I wonder if F.I.R.S.T. has considered or would consider eight divisions at the Championship event by creating two subdivisions on each of the four fields? Each subdivision would play qualifying and elimination rounds to a subdivision champion who would play an additional round to determine the division champion that goes on to Einstein.
Just curious why? Do you think the divisions are too big? What is the basis behind your reasoning that this would be better.
No to mention how would you run qual matches and elim matches? How can you have 2 separate comps on 1 field, it would really screw with the software.
I kind of fail to see how this is any different than now. You’d still get the same number of matches, but you’d just have half the opportunity to play a variety of teams.
FIRST doesn’t need another reason to go longer than scheduled.
Really, the only main difference is that you’d have 2 Top 8’s and therefore 16 alliances that’d play in eliminations from any one field.
Effectively making the championship alliances weaker. We dont need any of that.
I’d have to disagree with this statement. Usually, most divisions field at least two or three alliances that are Einstein Worthy. (2008 Galileo Finals Come To Mind). If anything, this would just make the dominant teams more dominate because there’s less of them.
Yes, but if Galileo in 2008 had been split in half, there’s a 50% chance that both alliances that played in the finals would have not been able to be formed in the first place.
I guess this is also true, I was just trying to say that having less teams doesn’t always mean that they’re going to be of a lesser quality.
The average quality of a division would not decrease, you’re correct. However, the average quality of the top 24 in a 40-team division will be lower than the average quality of the top 24 in an 80-team division, because you’re talking about a much larger fraction of the teams.
Basically, you’d be making 192 teams go into eliminations rather than 96 like it is now. The 96 additional teams would not have gotten picked with a 4x80 system. They wouldn’t have gotten picked because they were perceived as weaker than the teams that did get picked. Because of the draft system, these 96 weaker teams would be spread more or less evenly over all the alliances, thus making the alliances that get to Einstein weaker, especially in their third picks.
Essentially, an Einstein-winning alliance from a 4x80 division setup could probably demolish an Einstein-winning alliance from a 8x40 division setup.
Note: When I say quality in this post, I mean quality as perceived by teams when they go to pick, not the FRC ranking system.
I like it when someone comes up with a new idea. It makes us think outside of the box and possibly, makes things better at the Championship event.
I personlly don’t like this idea… don’t get me wrong, i like what the OP is trying to do, it’s just this idea doesn’t really seem to wrok… maybe if it was the other way around (4 Divisions, 8 Fields)
I also think 12 alliance captions with 4 wild cards, or something similar to this (paragraph three) might make the alliances in Atlanta a little more intresting
As someone posted, the objective would be to get more teams involved in the Elimination Rounds.
The question is whether that is an objective that would help or hurt the level of competition. I personally think more qualification rounds are a better way to go because most likely (not defintely) the more qualification rounds an event has, the better chance the luck element is a reduced factor in the rankings. Therefore the allaince captains should be the stonger teams.
The question that should be asked is what is the purpose and value of the alliance selection and elimination rounds? Does having more teams participate raise or lower the value? I contend that in more division with fewer teams (or more alliance captains) lowers the value. At Championship teams need to make a significant effort to make themselves known, to scout effectively, and to be that team that everyone wants because of what they can do and who they are. Are those skills going to be as important when you go from an elimination round with less then 1/3 of the teams to an elimination involving 60% of the teams?
Everyone wants to participate in the elimination, but I think that there is value in keeping the number of teams particpating down.
(This is all independent of the fact that Sat at Championship seems to drag on fairly well as it is…)
Regardless of whether or not you do this as two “sub-divisions” or just add another round of elimination matches (and 8 more alliances), you’re adding eight more sets of 2-3 matches that need to be played per field. Minimally that’s 1.6 hours of more playtime, and it could potentially add as much as 3.3 hours to the schedule.
Simply put, no way.
Put another way, Eighthfinals represent more matches than Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Finals put together.
That being said, I believe GTR used to do Eighthfinals back when they had two fields. They could run these in parallel, so they were able to fit more matches faster.
To address a few of the issues raised: (and isn’t this fun? 
CD is great 
)
I agree, it adds more time. I’m not sure how much net real time is increased because there would be some time recovered as most of the wait time between matches that currently occurs after the Quarter Final round would not be required.
I understand the concern about the “quality” of the alliances formed if a higher percentage of the teams attending participate in the elimination rounds. I’m not sure where that ranks on the list of criteria used by F.I.R.S.T.; personally, I prefer to see the best teams leading the alliances and able to be paired together.
Another consideration for me is the quality of the match play. I think folks would agree that elimination rounds match play is generally more exciting than qualifying rounds match play. In part, I think it is bacause the “higher quality” teams are allied together. I also think that it is because teams are working together for a common purpose; specifically they are not trying to showcase their own robot, rather they are supporting the goal of the alliance. Which is the more valuable lesson?
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. The goal of the alliance is to win the match, isn’t it? That’s what every team on the field ought to be working toward, in qualification matches as well as elimination matches. If a team values “showcasing” above playing to win, and thus loses a match, I would seriously question their strategic judgement.
Are you suggesting that some teams go out there just to grandstand, don’t really think about the effect of that attitude on their alliance partners and the match results, and thus end up selecting themselves out of the elimination rounds?
Assuming the standard “6-minute cycle”, the MINIMUM that 16 additional matches would take 96 minutes (or 1.6 hours). This could extend as far as 24 matches (assuming no ties), and if each of the eight new alliances used a 6-minute timeout it’s the equivalent of running 32 matches. 32 matches takes 192 minutes (3.2 hours). This is assuming we never run into a “cooldown” scenario where time is given to allow the robots to cool off between back-to-back matches, which could add more time.
i think that he is trying to say that some robots may try to do something(s) during the qualification rounds that may not necessarily be to their strengths, but it helps them to be more noticed. this doesnt mean that that robot is a total detriment to an alliance in quals, but it does mean that a team MAY be more prone to look after onesself in order to be noticed by the picking alliances.