Wondering how we calculate this? See the quoted section from the 2017 FRC Game manual below and take a deep breath*:
Districts receive the percentage of 'available slots' at their assigned FIRST Championship location, rounded up to the nearest whole slot, equal to the percentage of teams they have in their District compared to the total of all FIRST Robotics Competition teams in the current season who would normally be assigned to their FIRST Championship location. 'Available slots' are calculated by taking the total number of slots at each FIRST Championship location, subtracting the number of pre-qualified teams assigned to that location, and also subtracting a 10% allowance for waitlisted teams, as Districts are still allowed to send waitlisted teams to the FIRST Championship. Further, this overall calculation uses a ‘snapshot’ of teams that have registered and paid as of a specific day a week or so after season payment due.
This season, we actually took the ‘snapshot’ referred to above on December 8th, several weeks after initial registration payments was due.
FIRST POWER UP Buttons
Check out this complete set of Drive Team buttons for FIRST POWER UP!
https://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/frc/Blog/2018pins.jpg
Oh, wait, did we accidentally show…rats…OK, well, whatever. Have fun.
Frank
*Yikes, Frank, can’t we do something the easy way? I mean, just once???
Seems like it may be a strategy related role, or something that is under different rules than the rest of the drive team due to the different colour. (Helps identification by field staff/queue)
Looks like a picture of Drive Team Buttons has became the de-facto Game Hint post, if last year and this are any indication.
I suspect that they’ve made a conscious decision to have 5 Drive Team members as being somewhat-standard now, just so teams can have more people “on stage”. It will seem kind of weird if they end up going back to 4 after the Power Up season.
I doubt that the “Technician” role will actually be on the field the way that the Pilot role was, just because if it’s in a separate place like that there’s no real need for a separate color button. My guess is that it’s something behind the glass, but some different rules will apply to those people somehow that Referees need to be able to easily enforce.
In the past, arcades needed “repair technicians” to repair the arcade games. I think this will be similar to the pilot last year where they are extremely involved in the game. Possible repair something for the game to go on…
The technician must have a very defined role only they are (or aren’t) allowed to do considering how distinguished their pin is compared to the others.
Even the drive coach and drive team pins aren’t that distinguished, only a slightly different shade of blue in the background
I don’t know what’s going on in your district, but this can also happen if your district just isn’t growing as fast as the country is in general – if there are 10% more FRC teams this year than last, but your district only has 5% more, you might lose a championship slot.
I think the Technician’s role is pretty obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.
Look at the color of the badge.
Red.
What is else is red?
Red Cards.
What does this all mean?
Keeping in the spirit of FIRST, the Technician will be the student designated to stand alone on the field while their team receives their season-ending Red Card. The goal with this new role is to streamline the FRC tradition of arbitrary disqualifications for minor rule infractions, while also enhancing the shame and helplessness felt by this single student. I think we can all agree this is a significant improvement upon an aspect of FIRST we all enjoy.
How were the two human players identified last year? Did they have the same badges as the drivers? I have two theories on what this could mean:
Along with the 2 drivers, 1 DC, and 1 HP, the Technician will have a job that can’t be as easily interchanged with the traditional HP.
(my favorite) The “Technician” is the new identifier for the HP, which means that there will be 3 students controlling the robot. Most teams don’t need 3 drivers (some don’t even need 2!), so that leaves the 3rd one as odd. What will they be “driving” instead of the main robot? I’m going with a controllable Mini-bot; either similar to 2011’s FTC approach, or a quadcopter (drone).
Pilots, HPs, and operators/drivers all had the same badge last year. Coaches had a similar one with a white bar reading “Coach”.
If the Coach green is different enough from the Player blue this year, that’s a HUGE step for FIRST in making the distinction, as it’s hard to tell from distance if that’s a white bar or just glare…
