FIRST has recently announced that next year’s qualifying Israeli teams will go on to compete in the Detroit championship, rather than the Houston championship at which we normally compete. My own team (#5987) won the engineering inspiration at Houston this year, meaning we have a guaranteed trip for next year’s championship- though we didn’t realize at the time of winning the award that we would be going to Detroit. Since the announcement, there has been a bit of debate within the FIRST Israel on whether this is overall a good thing, the most important talking points being at which championship are Israeli teams more likely to succeed and of course which championship is “better” (i.e. has cooler and more famous teams). I would like in this thread to get some opinions from the teams that regularly go to Detroit- what do you guys think of this development? Would you, if given the choice, compete in Houston or Detroit? Do you think Israeli teams pose any kind of “threat” to the regular powerhouse teams in Detroit? I am of the almost universal opinion that splitting the championship into two events was a big mistake on FIRST’s part, though when it comes to picking “favorites”, i’m pretty much lost…
Theres a couple threads (and an FRC Blog post) already:
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165877&highlight=israel
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165802&highlight=israel
It’s pretty clear that the top teams in Houston are better but the average level of competition is much higher in Detroit due to having a larger base of district teams (fewer teams qualify via 2nd pick or awards). It all really depends on your definition of success. Winning champs is easier in Detroit but ranking high and getting picked is much harder.
A clear way to compare the two is looking at the competency of the 2nd and 3rd picks at Detroit compared to Houston.
The top teams in Israel (e.g. 1574, 1577, 1690, 3339 etc.) would pose a challenge to any FRC team at any event. The addition of Israel to the 2019 Detroit Championship will certainly increase the competitiveness and depth of the event.
what do you guys think of this development?
I am excited for additional international teams coming to Detroit.
Do you think Israeli teams pose any kind of “threat” to the regular powerhouse teams in Detroit?
As Karthik stated, I think the teams have a very good chance. One difficulty they will have is most of the Detroit event is playing in “District” systems which means it is their 4th event for a big chunk of the contender teams. Getting as much driver practice as possible in the off seasons will help. I would recommend discussing finding a host “sister” team from US or Canada that your team can establish a relationship with. If it was me, I would make a list of Captains and first picks from the last couple years, and use that list of repeat offenders to befriend. Several of these repeaters are World Champion Chairman’s teams. If your team is active in that arena, I have heard that is another way to benefit from peer to peer mentoring. End of the day, you will see a lot of Michigan teams picking Michigan teams, and Canadians picking Canadians, and that is partially due to familiarity. If I saw the team do something amazing during the District championship, and they had a couple off matches at the World championship, this would likely influence the alliance selection process.
If you are a team that gets to frequent World Championships, having the ability to see a couple different venues would be really cool.