Pre-qualified teams from a District do not count against their slot allocation. Districts are able to send to the FIRST Championship the number of unique teams allocated to them using the proportional representation model, plus their unique pre-qualified teams. Unlike the allocated slots, however, slots for pre-qualified teams may not be backfilled. If a pre-qualified team from a District is not able to attend the FIRST Championship, it will not be replaced with another team from the District. A pre-qualified team slot is reserved for that specific team only, not the District from which that team comes.
It’s nice to finally have this clarification.
So it seems that as of right now, the only question about CMP Qualifying left on the table will be how Wildcard Slots are being handled in 2014.
Also, the mention of going to a proportional representation system in 2015 and beyond is interesting…
In 2013, a total of 28 teams went to CMP from New England. This includes people that qualified from NE, from other events, and as HOF or founding teams. I don’t have the numbers, but this number was pretty consistent going back to about 2010… I think it varied between 27 and 30 teams (despite the fact that there were only 3 regionals in NE back in 2010).
While the number of District-qualifying teams from New England will be 24 next year, that doesn’t include the 5 teams already qualified for CMP from New England (126, 151, 175, 190, 236)… So, New England will send 29 teams to CMP next year… right on line with our recent historical average.
Regardless of whether or not it would line up with our historical average or not, I’m glad that it’s being determined by percentage of teams (although only approximately in 2014)… it’s the fairest way to do it, I think.
As a side-note, a district team that qualifies for CMP by winning at a regional doesn’t really take away a slot from their region… they just ensure that they’re one of those teams. If 1519, 230, and 3467 all traveled to the Albany-area regional next year, and we all won, New England would still send 29 teams (24 + 5 pre-quals)… it would just guarantee that we would be 3 of those teams. I think this method is about as good as any to try to bridge the two systems… this’ll all work much better when a district-like system exists for everyone!
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think people are using their own worries to throw gasoline on this fire. If a team wins a regional as a first or second team on the alliance, they are very, very likely to finish in the rankings just high enough to go to WCMP via their DCMP anyway. By the time it’s all said and done, the team very well could have played upwards of 50+ matches by then and a probably also racked up a district win or at least a couple good finishes.
As long as there are two systems functioning at the same time, there will be someone thinking they are getting the short end of the stick compared to someone else. It’s human nature. Things won’t be “even” until we are all in a district model. Then there will still be folks who think they are still holding the short end of the stick.
Spent a little time looking over the list, and I suspect there at least 6 or 7 more missing from the list, that are in the same boat. I know 2851 is planning on participating.
I suspect the following…
Teams that made it to MSC, missing from list…
2000, Team Rock, played worlds last year, played traverse city and gull lake. I suspect still playing, as these were full early in TIMS.
3421, Tachyon TECs - Team website calendar has no data this year, maybe out?
Active 4000’s, that are missing…
4294 Star-trec, 3rd year,
4478 Materia Oscura, Played MARC offseason, I would think still in.
The way TIMS works, if you wait list for two events, you can’t register and there is no payment due.
I’ve also said this in the Registration thread, but I’ll say it here for those trying to account for teams.
3421 won’t be competing this year. Short version: school let go of lead mentor and doesn’t want him to be involved, the rest of us mentors aren’t in a position where we can take over that role, and the school has been hesitant to let parents get involved.
The parent of one of our students decided to create a team (5046) at their son’s home school as the school is willing to part with the name, but not our supplies. (Specifically, the robot.)
More related: I’m excited to be able to play outside of Michigan soon. We’ve been trapped in our own state for far too long. I remember a seeing a thread in '09 asking what happened to Michigan teams because not much had been heard about them. Someone responded with something along the lines of “Oh, we’re still here, we’ve just been trapped in our own state playing against each other. We’re still good. Heck, we’re even better.”
So, really, for your own sake, let us out of Michigan so the first time you come up against us isn’t at CMP after we’ve played 40+ matches against ourselves. =P
I’ve just re-read Frank’s blog posts, his responses to comments and both CD threads.
In the CD thread for the initial blog Kim posed several questions:
What I am more interested in are the questions that are not touched on in this document & blog:
How many World CMP slots is each District going to get?
How do Legacy/HoF teams play into the number of slots? What if a Legacy/HoF wins an outside regional slot?
What auto-qualifies a team for World CMP from DCMP? Chairmans is noted in the document, but does that mean 0-EI and 0-RAS auto-qualify (even though at regionals EI & RAS have auto-qualified teams in past years).
How many of each award do District Championships get to give out (CA, EI, RAS, WF, DL come to mind).
I thought it would be useful to revisit these questions in light of the updates.
Firstly Frank’s follow up post yesterday clarified Q2 and answers Q1 with a very clear justification and tantalizing hints of the future
Engineering Inspiration and Rookie All-Star Award winners at the District event level will compete at the District Championship level for those specific awards, even if they do not rank high enough to compete with their robots.
Winning one of these awards at the District Championship will also earn them a slot at the FIRST Championship regardless of their final rank in their districts
So we know at least 1 EI and 1 RAS will be auto-bid to the FIRST Championship.
Which brings us to Q4: how many awards are given at the District Championship?
I don’t see a direct answer to that question in the blog posts or points summary, although there is a potential hint that multiple DCAs will be awarded (my emphasis)
Winning a District Championship Chairman’s Award will earn the Team a slot at the FIRST Championship regardless of their final rank in their district.
To me winning a DCA rather than the DCA suggests multiple DCAs at the District Championship, but I don’t see clarification for other awards.
Am I missing something or reading too much into the word choice of an indefinite article?
Generally true. If you win (or place highly at) a District, chances are you’ll continue to do well elsewhere, and that’s generally good enough to get you to StL. Yes, it is possible you totally mess up at DCMP and fail to make it to CMP, but that’s really unusual/rare.
I think you’ve covered it all… I dont think the numbers of awards are yet clear in documented form. My guess is that they are still finalizing the answer to question 4.
This doesn’t guarantee that there will be 3 winners from the district, there are several things that changed from the 2013 Michigan model.
In my opinion 3CA, 1EI, 1RAS makes sense, but its hard to tell what else may go into their decisions. I wonder if its possible the # of CA’s to be proportional to the number of teams sent?
