doesn't matter whether attending multiple regionals is fair or not. The plain fact is that the 432 extra regional attendances more or less represent about $1.75 million of pure extra revenue for FIRST, since teams receive no extra kits, benefits, or other outlays from FIRST for regional attendances after the first. I think it's fairly certain that FIRST depends heavily on this extra revenue and that no small part of it ends up acting as a subsidy for first regional fees for other teams. Coincidentally, if FIRST prevented teams from attending more than one regional, they'd have to raise the first regional fee to $7000 per team to make up the difference. And recruit something like 60-70 additional teams. So if you're convinced teams attending extra regionals is nothing but bad for FIRST, there's some food for thought.

[Team2339]

As a rookie team this year we found the teams competing in more than one regional a great source of information and inspiration. Our team placed 38th at the LA regional and wished we had another weekend to run our bot. We took it apart when it came home and fixed the bugs, now it works 100% better.

The team will make the effort to raise $ for two regionals next year, both somewhat local, just to gain more experience and push their learning curves.

Fairness is the opportunity to learn from the FIRST experience, regardless of a 1st place or 38th place finish. The 2nd or 3rd regional promotes the advancement of knowledge through experimentation and repitition. Seems like a fundamental reason for FIRST to me.

[fuzzy1718]

The reason for my post way back on page 6 is, I'm tired of seeing and hearing about the same teams in Atlanta, year after year, when I know for a fact that they didn't win a regional. I'm tired of the same teams getting to the playoffs at most regionals. Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going. Why pick one another when all arealready going, pick the people that have never gone or don't "buy their way in every year. Our team has been turned down at a regional because and I quote them "Sorry, but we only pick veteran teams for our alliance partners" Straight to our faces, that is rediculous, esspecialy after we had gotten the highest scoring match at that regional with them. I simply seen that not competeing at multipule regionals as an oppertunity to let less experianced teams get a chance to be in the playoffs. Yes I know that alot of powerhouse teams are in my area, but I'm not worried about my team. I'm more worried about the teams competing with the powerhouse teams when the powerhouse teams get tired of fighting one another, and travel out of state. If you notice my team only goes to regionals in our state, we don't go out of state, we have only gone to Atlanta when we qualified once, and we are striving to improve our team. We are not a veteran power house and never plan on acting like a few veteran powerhouses do, not all, but SOME. Do me a favor don't respond to this with "You should be spending your time improving you team and not complaining about others, that is a cop-out answer. You know who you are!!!

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

The reason for my post way back on page 6 is, I'm tired of seeing and hearing about the same teams in Atlanta, year after year, when I know for a fact that they didn't win a regional. I'm tired of the same teams getting to the playoffs at most regionals. Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going. Why pick one another when all arealready going, pick the people that have never gone or don't "buy their way in every year. Our team has been turned down at a regional because and I quote them "Sorry, but we only pick veteran teams for our alliance partners" Straight to our faces, that is rediculous, esspecialy after we had gotten the highest scoring match at that regional with them. I simply seen that not competeing at multipule regionals as an oppertunity to let less experianced teams get a chance to be in the playoffs. Yes I know that alot of powerhouse teams are in my area, but I'm not worried about my team. I'm more worried about the teams competing with the powerhouse teams when the powerhouse teams get tired of fighting one another, and travel out of state. If you notice my team only goes to regionals in our state, we don't go out of state, we have only gone to Atlanta when we qualified once, and we are striving to improve our team. We are not a veteran power house and never plan on acting like a few veteran powerhouses do, not all, but SOME. Do me a favor don't respond to this with "You should be spending your time improving you team and not complaining about others, that is a cop-out answer. You know who you are!!!

The following are my own opinions:

I know where you are coming from by stating that vet teams usually pick vet teams. However, if you had the opportunity to pick a vet team that you scouted and knew had a better chance of alliancing with and winning the regional, would you not pick them over any other team (be they rookie or not)? How and which teams choose to select other teams is what I believe to be a privilege that they earn by competing their very best. Personally I don't think anyone has a right to judge why a team picks another certain team: its their shot to call if they earned that top 8 seed.

Also, read the post right above your recent one. I believe that this certain rookie said it best.

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Now my rant on FAIRNESS at regionals-

Chairman's Awards should not be awarded the same team at the same region two consecutive years in a row. If the team is truly worthy that should be evident to judging panels at more than one region and they should apply in different regionals. And at a given region the monopolization of the award by the same team annually makes the CA seem unattainable to the other teams and defeats the motivational incentive behind the award. Multiple CA's- sure. But the same regional year after year? Aren't there other teams at that regional worthy of something too?


