FRC Round Up: FUN’s round table discussion and debate show will be back on Tuesday at 8:30pm eastern with guest Tyler Holtzman: 10x IRI winner and drive coach for FRC 2056. We will be streaming to FUN’s YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/firstupdatesnow/live as a potential test to see YT interaction vs. Twitch (so please show up and let us know which experience you like better).
Current topics (can always change with breaking news, order may change)
New Field Carpet. Connor will update us on the new field carpet that was tested at a NE off-season, general discussions as needed.
IRI Alliance Selection - How did the new format go, other suggestions, break down both 2056 and 33 alliance selection process as first pick and how you picked other partners and worked with your alliance partner.
Rebalancing/Optimizing Time in Event Schedules. Inspired from Rebalacing/Optimizing Time in Event Schedules
How can we look at events at a whole to optimize both time and experience of attendees.
Note: We will have a separate FRC Recap for IRI coming out on YouTube today or tomorrow so please keep an eye out for that.
Thanks as always. One of the points I picked up from the discussion was an apparent consensus that the district system is superior to the regional one. As a Californian, that’s not something I hear a lot. For me, one of the interesting things about attending a regional is the opportunity to meet and work with teams who have travelled far from other countries (and other US states). How does that work under the district system?
@ saikiranra Don’t leave us hanging. I’d love to know what you found objectionable here. Was it their suggestion that California should switch to the district system? Was it meeting people from other countries? Please share!
There is plenty of discourse in our Californian community in real life and online (hereareexamples) about how districts would be better for students in our program and for general team health.
Much higher region comradery between teams and volunteers
Qualification system for Worlds is superior as it incorporates more wholistic team performance across a season versus getting lucky at one event
DCMPs are very competitive and super fun events, often with full practice fields and other amenities you don’t see at regionals
More events & matches for your money
Sometimes less travel costs for teams in team-dense areas
Districts bad:
System is not built well for districts <100 teams (qualification becomes high variance in talent-rich areas with few teams)
Sometimes less production value (though many regionals are held in high schools anyway these days)
(Maybe bad, depending on opinion) You need to attend more events each year. Sometimes more travel for remote teams.
Streaming is inconsistent sometimes with the quality you see at regionals
Don’t have as many international or out-of-region teams at local events. However, you still get to see some of these teams at Worlds or at major offseasons (ex. IRI, Chezy Champs)
My net at this point is I prefer the district system and recommend it to others, but I wouldn’t want to join a <100 team district.
OK. I’ve certainly heard a lot of talk about some of the advantages of the district system — in particular, everyone seems to think that the points system is a better way to qualify for Worlds — but I’ve never (before) been in a room where everyone agrees that California should switch as soon as possible.
I’ve never been to a district event, just regionals, off-season, and Worlds, so I have little idea the extent to which out-of-district teams participate, hence my question. The rules seem to discourage it. Ben_Martin says it’s not “as many”, which suggests it’s more than zero.
This is kind of related to the district vs regional debate and I thought it was interesting. Here are 2023 EPA percentiles at all districts and regional teams (and threw in California). Obviously correlation =/= causation, but I don’t think it’s a hot take to suggest districts produce better preforming robots. Other metrics like team growth and team satisfaction are probably more important, however.
Correct, teams in district can do a ‘third district play’ with other district events for $500-$1000 depending on what the district charges. So theoretically, a team in the northeast could do a 3rd district play in the PNW. I think 190 has done this before. Theoretically a team in Israel could do the same, if the schedules worked out. Teams don’t often do long-distance third plays though because they’re already competing a lot and just go to events like Worlds/IRI/Chezy Champs to see the international teams instead.
Currently only events in your own region count for points, so you have to do them – FIRST could theoretically remove this rule and we would probably see a lot more teams traveling between districts.
This is an artificial limitation of some regions - FiT allows teams from New Mexico to opt in to their district, and there are districts that are geo-organized rather than state organized. A reasonable compromise would be to allow foreign teams to opt into the California district.
I haven’t been in a room with people who think regionals are genuinely better than districts in a long time aside from the occasional wildly out of touch boomer.
Districts are soooooo much cheaper per event and per match
More teams get to play at a higher level of play (district champs)
Qualifying for district champs is actually an achievable goal for most teams, the same way qualifying for states is a typical goal for teams in other high school sports
Qualifying for both DCMP and Worlds feels like a product of skill rather than luck
Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet, but was a massive improvement/win IMO when Ontario switched from the regional to the district model, was the vast majority of events taking place over the weekend.
Regionals typically would run Wednesday evening through Saturday, requiring students, mentors and volunteers to take 2-3 days off of school/work (sometimes more).
In the district model, the vast majority of our events run Friday evening through Sunday, allowing for little to no time off needed.
My experience is that most regionals run Thursday night to Sunday, but I would certainly appreciate being able to volunteer at events without taking (as much) time off work. That’s a big consideration for me when deciding whether to volunteer.
Couldn’t agree more. The camaraderie is a huge selling point, especially in a small district like Indiana. I feel like it really forces teams to be GP with each other and it creates a different culture. This may be a product of the small district but teams are regularly helping others to raise the ceiling and floor. I can’t recall a competition in recent past where a robot couldn’t at least score a game piece and drive with some consistency.
To balance the pro with a con, that camaraderie doest help when you only send 10 to Champs. A regional style event like Champs is difficult when teams don’t know you. There is a feeling that you need to really stand out to be picked because there are so many good teams. This was our first year at Champs in a while and we treated every conversation like it could dictate our success at future Champs. We had one chance to make a good first impression and then hope for the best when alliance selection came around. It doesn’t seem like this would be as big of an issue at larger regionals with a more diverse field but I could easily be wrong.
Having said that, i wouldn’t trade districts for any other scenario. The sense of community seems unmatched and the competitions are always competitive. I’ll be very clear and say I have zero regional experience but districts seem better from a team perspective because of these points. District logistics seem much harder than Regionals but I’ll leave that problem to the lovely people who work for FIN.
TLDR; it’s fun to play/collaborate with close friends but being the new kid at a large event isn’t easy.
I watched part of the interview. The best part was when they talked about FIRST trying out a new carpet and gaffers tape doesnt work anymore.
Tyler’s look and response. Cant patch holes and connect the 2 carpets along the middle length of field. i.e. This carpet is no good. Go back to the drawing board.
This is very true.
The reality is that in regional systems, especially NorCal, the same élite teams win regional events. The only major variance are who is left to be picked to round out the alliance. This isnt true for all but in many places, it holds true. Wildcards become extremely important!
This makes middle to good teams often left disappointed or happy because it was highly dependent on other factors such as match schedules or as you say, luck. And furthermore, a lot of those teams that dont make champs are just as good as those that make it at district events.
That’s a really interesting point. We try hard to encourage good relationships between local teams, but that’s something we mainly work on off-season and during build season, not so much at events. I’m always impressed at regionals to see how much camaraderie and GPGracious Professionalism there is between teams that are literally from opposite sides of the world.
