Districts and the ability for teams to improve

FIRST General Forum
#1

As more areas move to having districts, the way that you make it to champs changes from just winning certain awards (Chairman’s, EI) and winning out a regional competition, to winning over a period of multiple competitions and then the district taking a certain number of the top teams to champs.

The way the district system is set up there are less chances for wildcard slots at champs, from what I understand. Does this set up a system where teams who do not have as much money, experience, members, etc. do not ever get a chance to go to champs? From not having the opportunity for a wildcard slot, would teams have less of a chance to gain the recognition that helps them gain things such as funding and members, due to the recognition that comes from going to champs, not to mention gaining the experience and knowledge from seeing top level teams at champs. Is this problematic?

#2

Just looking at IndianaFIRST, the three 2017 winners of the State Championship (and automatic qualifiers for the St. Louis World Championship) all did NOT attend the World Championship last year.

Many of the traditionally strong teams that usually go did NOT qualify this year.

I’d be interested to see data about this overall.

#3

I don’t think you understand how Districts work. The “wildcard” slot for Districts is called sending the next X teams that didn’t win the event or win a culture change award. Ie FiM sends the winners, 5 Chairman’s, 2 EI, 2 RAS, and 72 effective wild cards.

#4

Kiiinda. Those “wild cards” are still the next highest ranked teams. So it’s still rewarding the teams who perform the best / earn the most district points.

#5

This is the second year in CHS for districts and a number of teams who haven’t historically qualified are now doing so for worlds.

However, more importantly in my opinion, it gives a more tangible/affordable “success” target for teams. One of my students mentioned after the CHS Champ tournament was over that this is the farthest they have every gone in a robotics competition and were quite happy with our team’s season. It is charging them up to meet over the summer to work on a few areas of the team that they are identifying as needing work.

I am sure my team isn’t the only ones having this phenomena occur.

#6

As is the case for most answers, this one depends heavily on how you define the problem.

A team can be inspired by luck of the draw, or by being recognized for earned success.

Which kind of inspiration sticks with a team and sustains their development?

#7

In short, this is the exact opposite of my experience.

In the regional system, you basically have to win the entire event to qualify. If you’re lucky, and you’re the third best team there, you can be the finalist alliance captain, or maybe the first pick. And you better hope you happen to be on the right side of the bracket to earn this wildcard, because even the second best alliance might not earn it if they hit the best one in quarters or semis. Otherwise, no matter how good you are, you just can’t go. The waitlist system patched this up a little bit, but otherwise extremely competitive teams would miss out on Championship just because they weren’t the first or second best team at their particular regional.

In districts, points slots mean that you can go to the World Championship without having ever won an event, if you stayed competitive throughout the entire season. This has opened up opportunities to attend the World Championship to teams who wold have never even dreamed of qualifying under the old system. This doesn’t hurt poorly funded teams - it helps them tremendously.

The district system is quite simply far better for the teams who aren’t the absolute best in their region.

#8

How is this different than the regional system, which is what the OP was questioning? If you perform decently, you have a very good shot at going to world championships. If not, you can still go by applying to the champs wait list.

Having now experienced both systems (Ontario just transitioned from the traditional regional model to the district model) I can see why people like the district system.

How you get to World Champs in the traditional model: You win Chairman’s, Rookie All Star, or you win a regional. That means you have to be THE strongest performing team at the regional, the “next-strongest” so that you are their first pick, or somewhere 24th-strongest so that the winning alliance chooses you, but not so strong that you were picked by one of the other 7 alliances. Or, you take a wild card spot left by one of these strongest teams.

How you get to World Champs in the district model: You perform in the top tier for your area. Rank high, get picked high, win some robot awards. Win DCA, win RAS or EI. Gain enough points to qualify for your district event. Do it again at the district level.

Ontario is taking 60 teams to District Championship, out of 147 teams, so you basically need to perform in the top third. Challenging? Sure. But achievable? Definitely. Out of those 60, we’re sending 29 teams to World Championship. That’s basically HALF the teams that make it to District Championship.

I think that’s much more fair.

#9

I’m not saying that it isn’t possibly easier for teams to get a spot to champs, but does it set up a system where it will be the same teams every year?

#10

See this website to see the lists of the top teams in each state per year. http://frc-districtrankings.firstinspires.org/

#11

Looking quickly at data for Indiana:

Since beginning districts in 2015, we have had 28 “guaranteed” earned spots (not counting waitlist or Original and Sustaining).

