Interesting Observations of Week 1

Competition District Events
1

(Sorry for the long post, but i promise it takes an interesting twist in the end.)

So I was asked to do a little analysis comparison from a couple of young teams perspectives (we will leave them nameless, but thanks for the PMs).

A particular young team arrived at TC and their robot did not work the first two matches. They were able to get their machine going and ended up playing 10 qual matches then. Not only that but they have an additional 12 matches at their next event to look forward to. This team will see a minimum of 22 matches @ $5000. This figures out to $225/match played in.

The same team has had this happen in the past. At an 8 match event if you miss 2 matches you only get 6 more to compete in @ $6000. Then you are done for the season. This one is $1000/match played in.

Most importantly though is it would take 3 years competing at 1 regional a year to get the same competition time.

Take any sport, any hobby, and the person who will improve the most is the beginner that gets to practice with those that are pretty good at it. FIRST is no different. Rookie teams that do well do so by advice from others with experience, and by gaining the experience themselves.

This is brought up for several reasons. Many think that FiM is about improving the experienced teams, but in reality the young teams have the most to benefit. They improve the most. They get more funding when the old teams don’t need as much. They get more help when more help is available.

Also, when you have more matches to compete in you feel that all of the work going into this great project is justified. I am a builder, you can ask my team. I have been helping for 5 or 6 years now and I have only gone to 1 championship. I am inspired by the build. The thing is the kids like to compete, and competitions are where they are often most inspired. I hope our lessons stick with them (I know some do from talking to the ones that have graduated), but when you ask them what they like best, it is: Hanging out with team 45. Watching 2337 kick a last second goal. Getting a Wildstang T-Shirt! having Woody sign their shirt, and them getting to sign his!

Think about this. Two teams of equal budget and equal inexperience go to two different events. Both have issues and their machines don’t work for the first two matches. The team that only gets 6 (they go 3&3) matches goes home having watched the top qualifiers going 8&0 or 7&1. The other team to a while to get going. Dead the first 2, 3 &3 the next six, but then they were driving way better by the end. They saw the top teams go 10-2 and 9&3. the difference is their ride home, they are thinking about how they can get to 9&3 at the next comp.

For those wanting a little data or proof to this theory:
Read the tone differences between two glitchy Week 1 events. Both were highly anticipated events (1 is one of FIRSTs oldest events, and 1 is one of the Youngest). Both had field issues, robot issues, and award issues. Both are highly documented events. The tone of one group is man “we got robbed” followed by a bit of remorse.:mad: The tone from the other was, “hey things were glitchy and I hope they fix this stuff because I can’t wait until (Insert next event here)”.:rolleyes: All (both groups) felt there was room for improvement, but I know which school bus I would have prefferred to be riding back on.

Told you it would get interesting. Re-read the two other threads and pay special attention to the tone.

By the way. Positivity and negativity are very powerful emotions. They have a way of spreading like wildfire. FIRST events have a ton of energy packed into them. Consider this like a large tank of gasoline. Used in a positive manor, this energy can produce fantastic things and take us places we didn’t think we can go. You can also blow things up. No one wants to be near things that are blowing up. Not teammates, not coaches, not sponsors.

2

This is a great point; my team has a brand new driver this year, and we found that he got a ton of experience at this competition compared to other ones. I know my team is not the newest team in the world, but having those 12 seeding matches left us room to 1) Train our drivers about in the field playing 2) Give my team some matches to fix any problems with our robot (luckily we didn’t have any :slight_smile: ). I know that many new teams had problems with their robots at Traverse, and because of the increased elimination matches were able to recover and be successful overall.

For those of you who are still skeptical about the FiM structure here is the conclusion after one event. It works. Teams get to play four or more matches than most regionals, and they get to play them at a small fraction of the cost.

3

I’m going to have to throw in a good word for this new arrangement as well. I saw almost nothing different at the Kettering district today from a normal regional, other than slightly fewer teams (though more than some regionals still). The biggest change is having 12 seeding matches, it’s fantastic! At the end of the day we said to the team , “we’ve only had 8 matches so far.” We never thought it possible to use the words “only” and “eight matches” in one sentence.

