Here’s my idea. Have people vote on robots they really really like. Then, at the end of Nationals have the top 24 bots compete in a battle to the top in an “Peoples Choice” game. It would be like the peoples choice mini-competition. I don’t know how good of an idea this really is, but give me your feedback. (If it’s even possible to happen.) I think a lot of people would like to see an alliance of great teams playing another alliance of great teams. The whole thing would be for the fun of it! This may be a better idea for a 3 round thing at IRI, but it would be really awesome to have 24 “Peoples Choice” robots playing each other.
I think it’d be a popularity contest. You get to see great matches at the Championship event regardless of a people’s choice event. All the cool robots that people like usually end up in the elimination rounds.
I like the idea, if there were a way to implement it so that larger teams (cough)s.p.a.m.(cough) don’t drown out smaller teams (cough)1293(cough) at competitions.
The one question arises: What about teams that we think are cool, but not in Atlanta? I admit, I liked 433’s robot last year, but they couldn’t go to Atlanta. That would be a problem.
I wonder, if in a case like that, if we couldn’t have one similar at IRI or other off-season competitions? I also think it would be fun to have an all rookie “Peoples Choice” round. It probably wouldn’t be 24 teams but still great practice for them to get better.
Of course it would be a popularity contest, its the PEOPLES CHOICE matches!!! This would rock, lets get a 600-team coalition to put it together
Its hard to decide on a team you’ve never seen. We would need to have like a 1 minute highlight tape for each robot, and then the coalition described above would veiw these, and vote for their top 20 or so, and the top 24 would go to the peoples choice. WE could put in the top 36, and then have a questions round, where people have to answer questions about the robot or something.
I can think of at least a dozen teams off the top of my head, that I would like to see compete against one another - and all of them are probably the same that come to everyone else’s mind too. Afterall, popularity and reputation, of both the good and bad variety, usually build up for a reason.
Youll have to do it at nationals and not afterwards since alot of good teamare both from east and west coast and middle america, not to mention international teams, and not all the best robots go there (945 comes to mind and 69… both won two regionals but didnt go to nationals) and the popularity vote will be greatly influenced by NASA’s and Soaps Coverage of events (if it wasnt for them i wouldnt ever see any of the good teams play from east coast)
and alot of teams dont even have ties to the rest of the first community so they wont know about other robots, only the ones they see at their competetions.
and i guess will it be an individual votes or votes by teams?, and then youll have to setup a electoral system (you can do it online but some people might cheat the system) or u can have ballot boxes at nationals and peopl stuff them and hear the results at the end
My guess right now is that individual votes may be more relative. It’s not meant to be a teams favorite, but a personal favorite. Second, I think it should be purely a popular vote system, without the use of some electoral college. The issue of the actual voting should be done on-line. Possibly we could hold a vote on Chief Delphi. If not, we could have a poll at the National competition.
Here’s my newer second idea …How 'bout we have a rookie “All-Star” thing. Where the rookie teams who placed top 12 out of the rookies would play in a semi-final, final format to determine the ultimate rookie team. This, however, would not be a popular vote, purely performance decided. (The number 12 is based on 3 team alliances. So, if they change the alliance format that number could change.)
Tell me what you guys think…all input is great!
-Kyle
P.S. I am just a student so I do not know how far I could take this idea myself. :o
The biggest problem is that you really can’t force a team to play. If you think about it, if they need fixing or they are saving their gearboxes and batteries for the finals, they will probably drop out.
Also, in popularity contests there are those who pick the ‘runt’ to go against the big guys just to watch suffering. I don’t think FIRST teams, and FIRST, should be put thought this.
Don’t forget that Champs ALWAYS runs over time, so why should FIRST stage more unnecessary competitions? Plus, each one costs money.
I don’t want to be a jerk about it, but you wanted input. But otherwise, I think this will be great for an off season competition, like IRI.
It’s meant to be all in fun. And hopefully people would have the mindset to actually choose good teams. But, of course, there will probably be a “runt” but I would hope teams wouldn’t beat up on anyone team at all.
The “Peoples Choice” thing would be held right after the National finals.(or that’s my idea for it.) If teams play the rounds they are meant to be played, there shouldn’t be much more cost involved. But, as always, a team could break something. A team could also break something doing a demo, like us, we broke a part off of our “scoop” at a Purdue Demo.
Right now, IRI would be too small to hold a “Peoples Choice” comp. Or it would have to be a lot smaller. Right now, it seems like this would have to be an idea for a 3-on-3 match at IRI. Just set up like Final matches, so 2vs2 at one time. But, that would mean a lot of well deserving teams would be left out…
i don’t think that an off-season event would be a valid option. its hard enough to get money to go to nationals, in georgia. if this event is gong to draw a geographically diverse group of teams, then its going to have to happen at nationals, when you have a relatively high concentration of these top-choice teams under one roof. but as its already been stated, doing it at the end of nationals isn’t plausable either, because of time constraints.
so why not have it on the first day during practice rounds? take 15 or so teams from each division and put them into a temporary “people’s choice” division for practice day. this division would compete on einstein field (assuming its not gone or in use on practice day next year) for practice day, and then return normal divisions for the last two days for qualifacation and final rounds.
GREAT IDEA! I will need some help with someone pretty “high up” in FIRST. For this to be a Thursday practice day match, I will need to have some adult with some way to get the idea up to FIRST. If you have any ideas on who I can email or if your the person that can help, let me know.
One concern would be is that Practice day is for teams to get their bugs out (if they still have them after regionals) and to make fixes from previous events. So, many teams may not really be ready to do something like this on Practice day… especially if their goal is to make changes or improvements all day Thursday so they run properly for the “real” matches. Some teams might be hesitant to participate in “extra” matches, so as to avoid unnecessary damage and save themselves for the meat of the competition. I suppose teams could bow out from playing if they were chosen though.
Other concern would be that since this is a People’s Choice, the people would need some time to see who’s who. If I don’t know 70% of the teams robots at Nationals, my choice would be pretty biased to teams I’m very familiar with.
As far as time, Thursday would be ideal, but as far as other considerations, maybe not. Not sure when would be an all around ideal time for this at Nationals. Good idea, just a matter of when and how.
…How 'bout we have a rookie “All-Star” thing. Where the rookie teams who placed top 12 out of the rookies would play in a semi-final, final format to determine the ultimate rookie team. This, however, would not be a popular vote, purely performance decided. (The number 12 is based on 3 team alliances. So, if they change the alliance format that number could change.)