KC Regional Considering District Model

Competition Regional Competitions
#6

That’s an interesting idea. How many robots are in the KC area?

In the Michigan District system we get a bag window before the event. It’s much more beneficial to have your bag window with your robot at your facility, with your full set of tools and resources.

In addition, with an event that big you are going to have a horrid amount of time between matches. In the Michigan system it’s unusual to have more than 1 hour between matches, and many times it’s a 30-45 minute turn around. Going to worlds and having huge downtime between matches stinks, quite frankly.

In addition, that means a full field teardown in the middle of your event.

Would it be possible to do it at two venues, have individual competitions, and simply go on a point basis of who qualifies for worlds? Especially for the mentors, taking off multiple vacation days for the same event would really stink.

#7

Rebagged and taken back home. Keep in mind that the weekends may not be consecutive depending on when gymnasiums can be acquired. Teams might even travel to another regional event in the middle of the process if the weeks were far enough apart.

Yes, that is what we have now with Hale Arena, and besides the continued escalating costs for the arena there is no pressing need to change. What we do have is an opportunity to change if the perceived bennefit is great enough.

As more regions move to districts with closed borders local teams may find themselves with diminishing opportunities to attend a 2nd regional. This proposal helps to mitigate that problem and makes additional match play accesssible for teams who cannot afford that opportunity now.

Many have dreamed of an era when all of FIRST moves to a district model. Maybe then we can drop the artificial borders which preclude teams from playing wherever they want to. Perhaps when that day comes teams will be invited to Super Regionals based on geographic location and a point system where they can then qualify for the World Championship. This would be similar to how MSC and the MAR Championship are conducted now. One of the great challenges in this transition is developing the volunteer infrastructure at the local level to make it work. This proposal would allow us to start developing that in Kansas City in preparation for that future.

#8

Somewhere between 39 and 48.

In the Michigan District system we get a bag window before the event. It’s much more beneficial to have your bag window with your robot at your facility, with your full set of tools and resources.
Exactly. This would provide that same bennefit to KC area teams that FiM and MAR teams currently enjoy.

In addition, with an event that big you are going to have a horrid amount of time between matches. In the Michigan system it’s unusual to have more than 1 hour between matches, and many times it’s a 30-45 minute turn around. Going to worlds and having huge downtime between matches stinks, quite frankly.
I imagine the event would have to be capped at 48 teams to fit in a high school venue. This happens to matches our current numbers locally.

In addition, that means a full field teardown in the middle of your event.
One of the consequences of trying to create a “season” for our sport instead of just an “event”.

Would it be possible to do it at two venues, have individual competitions, and simply go on a point basis of who qualifies for worlds? Especially for the mentors, taking off multiple vacation days for the same event would really stink.

Currently FiM mentors take off 3 weekends (Two district events and MSC) before qualifying for Worlds. This would only be 2, albeit one of those weekends does not have elimination matches. FiM and MAR were created by folding in multiple regional events and thus had more than the traditional 6 berths for Worlds to offer. The point system helps decide who deserves them. Since this is a single event making the transition there are no additional berths to give out besides the standard 6. There is also no intermediate district championship to “pay for” before attending Worlds.

Full Discloser: I am not on the committee making this proposal but I was able to attend the meeting and hear the information first hand. I’ll admit this proposal does not sound like a permanent solution, but rather a transitionary state before we grow large enough (or combine with enough other more distant areas) to develop a FiM style super regional.

#9

I here what you’re saying Tom, and that concern was certainly brought up at the meeting. The meeting was more of a time to gather these types concerns than it was to actually answer them though. Maybe we’ll know more by the time CowTown ThrowDown rolls around at the beginning of November. Would love to see you come down, especially since we didn’t get to play together at all in 2013.

#10

Kansas City, you guys are on to something. Every establishment needs someone to come up with a crazy idea to keep it moving forward, and this just might be it. If you can come up with a way to accomplish the goals of the districts with a smaller group of teams, and it works, the landscape of FRC could radically change. Good luck with this, I’ll be watching.

