Why Give Open Bids to the Championship?

[Mr.G]

For large teams it is a lot of work to plan a trip to Atlanta in 1 or 2 weeks. Many teams couldn't attend just because of being unable to get plane tickets.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by rsilverstein

On that note, there are plenty of teams that are just "handed" a spot in the Championship by lottery.

lottery: n. an activity or endeavor the success of which is regarded as a matter of fate or luck

I dont get what you mean by lottery... it isn't a random system at all. I suggest you read the qualification rules a little more closely.

Teams that DID NOT GO last year, had the opportunity to register and pay starting October 1st. Teams that DID GO last year had the opportunity to register and play starting October 22nd. 1511 has "qualified" through this method every single year but the rookie year. Its not a random system. The system opens up at noon, and the first teams to "click and pay" buy their spot. Its like buying tickets at ticket master. And I don't consider ticket master a lottery. It is NOT like the college housing lottery system or the state lotteries... its not a random drawing of team numbers.

Simply put if you have the money, and you have the will to sit there at noon and click away, you WILL very very likely get in.

We feel championships is very important for every one of our students to experience, and like to go every year, so we built a program and structure our fundraising so that we have money to be able to attend every year.

Honestly, for me I dont get the teams that have the attitude that they "have to win to attend". For me FIRST isn't about winning. Its about the experience. You are just going to make it harder and more stressful on your team to have to come up with the travel arrangements and funds to register and travel in a really short amount of time. We save a lot of money by booking everything way back in September.

I know one day FRC will have so many regionals that they wont have room for open bids, and it may not be all that far from today. But until that day, we will continue to try to keep the stress low, and the experiences high, and register through the open system (even though we have actually been fortunate enough to qualify every year).

[rsilverstein]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

I dont get what you mean by lottery... it isn't a random system at all. I suggest you read the qualification rules a little more closely.

I guess I didn't explain myself clearly in my original post. Yes, it isn't a random lottery, but it does allow teams to go to the Championship based on sitting at a computer and buying a ticket opposed to earning their way in.

Now I'm not suggesting that only the best teams should go to the Championship. As I suggested, in my opinion, teams who exhibit the greatest Gracious Professionalism and Team Spirit deserve to go to the Championship over a team who happened to have a credit card in October.

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Its like buying tickets at ticket master.

I understand that FIRST isn't all about winning but there are many ways to exhibit the characteristics of a team which FIRST should promote without having a huge budget and many mentors with engineering experience.

I think the "at large bids" is a great idea; to give judges the ability to send teams who might not have those resources, and despite everything, did surprisingly well in the regional competition.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by rsilverstein

I understand that FIRST isn't all about winning but there are many ways to exhibit the characteristics of a team which FIRST should promote without having a huge budget and many mentors with engineering experience.

This is simply rewarding teams that win in a different way, and doesn't change her point.

[BrendanB]

If I had my way it would look a little like this:

Everything stays the same for qualifying for champs by winning awards at regionals, BUT your robot performance is what gets you in. Don't get me wrong, FRC teams getting the chance to go every few years isn't bad, but this is the Championship event. The best robots should get to go, not teams with mediocre to poor robots and good sponsors that get them the 10k. Our team did it in 2009 and then qualified by winning RCA. Yes, it was nice to know that you were going to Atlanta no matter how we did at GSR, but we hadn't earned the right to play with the best teams until we got RCA.

Just my thoughts.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

If I had my way it would look a little like this:

Everything stays the same for qualifying for champs by winning awards at regionals, BUT your robot performance is what gets you in. Don't get me wrong, FRC teams getting the chance to go every few years isn't bad, but this is the Championship event. The best robots should get to go, not teams with mediocre to poor robots and good sponsors that get them the 10k. Our team did it in 2009 and then qualified by winning RCA. Yes, it was nice to know that you were going to Atlanta no matter how we did at GSR, but we hadn't earned the right to play with the best teams until we got RCA.

Just my thoughts.

Is this the purpose of the FIRST Championship?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Is this the purpose of the FIRST Championship?

