If anything, Michigan has to few slots for Championship. They currently have 275 teams signed up. With 32 slots that’s 11.6% going to Championships. Compared to other regions, this percentage is low. EDIT: Three teams signed up in the twenty minutes since I posted this. 278 in Michigan now.
New England has 24 slots for 161 teams. That’s 14.9%.
Texas has 111 teams and four regionals, for 24 slots. That’s 21.6%.
Ontario has 113 teams and 5 regionals, for 30 slots. That’s 26.5%!
In fact, qualifying for the MI State Championship is harder than qualifying for the World Championship in Ontario. Only 23.3% of Michagan teams qualify for their State Championship. I think it’s fair to say that the size of MSC could be increased without diluting the talent at the event.
These numbers could change slightly as more rookies register, but they’ll still show that it’s tougher to qualify for the World Championship in Michigan than elsewhere.
Those last 2 Texas and Ontario percentages are a little misleading. They are open regionals, not districts. Teams from other areas can win those slots.
I have the same question… sending only one Chairman’s or EI winner from each district really limits the representation of the district for those awards at championship.
Also not crazy about the fact that NE teams just lost 6 spots at CMP… this is based on a comparison to last year when we had 5 regionals in our area which have been replaced. From what is stated here, I agree that Michigan is not as fairly represented even based on percentages, but we are specifically losing spots that we had last year. :eek: Concerned that the transition period to the district system is going to be more difficult to sell. It would be easier if it was possible to make it more consistent for all teams.
That’s true… but those teams are also allowed to travel to any other regional as well and earn slots there, further increasing their percentage. However, this is not true for teams in the districts. If they were to go outside their district and win, they lose a spot for the district.
Yes me to, when they go to percentages in 2015, we (FiM) should get a few more…
If we look at the number of districts, and the number of spots feeding to championships…
(I assumed 40 teams per district)
FIM = 32/260 teams = 12.3% PNW = 24/80 teams = 30%
NE = 24/180 teams = 13.3%
MAR = 38/120 teams = 15%
I have heard rumblings around Michigan of a need to add another district to support the number of rookie teams that joined this year. That will be 14 districts, about 280 teams, and a 11.4%
TORC is currently waitlisted for both our events we wanted to attend.
So yes, when you make it to MSC you are halfway there. You’ve eliminated the 200 teams you were capable of beating from the pool. Now all you need to do is finish the weekend better than average…
That is easier said than done.
One dose not simply walk into Championships through MSC. (but it is kind of exciting either way.)
I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers from, but last I checked about a week ago, the PNW district (WA and OR) had 189 teams registered for 2014, which is 12.7% for PNW.
As Jim and Jon put it last night, the district system is not meant to get more teams to champs, but to give the vast majority of teams who don’t make it to champs a greater number of matches per season, or a greater return on investment. Keep in mind that at those 5 regionals, at least a few of the spots went to teams picked in later rounds that wouldn’t qualify otherwise (although there are always exceptions). In a district system, this pretty much never happens. You have to be one of the best to get to champs. The 24th team at MAR champs, for example, was on Einstein this year.
Technically this is true and technically it is not true. I’ve heard a lot of people saying New England should get 30 spots because we had 30 spots previously but in looking at the 2013 season of the teams who qualified for St. Louis it breaks down as follows:
29 slots were given out to teams (GSR did not have a Rookie All star).
Of the 29 only 20 teams were from New England.
Of these 20 teams only 18 attended the World Championship.
Of the teams who came to New England events 7 of them qualified for the Championship.
Of the 20 New England winners two of them double qualified (126 BOS winners and RCA & 2648 PTR winners and EI).
The way I see it you could argue that NE should be getting 30 but if every district took what they originally had you won’t fix the scalability issue. If anyone thought NE our any district would keep their original number they weren’t looking at the reality of FIRST moving forward.
Also looking at NE events in the past, our events have been home to many teams from outside of our borders such as Canada, New York, out the country, and many teams who traveled to New England over the years.
Technically, New England will be sending the most teams we have ever sent to the Championship in 2014 which is something I am very excited about!
I see your point… it is a paradigm shift. And for the most part I think it is a good thing. I especially think it will be a great when everyone has transitioned to districts so that we get back the ability to travel and meet teams from around the country at that level (ie. before CMP). It is just difficult to get through this intermediate phase where we still have both systems co-existing… they are each good in their way but they are not equal. As previously noted by someone in the thread about the original district point blog, the districts were built to reward different things; it is about multi-event performance rather than a single event achievement. I think this is a good goal but it will take time to adjust to that new way of thinking. And it is just a little harder with the 2 perspectives existing side-by-side and essentially competing against each other.
BrendanB - The one thing you didn’t include in your analysis was the NE teams that qualified at events outside of NE regionals. I’m just curious where that number puts us. I would argue that those teams should count in your analysis because they are included in the total district spots in the current system.
I personally need to try to remember that and I will try to remind myself of that when I start thinking “it’s not fair…” It’s never been about fair; it is about learning and inspiring. It is about life, and everyone knows that life is not fair. At least that’s what my mom always told me.
I’m not sure where either of you are getting your numbers from. Here shows 43 teams signed up in OR and here shows 111 teams in WA. That’s 154 teams in the PNW.
I noticed your team missing and am glad to hear that you’re just hidden
It’s almost looking like Michigan might need 15 district events! Counting TORC Michigan is at 280 teams at the moment, so one team more would necessitate 15 district events. Of course that depends on how final numbers shake out and if any teams drop after the payment deadline.
Regarding proportional representation, Michigan currently has 280 of the 2634 teams in FRC, or 10.6% of all teams. Proportional repression would net Michigan about 43 spots from a 400 team world championship, but I’m pleased with the increase to 32 and the promise that it’ll go to proportional next year. There’s only so much FRC can change/fix at once.
But the slots NE does have are guaranteed to be NE teams. A rough estimate (though maybe someone who has a better grasp of what actually constitutes New England… sorry, Midwesterner here), by my count at least six slots last year were taken from teams not in NE. So it might actually be a better deal to have the guaranteed spots.
I got my numbers from here for WA (134) and herefor OR (55) for a total of 189. It appears you get different websites and results by going through the USFIRST website vs FRCLinks.
I’m not sure where you got your numbers but we currently have 154 teams registered for the PNW district. For the 2013 season which was used to help determine the current year’s number of teams that will advance we had 156. Total teams for 2013 were 2524. So we had about 6.2% of the total teams. 6.2% of 373 = 23 plus the 1 team bonus gives PNW the 24 slots. I’m certain the math of the other areas works out the same.
So this year about 16% of our teams will move on to CMP.
When I counted the districts, I did not scroll all the way down, and I had PNR as 4 districts, it is actually 9 listed.
So based on that, PNR = 24/180 = 13.3%
This is a rough estimate on the max total number of teams the district structure, with the regionals listed today could support, based on 40 teams per district.
The USFIRST Website includes teams that weren’t active the previous year (and maybe not active the previous two years, I didn’t look that far into it) as well as rookie teams that have yet to register for an event (the eight digit teams). It tripped me up when I started looking at Michigan a few months ago. According the the USFIRST website Michigan has 321 teams, but we only have 279 actually registered for an event this year.
Good! They were another team I was sad to see not registered. And there’s also four more temporary eight digit team numbers that popped up today, so as many as 285 teams/15 district events if none drop out after the payment deadline.
I’ll use 280 for estimates as it’s a nice enough number…
64/280 teams will qualify for states - 22.9%
32/280 teams will qualify for worlds - 11.4%