#11

The school limits us to two out of state trips a year, with special permission to also go to champs if we qualify. That’s the main reason we haven’t gone to any off season events.

#12

That helps me understand what you guys are up against. I was hoping you had more teams than that.

I still would support two seperate competitions and move them several weeks apart. Bag windows + 2 competitions back to back is pretty hard and stressful on everyone. The teams are going to learn a lot from eachother at the first competition, and by spacing them out I think they would have a better chance of putting those new ideas into practice.

#13

THIS DOES NOT REFLECT THE THOUGHTS OF TEAM 2410

I wasn’t a huge fan when Mr. Ritter told me about it. I love the idea of up to 20(!) qualification matches, but I wasn’t so much a fan of splitting it up over 2 weekends. You make a good argument for the plan, but I just didn’t like the proposal. It seems much too cumbersome to spread Greater KC over 2 (possibly non-consecutive) weekends just for one competition. It also meant that suddenly instead of 6 weeks to choose from, we would have this and then pick from the remaining 4 weeks of competition, and keep in mind that our robot has to be working and back before the eliminations. Maybe it’s just how familiar I am with the Michigan system. I like the district system and all, but I just don’t think it’s quite time for the Kansas City area to transition.

Greater KC was an amazing home grown event where we had our closely knit teams and the occasional out of regional-er whom we would warmly welcome and, for lack of a better term, assimilate into our home. If it switched to the proposed system, then we would have to take a serious look at attending.

#14

I like the idea in general, but do not like the idea of two 3-day competitions, both starting on Thursday.

One of the best things about MAR is that most competitions are Saturday/Sunday, so I do not have to take a day off work to attend. Parents (and administrations) like that no school is missed.

The 6-hour window is to compensate for the loss of the traditional Thursday practice session. I would question having a six hour fix it window for a 3 day event…

Nonetheless: the right way to go about creating such a system, is to gather lots of input from all those involved and be very transparent with how decisions are made. You won’t be able to please everyone, but you can design the system so that almost everyone can live with it.

From experience, having all those extra matches really helps a lot of teams who usually won’t attend a second regional.

Good luck and keep us informed.

#15

Due to scheduling conflicts KC FIRST held their inaugurral FTC tournament on a Sunday morning this year. Many objected to school events trying to encroach on a time slot traditionally reserved for church/worship. My personal feelings aside I would not be able to make the pitch in my community that they should choose robotics over other Sunday morning options.

The 6-hour window is to compensate for the loss of the traditional Thursday practice session. I would question having a six hour fix it window for a 3 day event…

I’m not sure what Thursday agendas would be like. My first thought is that it would be somewhat like champs. Start in late afternoon after the traditional work day has ended, say 5:00. Only skeleton crews allowed. Permitted tasks limited to unbagging the robot, passing inspection and maybe setting up the pit. Dependening on the venue field set-up might be going on at the same time so as to minimize the disruption of facilities to the host school. Practice matches Friday morning, with qualification matches starting after lunch. Just spitballing here, I’ve really got no inside information.

Currently local teams miss 2 days of school to attend the regional event (Thrusday and Friday). In this model students would still miss just 2 days of school (Friday, Friday) and some would argue that it is easier to make those days up when they are not consecutive.

My initial thoughts upon hearing this proposal were not overwhelming positive. In my opinion the Greater Kansas City regional is one of the finest in the Nation. The level of competitions is always very solid, the dancing and cheering is the most energetic I’ve seen anywhere. The volunteers are top notch. Why mess with near perfection?

The idea continues to grow on me as I realize it is not about trying to make the top teams better as much as it is about improving the experience for the bottom half of the league. There are many teams whose robots do not meet their performance expectations at their first event, but they might be dramatically improved for a second event if they could afford to go. Sports are about teams getting better over the course of a season and peaking at the right time. This model gives teams just a little longer to “peak” if they don’t come out of the gates great.