If you are asking this, why don't you tell us what it is? I understand that FIRST is not about winning, that is why RCA's, EI's, and Rookie Allstars make it and why we have so many awards, but I don't understand why teams should just be allowed to go to champs because they have great sponsors. They should get in by achievements is all I'm saying. Similarly, FLL students should be given a bigger chance to get to Atlanta or Saint Louis.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Is this the purpose of the FIRST Championship?

... and what is the purpose of calling it a championship if ALL of the best are not there?

Is it right that a team that lost in the finals of a regional doesn't get in, but another team that didn't win a match does?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

... and what is the purpose of calling it a championship if ALL of the best are not there?

Is it right that a team that lost in the finals of a regional doesn't get in, but another team that didn't win a match does?

That was a serious question, by the way.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That was a serious question, by the way.

It didn't seem like that Chris. It is weird when watching in the stands to see robots that don't perform well only to find out they didn't win an award to get in.

[fuzzy1718]

FIRST is a very complicated thing. It acts like a sport, which would signify that performance gets you in, but it also acts like as a culture, which is where RCA, EI, and rookie allstar come in. It is a mixture of both. So the way in is a mixture of both. FIRST also has the "real world" thing too. Which is why teams can pay their way in. It is just a lot of things all thrown together that don't agree with one another. There is no way to make all side of happy, so no sides are happy. The way it is stays, but I would like to see less spot go to thse who just pay, I'd like to see 40% of get in because of Robot performance, 30% because of awards, and the 30% due to random draw or split it, 33% for all parties

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That was a serious question, by the way.

As was mine.

'Championship' alludes to finding the best at something.

If this is not what we are doing then lets call it 'FIRST Robotics World Exposition' or such.

Whether it's the NFL, Robotics, or a spelling bee the goal of a championship is to crown a champion (I.E. the best at the competition). But by not inviting the ALL of the best we skew any result.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Whether it's the NFL, Robotics, or a spelling bee the goal of a championship is to crown a champion (I.E. the best at the competition). But by not inviting the ALL of the best we skew any result.

There have been instances in the past where a World Champion was not a regional champion, regional finalist, chairmans / ei winner, or otherwise. 111 in 2003 did not achieve any of that, for example. 296 in 2006 as well. 177 didn't win any other awards in 2007 at all.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

There have been instances in the past where a World Champion was not a regional champion, regional finalist, chairmans / ei winner, or otherwise. 111 in 2003 did not achieve any of that, for example. 296 in 2006 as well. 177 didn't win any other awards in 2007 at all.

But the fact of the matter is that so many teams aren't like them. Didn't win but did really well. 330 in 2009, 968 in 2007 and 2009, 40 in 2007 and almost in 2009, 854 in 2007, 610 in 2009, 1626 in 2007, and more. These teams all would have done far better than the other teams there.

[Nawaid Ladak]

So i think i got a really neat idea that might actually work.

What if FIRST held "heats" or "Last Minute Qualifier" events on Tues/Wed or Just Wed.?

The system would run like this

32 Teams per heat
3 Qualifying Matches for each team
Alliance Selection (4 Alliances).
Heat Alliance Winners advance to compete at Championships
1 Additional spot handed out to a team so that they may compete at Championships (determined among referee's, and field staff)*

These events would be run on a low cost system. no video boards or black curtains would be active. no MC etc.

Teams that want to compete in these "heats" would pay $2,000 to compete in one of these events and then another $3500 to compete at the Championship Event.

The event would be pretty short, 16 qualification matches on a 7-8 minute cycle (considering some of the field stuff would be in the process of being set up, ie Black Curtain's Video Board etc.) and a minimum of six elimination matches would bring the event's length down to a short 4.5 hours.

Heat 1: 8:30am - 1:00pm
Heat 2: 1:00pm - 5:30pm

Considering you would have four fields, you could get 256 teams to compete for 32 spots each day
(If the event was done Tues/Wed, then teams that did not qualify in their heat Tuesday, could compete in one on Wednesday).

*= if the winning alliance consists of 3 teams and a backup robot, the backup robot would gain the 4th AQ spot.

What do you guys think?