We have qualified 23 different teams.

Only team 135 has qualified all 3 years - and that was by winning Chairman’s twice and Engineering Inspiration once.

It likely varies by region, but for Indiana, it’s been the opposite.

#12

No more than regionals do, and in fact probably quite a bit less

#13

First time to champs for us, courtesy of the district model. Never a winner at any individual event, but consistently strong enough over the three events to finish 8th in district points to earn a spot. We are a team that has less money, less resources, less members, etc. but are going this year when we wouldn’t have qualified before in the regional model.

#14

Speaking from my experience in the PNW district, the district system is far more equitable. Before districts, our team did one regional a year. I think this was typical of teams outside urban areas. In 2011, before districts, at our one regional we seeded #1 and lost in the finals but failed to qualify for worlds. The regional system favors big-budget teams that can chase births at champs. Also, the regional system places greater importance on late-season regionals because they are more likely to produce wildcards for the finalist alliance because the winning alliance teams may already have champs births. And the waitlist still exists for teams on districts; when I last looked there were 5 teams from PNW going to Houston off the waitlist this year and these spots do not count toward our district slots at champs.

#15

I think there are several key advantages to the district model aside from having a higher shot at going to world champs:

Two competitions offers a chance to learn and improve.

As antman says, going to multiple competitions increases your chances of qualifying. But it’s also, I think, a key part of the engineering process. You come up with a design, you bring it to the “market”, and you see how it performs. You then have a chance to walk away, gather feedback, make changes, and try again. The lessons learned from the first go-around and the ability to come up with quick, low-budget fixes that you can apply between events, are really crucial. Plus, if you perform poorly or encounter problems, you can leave with a sense of “we’ll fix this and try again!” rather than “well, we failed and gave up”. These grow the team much more than “we won” or “we didn’t win”.

Teams that had the ability to register for multiple regionals as opposed to just one always had a leg up, both in terms of FRC chances but also in the learning total experience offered to their students. Districts brings this to everyone.

Making it to district championship is a success of its own.

As Michael Kaurich said, the feeling of accomplishment in advancing to the state/provincial championship is better than playing at a regional and simply not winning. “We made it to the state/provincial championship” is a success story on its own. It’s good for sponsors to hear and it motivates students. Our students were watching the standings eagerly and dreaming up ways both to improve ourselves in case we qualified (we just found out we did!), as well as how to improve the team processes next year so we have a higher chance of qualifying.

We’ve done two district events and are planning a third road trip for district championship. The students feel like we’ve achieved something tangible, which we have! It’s been a good year.

#16

The Michigan District competition is set up to allow teams to go to champs if they merit it. To make it to champs in the Michigan district, without other awards, you should generally make it to the semifinals in both your events.

Does that make it more difficult for less competitive teams to make it? Certainly. That is the nature of competition.

#17

We figured out very early on that the more events you attended the faster you improved as a team. Districts already give you 200% more playing time than a single regional does.

Going to one of (ugh) the world championships does not make you improve. The additional experience does.

#18

Did the numbers for FiM 2015-2016

127 Different teams qualified for 176 spots given in two years.

49 teams qualified both years.

18 of those 127 were rookies.

#19

The way I’d describe districts is that districts are a “safety net” for those who do well before DCMP but also honors those who do well at the DCMP.

234 won 2 events before the DCMP and then got knocked out in Quarters at the DCMP. The district system acted as a “safety net” for us and we still qualified as a “next in” team.

1741 had only gotten to the semis at both of their prior events but, they had a really good DCMP performance. Had it not been for 4272’s award, they would have also qualified to worlds as a “next in” team.

So Districts are really nice seeing as they act as a “safety net” for good early on performance teams but also can honor teams that have continuous improvement and have a good DCMP performance.

#20

100% agree. We’re a small team with very minimal funding in the CHS District. Before converting to the district model, we usually had between 8-14 matches per year. Last year, the first year of the CHS District, we played 55 MATCHES (2 district events, district championship, and worlds). FIFTY-FIVE. That’s 13 more than our 2012-2015 seasons COMBINED.

2012: 9
2013: 8
2014: 14
2015: 11
2016: 55
2017: 47 so far

The district model is a lot more work, but you get a lot more matches per dollar.