Something to chew on...

WC

I think that's one of the most appealing parts of the NJ regional...

I don't think that the same team has ever won 2 RCA's at Trenton. Am I correct Mr. C?

The new teams look up to the past winners such as 103, 75, 25, and 11 (sorry, but I don't know the other past winners) and strive to win the Chairman's Award here because they know they have a chance and they have great teams to look up to.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

The reason for my post way back on page 6 is, I'm tired of seeing and hearing about the same teams in Atlanta, year after year, when I know for a fact that they didn't win a regional. I'm tired of the same teams getting to the playoffs at most regionals. Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going. Why pick one another when all arealready going, pick the people that have never gone or don't "buy their way in every year.

Originally Posted by lilstogi11

However, if you had the opportunity to pick a vet team that you scouted and knew had a better chance of alliancing with and winning the regional, would you not pick them over any other team (be they rookie or not)? How and which teams choose to select other teams is what I believe to be a privilege that they earn by competing their very best. Personally I don't think anyone has a right to judge why a team picks another certain team: its their shot to call if they earned that top 8 seed.

For one thing, you don't have to win a regional to go the championships. You can win Chairman's, EI, or Rookie All-Star. Or you can be a defending champion, a "legacy team" (as in, in FIRST since 1992 continuously), or a Championship Chairman's Award winner.

For another, I'm with lilstogi. It's not your fault if you aren't the best team for a given top-8 team! They might be the best robot for you, and you might not be the best robot for them. It happens. Or they might be there due to an "easy" match schedule and not know what they're doing. It happens.

There are no rules governing how picks are made, save the order and the "if you decline, you can't be picked again" rule. Even more, there are no rules that #x alliance will win. Even if an alliance is formed with three teams who need to win to qualify for Atlanta, there is no guarantee that they will win even one match! You're asking for teams to hurt themselves and others for a gain to some teams that will cost them, too. Tell me this: is it "fair" to pick a team that barely got the money together to enter, built a decent defender from the KOP, and then win the competition with them, thus qualifying them for Atlanta and costing them another $5000 plus travel?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

The reason for my post way back on page 6 is, I'm tired of seeing and hearing about the same teams in Atlanta, year after year, when I know for a fact that they didn't win a regional.

This contradicts the other complaint about powerhouse teams denying others the opportunity to win. Which argument would you like to contribute to?

My response to the issue of teams consistently doing well is simple: how do you propose to change the situation? Would you handicap teams having a history of strong performance? Would you prevent teams who earned a spot in the elimination rounds of a regional competition from entering another regional? Would you do something else to penalize success?

I'm tired of the same teams getting to the playoffs at most regionals.

Same question.

Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going...

If you don't want a team to win, play better than they do by playing better. Please don't tell me you want to play better than they do by forcing them to play at less than their best. (An apology follows at the end of my post.)

Why pick one another when all arealready going, pick the people that have never gone or don't "buy their way in every year.

There's that "buy their way in" phrase again. What do you mean? Everybody pays to play.

I'm more worried about the teams competing with the powerhouse teams when the powerhouse teams get tired of fighting one another, and travel out of state.

I think your point of view could benefit from some tweaking. The TechnoKats don't "get tired of fighting" our friends and look for fights elsewhere. We travel because we want to expand our experiences playing with new teams.

Do me a favor don't respond to this with "You should be spending your time improving you team and not complaining about others, that is a cop-out answer. You know who you are!!!

Sorry, too late. I won't unwrite my earlier response.

[sgreco]

I'm going to make a huge generalization, but...

A lot of the time older teams have an easier time finding a good strategy for playing the game. They gain experience because they have seen more game types and know what works. Older teams often have more resources than newer teams as well. (I don't mean for this to apply to all teams, there are many awesome newer teams)(I also don't mean to offend anyone by this).

It takes a while to build a good FIRST team. It takes an amazing team to be national competitor quality every year from the beginning. For some teams it can take a few years to get to a highly competitive level. It just takes a lot of dedication and hard work.

In my opinion: hats off to any team that can always be a legitimate threat at regionals and nationals.

Atlanta should consist of the best robots out there, regardless of how often they are there. Getting to Atlanta is a priviledge. If a team is good enough to build a highly competitive robot every year, then they deserve to go to Atlanta every year.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Sgreco27

I'm going to make a huge generalization, but...

A lot of the time older teams have an easier time finding a good strategy for playing the game. They gain experience because they have seen more game types and know what works. Older teams often have more resources than newer teams as well. (I don't mean for this to apply to all teams, there are many awesome newer teams)(I also don't mean to offend anyone by this).

