Heads up to the FRC community. FIRST just sent out a “congratulatory” email to all the 2020 teams who won Chairman’s Award this season. At the bottom of the announcement was the following:
“Please note that due to the cancellation of the 2020 FIRST Championship, winning this award does not come with an automatic Championship qualification spot. Although we are evaluating granting 2021 FIRST Championship slots to 2020 Chairman’s Award winners, this is unlikely due to space limitations. A decision will be made by September.”
Yes, I understand this season has been a great disappointment for everyone with all the event cancellations and that some hard decisions had to be made. However, I believe this decision is a slap in the face to every 2020 Chairman’s team that put in the tireless time and effort to promote FIRST and STEAM in their communities, schools, local businesses, etc. For such a “prestigious award” to go unrewarded is unacceptable. A banner, medal and pin is nice but the real prize is the ability to attend Champs and compete for CCA.
If you are part of a FRC team who won CA this year and feel like I/we feel, make your thoughts known and raise your collective voices. Contact your Regional Directors and have them lobby for all of us. If you are part of FRC and did not win please support those teams that did.
I appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to the 2021 Season.
Gonna be honest, while I’d appreciate a Champs invite to the assumed 2021 Championship, I don’t feel like it’s a slap in the face at all to not give us a bid automatically. It feels like a sensible program choice to move forward. Yeah it’s a bit disappointing, but the whole situation is bad all the way around.
While I understand the frustration, if you’re doing activities that support STEM and FIRST just for the Chairman’s Award and to qualify for champs you’re doing them for the wrong reasons.
Do these activities to support others in the world, not to go to champs. Keep doing them and better the world.
Are we just going to ignore the district chairmans winners who didnt even get a chance to qualify for CMP to try and win chairmans, or take advantage of the proposed system?
I understand the frustration, but I suggest looking at the math behind what they’ve said.
In 2020 there were 64 regional events. Lets assume the same number of events next year. With 7 potential qualification spots at each event (3 winners, CA, RA, EI and the guaranteed wildcard), for a total of 448 spots. Also in 2020, there were a guaranteed 309 spots (of which, 28 were for CA teams) for district teams, lets assume that number stays the same next year as well. That gives us a total of 757 spots already allocated, or 43 open spots. Now, toss in the Original and Sustaining teams (9) and the Hall of Fame teams (27), the 2019 winners (8), the 2019 CA finalists (4) and the 2019 championship EI winners (6). That’s an additional 54 teams - so we’re already over the 800 team limit for championship!
Where do you find room for the extra 64 regional and 28 district CA teams? Do we assume that we end up with 100 spots opened from unused wildcards and teams declining their champs invitation?
6328 was fortunate enough to walk away from our first event this year with a chairman’s banner. We don’t put in, “tireless effort” for the medal, pin, banner, or bid.
Yes, it sucks, but it’s not a slap in the face. It’s an unfortunate situation but we need not take it personally, we will only make this more difficult for everyone involved.
While it is unfortunate that the teams who won Chairman’s do not get the opportunity to present at champs in 2021, it’s a realistic move.
We should still treat the upcoming 2021 season as the 2021 season, with teams who qualify for champs based off of winning, wild cards, Chairman’s, and Engineering Inspiration being able to compete at worlds. However, I do see a lotto system like the one mentioned by @cpapplefamily being plausible. Assuming that the teams who at last night’s award show don’t qualify for 2021 champs, I feel as if they should have the opportunity to “priority lotto”, given that they qualified for what would’ve been 2020 worlds.
We won’t know FIRST’s official decision until September, but no matter the circumstances, we should all congratulate last night’s winners! Great job!
I think there should be SOME recognition of the 2020 qualifiers at Champs. My team has 2 slots (one regional wildcard from Week 2 and one RCS) and it would really make us annoyed if we got nothing at all at Champs 2021, I dare say.
@Jon_Stratis can you do the same math but eliminate the regional wildcard? That’s the simplest method to make space in a hurry, and it’s reviewed every year anyways.
I’ll second this, and add that I really appreciated FIRST putting on the virtual awards show for Regionals, and the District partners for doing the same for Districts.
It isn’t anything like what we were hoping the 2020 season would look like, but HQ made some lemonade from lemons, and I appreciate that.
FIRST could have easily said the challenges around giving out VotY, WFFA, Dean’s List, and RCA/DCA was too much work, but they made it happen and produced a bright spot for many students in an otherwise dark time in our collective history. Good on FIRST.
64 regionals, means 64 spots opening up by eliminating the guaranteed regional wildcard, the math isn’t that hard. Add in some shifting of the district qualification numbers, and you can get there. The implications, however, are a bit harder. You’re taking spots away from 2021 teams in order to give them to teams from 2020. Frankly, debating between last year’s chairman’s and this year’s finalist captain or the Xth best team in a district is one that I could see getting ugly quickly.
We don’t fell like it is a “slap in the face” at all. Thank you to all the volunteers and other organizers who made the awards show possible.
We’d love to attend champs if it happens next year, but we also understand if the logistics of that aren’t possible. Although I am disappointed for our students, it would be selfish to think that we’re the only ones affected in a negative way by what has happened this year.
I do hope that the winners of the various awards can be recognized in person at some future event, and that the Dean’s List Finalists for this year get an invitation to Champs next year even though their award is being announced this weekend.
Do we know how many total wildcard got invited in 2018/2019 and registered?
I’m a huge fan of the wildcard because my team lost in 2012 to 148 and 16 and would have earned one if they existed. But, I can also be OK with them suspending the wildcard for a season if it recognizes the 2021 CA winners.
I get the theoretical math but I’m also thinking that realistically, teams like 254 which is HOF would also win an event in 2021; or 148 is original and sustaining but is likely to qualify out of TX by winning the district or on points.
I’m hopeful FIRST does something like give the CA winners preferential wait list treatment. But, I guess FIRST needs to figure out what 2021 looks like to them. My gut is telling me that teams are going to be broke in 2021 and/or different districts/states are going to have travel limitations through next year but who knows.
I’m talking about teams that 1) competed and 2) won (even if the event didn’t happen).
In other words, teams that earned a Champs slot in 2020.
It would suck if there wasn’t something, particularly for multi-qualifiers. And ideally more definite than “you’re at the top of the waitlist with the teams that have never gone”.
By the way, Evan has a very nice dashboard which is showing 121 teams that qualified for Champs in 2020 through events which were completed. I’m sure they all would like to see their qualifying accomplishment rewarded. Only 17 are CA award winners.
The only people getting slapped in the face is all the teams who worked hard on their robots, didn’t get an opportunity to compete, and are seeing a team lament over getting a banner in 2021 and not getting all the trimmings that go with it.
Never thought the recipient of an award that FIRST had no obligation to give out this season would start a topic like this.
