Championship Hotel Assignment Proposal

FIRST General Forum
1

FIRST has started giving a few more details about how the housing changes will work this year.

FAQ here: https://help.firstinspires.org/s/topic/0TOUk0000000ID3OAM/first-robotics-competition?language=en_US

One of those answers says that "Starting in the 2024-2025 season, teams must be eligible to register (through pre-qualification, merit-based advancement, or by invitation) for the FIRST® Championship prior to being allowed to book hotel rooms. "

This is a big departure from the old system and potentially causes a lot of issues for teams qualifying in later weeks (all Districts teams). I also have very limited data and information from the hotel process (nothing more than any other team) so HQ and Conference Direct should be able to forecast things much better than any of us.

Below is my proposal for a more equitable system that still meets most of the things I read in the FAQ and gets rid of some of the problems and loopholes teams used in previous years.

Problems with the old system

  • The first come, first serve system needed to be more equitable.
  • There was no clear announcement of when the room-blocking site would open to teams.
  • There was no incentive not to block more rooms than your team needed and just cancel them later.
  • FLL, FTC, and FRC teams could book large blocks and share them (between their own teams or other teams)
  • Pre-qualified teams got preferential rooms because they could access the system a day early.

Proposed System
HQ Divides up available rooms between programs

  • FLL, FTC, and FRC get a room split based on data HQ has from previous years on rooms per team, etc.

Teams (all programs) Submit Preferences before Jan (or some date in Jan)

  • Allows preferences to be submitted before the majority of FLL, FTC, and FRC teams qualify for worlds. (Maybe a few FLL/FTC teams qualify before this but not many)

(I’m ignoring FLL/FTC from here on out, I don’t know enough about their qualifying structures to give details)

FRC rooms are split based on the 6 weeks of qualifying

  • Based on the percentage of champs spot qualifying that week, rooms at all hotels are open, and a true lottery is rolled to assign teams an order in which their blocks are assigned to hotels based on their preferences. (i.e, a percent of rooms at each hotel are open based on the percentage of teams qualifying for champs that week)
  • Teams can choose to join a waitlist for more preferred hotels but teams that qualify early or pre-qualify should not have a greater chance of preferred hotels vs teams that will qualify later, especially district teams.
  • Pre-qualified teams would be assigned during the week 1 room block.
  • FRC teams would not be able to stay in FTC or FLL blocked rooms (possibly allow FTC or FLL to stay in FRC blocked rooms, so FRC teams could travel with their FTC/FLL feeders, etc.)

When a Team accepts their invitation on the FIRST Dashboard, they are also then entered into the hotel draw for that week based on their preferences.

  • If they haven’t already submitted hotel preferences they must do so at that time. Possibly with a more limited list of hotels since they didn’t meet the first deadline and HQ would have worse information on how to preference rooms without getting the data early.

There needs to be some cancellation fee for booking too many rooms.

  • Currently, it is zero dollars (depending on the hotel) if you cancel with week before Champs.
  • Booking too many rooms prevents other teams from booking those rooms until you cancel them.
  • Some type of small fee ($20 to $50 per room) would help prevent teams from booking 20 rooms when they only need 10. Possibly some number of rooms can be canceled with no fee, and then a fee after that. 3 free cancellations and $50 per room after that seems reasonable to me. There is no fee if you don’t qualify for champs because your rooms were never assigned.

Benefits of this system

  • Removes most of the loopholes and problems with the old system.
  • Teams are assigned rooms when they qualify (FIRST has already said this is their plan)
  • Preferences are added early to the system so HQ has an idea of how to split out the room block by week.
  • Teams aren’t scrambling to do their priority list in a rush. They have multiple days like we do with the FIRST Choice priority list period. There is a clear time window to submit your preferences and all teams can do it before they qualify.

Problems with this system (and any system that requires rooms assigned after qualifying)

  • Schools that require hotel details to get a field trip approved will have issues with this.
  • Teams that need a walking distance hotel still possibly don’t get one based on their preferences but ideally they would have the same odds as any other team.
25 Likes
2

This is more complicated than what I had in my brain, but addresses the shortcomings of what I imagined would be ideal.

I am very appreciative that folks who are better at FRC than I am have put thought into this. It gives me hope that the folks at HQ, who I know to be sharp and well-motivated, will have arrived at a similar solution.

1 Like
3

This is a huge problem for me. Between one parent having medical issues and the other working remotely, I needed a hotel within walking distance. Otherwise I simply would not have gone to champs.

2 Likes
4

Not allowing district teams to book before DCMP is a huge problem. Teams need to plan other parts of the trip like whether rental cars are needed, getting catering into the hotel, getting public transit cards (The app was terrible), planning chaperone groups, planning other activities around Houston, etc. All of that is effected by hotels and even if we aren’t too late to get reservations that’s a huge amount of planning to do in a week or less.

Also if we could pick categories of hotels instead of just ranking hotels, that would be great. I’d be roughly equally happy in any hotel within walking distance.

8 Likes
5

I suspect the issue with this would be that different teams have different priorities. It’s generally going to be easier to let teams do their own categorization and then they can either rank within those categories or just be arbitrary about it.

1 Like
6

I am sad that FIRST has done this, despite well meaning intentions. There are just so many unsavory experiences with FIRST and housing, and really makes me wonder how disjointed things are at the top when teams want sustainablity (financial and otherwise). FRC is already pay to play, worlds now feels like you need the premier plus package.

I am glad some people have put efforts into “this is the new paradigm, now how do we make it work”. This is really appreciated. Moving away from a FIRST created atmosphere of scaricy and need to be selfish is a good plan.

I don’t know if this would be a good idea on rollout of Allen’s proposed system, but an option to say “I’m ok splitting my team between 2 hotels in order to get a few close guarenteed rooms” would be an interesting option eventually. I am curious to see what others have to say on that idea.

8 Likes
7

I think of those as two different things. I don’t have any issue with teams that pre-qualify having a better selection.

The criteria for pre-qualifying appear to be:

  • prior year FIRST Championship Winners: 1323, 2609, 4096, and 4414 for 2024
  • prior year FIRST Impact Award Finalists: 118, 3284, 5665, 5985, and 6865 for 2024
  • prior year Engineering Inspiration Award Winners: 4, 1156, 1676, 2096, 2486, 3937, 5166, and 7565 for 2024
  • prior year FIRST Impact Award Winner: 321 for 2024
    • The prior 10 years’ winners of Impact (or, previously Chairman’s) Award

I think it’s fine for there to be an additional perq for those level of accomplishments in prior years. (I agree with Allen that qualifying in week 1 should not give a massively better hotel selection than qualifying in week 5, but for the 25 or so prior year elite performances or Hall of Fame teams, I’m OK with [even in favor of] them getting a perq that the other ~575 teams don’t.)

8

If those team can get an advantage it’s possible to use that advantage to get more teams in. Also just a large number of teams will take the blocks at near by/attached hotels.

I strongly believe no one should have an advantage to make the system more equitable or there will be ways to exploit those loopholes.

1 Like
9

This also caused some alarm bells for me. The FAQ says they are using a 10 mile radius. That’s gigantic and unwalkable.

Breakfast included is also a huge deal for some teams. These issues need to be addressed.

4 Likes
10

Having 5am breakfast on Saturday and $100 rooms was a perk for the rooms we stayed at. Being 20 miles away with a variable commute time, usually 25-40 minutes, was not. Parking pretty close and having lunch in the parking lot was a perk.

If we stayed in walking distance and ate box or food truck lunches and breakfasts, we would have easily spent $2k more on the trip. Maybe we can afford a backup swerve drive instead of more room and board costs.

2 Likes