It takes a while to build a good FIRST team. It takes an amazing team to be national competitor quality every year from the beginning. For some teams it can take a few years to get to a highly competitive level. It just takes a lot of dedication and hard work.

In my opinion: hats off to any team that can always be a legitimate threat at regionals and nationals.

Atlanta should consist of the best robots out there, regardless of how often they are there. Getting to Atlanta is a priviledge. If a team is good enough to build a highly competitive robot every year, then they deserve to go to Atlanta every year.

A perfect example of this is 2056..many teams could learn a lot from them.

[Kyle Love]

Well, life's not fair, as some of us have found out in many occasions.

I have found that attending multiple regionals, and playing teams such as Simbotics and the Chickens have improved the teams that I have been on. In my opinion, the best way to improve your team, is to take a good lickin' and learn how to improve next time. The teams I have been on have learned from loses to such "powerhouse" teams and went on to do better later in the season.

Likewise, I like to play the best of the best. You more then likely will not find a regional having a line up similar to IRI, with what most would call, the best teams in the world. You may have a few here and a few there. But, the teams I have been on want to play the best, every time.

I can see how you can be concerned with discouraging rookie teams, or teams who have a lot of rookies. Going along with the opening line of my post, I think its best to learn life lessons through FIRST along with Science and Technology. There are companies that have more R&D then others, and their final product (I would equate the Championship event to our final product) seems to be better because of their work. I know it costs a substantial amount to attend a second regional, but hey, its life.

This is all just my $0.02.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

The reason for my post way back on page 6 is, I'm tired of seeing and hearing about the same teams in Atlanta, year after year, when I know for a fact that they didn't win a regional. I'm tired of the same teams getting to the playoffs at most regionals. Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going. Why pick one another when all arealready going, pick the people that have never gone or don't "buy their way in every year.

First off, are you suggesting that the best teams at the event should pick the robots that don't give them the best chance to win? How is that a good strategy. That would be a form of throwing the competition, in my eyes. When you're on the field, you play to win. This would compromise the integrity of the competition.

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Our team has been turned down at a regional because and I quote them "Sorry, but we only pick veteran teams for our alliance partners" Straight to our faces, that is rediculous, esspecialy after we had gotten the highest scoring match at that regional with them. I simply seen that not competeing at multipule regionals as an oppertunity to let less experianced teams get a chance to be in the playoffs. Yes I know that alot of powerhouse teams are in my area, but I'm not worried about my team. I'm more worried about the teams competing with the powerhouse teams when the powerhouse teams get tired of fighting one another, and travel out of state.

I don't want to be mean, but there has to be a reason you weren't picked. The true powerhouse teams that you're talking about know what the heck they're doing. They aren't dumb, or jaded enough to pass over the team that would be their best partner, just because they have a number they'd never heard of before. If you perform on the field, people take notice, and you will get picked appropriately. If you didn't get picked by the top teams, then maybe they just didn't feel like your robot or strategy fit that well with theirs.

Your point that attending multiple regionals should be a tool for diversifying alliance partners, and allowing more unqualified teams to qualify to attend Atlanta is also questionable. Where does it say the goal is for everyone to go to the Championship? A championship implies that it is the best of the best. Everyone who attends should have done so on their own merits, and deserve the right to be competing there (be it robot performance, judged awards, etc). They shouldn't be there because someone felt sorry for them and decided to pick them. Were this to happen to me, I'd be insulted.

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Do me a favor don't respond to this with "You should be spending your time improving you team and not complaining about others, that is a cop-out answer. You know who you are!!!

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it. As humans in general we tend to blame others for our problems, when often they are of our own making. Certainly even if it is someone else's fault, blaming them will do no good to resolve your own problem.

If you don't like that your team isn't getting picked as high as you think, go out there and kick so much butt that you're either the one picking, or there's no way the top team won't want to pair with you.

Bringing down the teams at the top is not the answer. We need to bring everyone else up to their level.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Above all elese I'm tired of veteran powerhouses picking one another at regionals and not letting the teams not already qualified to get a chance at going.

Excuse me, but weren't you the #4 Alliance Captain at Detroit and at Great Lakes? And also were a picking team in 2007? Who did you pick? - veterans.

Our team has been turned down at a regional because and I quote them "Sorry, but we only pick veteran teams for our alliance partners"

So you're obsessing about something that happened years ago?

I know your posts do not reflect the feelings of most of team 1718. This is a team that can compete with teams that have 2-3 times the experience.