Furthermore, because there are more matches I feel like the seeding is far more reflective of the overall quality of the team. One fluke match is not going to have as big an impact with 12 matches to play. My only question about the system is how well it will expand into other areas. I do hope the districts become more open so we can see some friendly faces from around the country. If nothing else, they need to find a way to keep the cost where it is now, even if the competition structure remains as open ended as current regionals.

On a side note I am very happy with the Kettering competition technically speaking as well. There were very few field faults.

4

While I am new to FIRST I have to say that the FiM structure worked pretty well as far as I could tell. Having 12 matches for each team was great from a crowd stand point because you got to see your team compete more often. Also, I like that it gives you a lot of opportunities to find weaknesses in your design and/or strategy that you can fix and see how well you can improve at the next district event. Also, since the event went by quickly, it really made it clear which teams were prepared and had sturdy designs. From the point of view of a rookie, FiM is a good system that improves the events and makes FIRST much more affordable.

5

I am a big fan of the FiM system.

Last year we only went to one event. We were badly damaged in our second match Friday morning and didn’t get back to full strength until Saturday. It made for a very short and frustrating season.

This year we signed up for three events (36 qual matches) for less money than we spent on one last year. If the same thing happens again, we will still have a full and satisfying season.

Build is great, and its certainly where most of valuable learning takes place, but the continuous improvement that happens during competition is also very important. In 2006 and 2007 we attended two events. Our robot left the second event much improved from when it entered the first one. (Hopefully this year will be no different, OTIS has been working out and building his upper body strength. He should be pumping out the moon rocks quicker than ever at Lansing and WMR, maybe even State!)

Another thing. With all the qualification matches, we are able to give a lot more students a chance to participate on the field. This is a great thing - very “inspirational” to them, and sure to bring them back next year.

I hope everyone in FRC gets this chance soon - but it would be nice to figure out a way to allow teams to play at least one meet outside their “home” district.

6

Agreed. I would love to see a nice mix of district events and Regional Championships. Then I think you could open things up again as long as proximity to the district event was a factor. One of the big issues in MI was out of state teams signing up in MI first because those events would sell out, then signing up for the event in their backyard because it would not sell out.

As a talking point.

I have run these before, but want to keep bringing them up.
Option 1: Using the FiM model of every team gets 2 Districts and 50% will qualify for the State Championship, here are some rough numbers for FRC. With FRC having approximately 1500 teams, if 50% were to go to a “Regional Championship”, that would require 1500*50%/60(teams at a R.CHMP). This would require 13 Regional Championships. Looking at a map, I think this would be very rough because teams would have to travel to far. This would also require 75 district events. The Regional Champioships would have to have 60 teams, which not every venue can support. If you downgraded 20 regionals you would need to make about 50 new events. I think that would be a huge undertaking.

Option 2, an intermediate step. Do downgrade 10 regionals to district events and start up 15 more district events. Basically have 25 and 25. Teams will then get 1 district and 1 regional for the current FRC price. Weeks 1-3 are districts, 4-6 are Regional Championships. Do a performance based qualification for Nationals. The end goal would be then to expand the number of district events in subsequent years so that there are enough slots that teams can participate in 2 district events and initial registration would be reduced. At this point, I think you could allow teams to choose whatever events they want to go to, but local teams take precidence. Also at that point, you could spread the qualification criteria for attending teh Championship. This is my favorite option as I think it would be the best method

Option 3, Probably should have been option 1, but is do nothing.

I hope that FiM is improved and allowed to be continued, or that some of its Ideas are adopted by FIRST. It feels like it has some real promise. Personally while option 2 would mean less play for a year (33 typically trys to do 3 events), I would do that if it meant getting to see another positive growth. I also think this format is good for engineering schools to showcase themselves. A regional is incredibly expensive and very difficult to put on. A district event is a ton cheaper. I would love to see district events at Ohio State (Columbus, Ohio), Tri-State (Angola, IN), U of Illinois (Champagne Urbana, Illinois)… They could take on one of these events to showcase their campuses. I know that their are a ton of great schools throughout the country that don’t get the advertising of a U of Michigan or MIT, and this could be a good way for them to spend some of that Ad money instead of killing trees (I got probably a dozen letters and postcards from MSOE and probably 50 pounds of other recruiting material).