#16

In addition, teams like 935 would have to spend twice as much for gas and hotels (total of 12 hour drive time!). Funny thing is, KC is our closest regional.

#17

Funny thing, when I Google city to city directions it places Oklahoma City 2 minutes closer to Newton than Kansas City, Missouri. :rolleyes: Perhaps if I googled school to arena distances I might find KC closer. It’s that close.

Regardless, the point is clear. In a less population dense area the GKC regional is the most attractive option for some relatively distant teams. Travel expenses would increase while still only vying for 5 or 6 spots at championship. For a similar travel expense (albeit a much larger registration fee) you could travel to two separate regionals, meet twice as many teams, and double your chances to qualify. For teams with the resources to go to two tournaments that still sounds like the better option. For teams without that kind of financial capital…?

When the comittee meets I hope they seriously consider travel grants to schools in your situation as an associated cost. I know they were hoping to be able to redistribute some money to teams with savings in this new model.

PS. If I didn’t get to sleep in my own bed during the KC regional I doubt I’d find this proposal the least bit intriguing.

#18

Spending two weekends for only one event would be a deal breaker for our team.

Why are they looking at an in-between solution instead of figuring out how to make a district system work?

#19

Only thing I am going to add to this thread is to mention that the Sunday we held the FTC tournament was also Super Bowl Sunday.

#20

I’m not sure I understand the point of this system over other potential systems. What is the true benefit of more than doubling the qualification matches with no increase in the number of intense elimination matches? Sure the more qualification matches you run the more “accurately” the standings will sort the teams. But what do teams get out of playing the same teams over and over again in qualification matches. With only 48 teams and 25+* qual matches you play with or against every team almost 3 times! Seems excessive to me.

Plus if you are going to change the model of the competition why not change the way teams are selected to go to the championship? What is stopping them from splitting it into two “district” events with the top three point accruing robots going to champs after the second event? Teams don’t need 29 qual matches and then one set of elims. But they could use 20 qual matches and two sets of elims. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I think that the three “best” robots should accompany the RCA, EI, and RAS winners to the champs. Even though a two event system isn’t nearly as good at this as say a 15 event system I think you would still get closer than just sending the winners from one event.

When I heard this idea I was sort of baffled. I hope this isn’t what they end up going with. This totally takes away the clout from the event and I am almost positive that after the first year the RPC will see a significant drop in corporate financial support meaning that there will be even less money to give to teams that would have to travel a significant distance.

*Fri1:9am-6pm, Sat1: 9am-6pm, Fri2: 9am-6pm, Sat2: 9am-noon with 1 hour lunch breaks on Fri1, Fri2, Sat1 yields about 230 possible matches with a 7 min turnaround time. With 48 teams this turns out to a little over 29 matches per team.

#21

So going off of the 39-48 teams estimate:

Why not just directly implement what MAR and FiM do, but skip the Regional Championships aspect?

Hold two “district” events, and have every team compete at both events. Practice matches/inspection Thursday night, 10-12 qualification matches Fri/Sat AM, and then eliminations on Sat afternoon. Repeat at a different venue. Award RCA, EI, and RAS at the 2nd event, and then qualify the 3 highest rated teams by points. Every team would get 20-24 qualification matches, you would have two sets of elimination matches, and there’s no problem if teams come one weekend and not the other (separate schedule). If you have ~42 teams, you should be able to squeeze in 12 qualification matches (same as MAR/FiM). If you end up with 48 teams, you would still have 10 qualification matches (same as the current KC Regional).

With a little more growth, you can go to 3 district events. 48 teams would give you 3 district events with 32 teams at each. Add a district championship if/when you grow to ~4/5 district events (80-100 teams).

#22

How about we take a little more expanded/crazy view for a future district model(I have been dreaming about this for months it seams just a bit “too” crazy right now :smiley: ). First priority we add a new regional in Memphis and Rolla or Cape Girardeau (will be a "little :wink: " difficult right now). Next priority we get both Missouri Regional, the Oklahoma Regional, and the just added Razorback Regional all on board(a bit more easy than priority one). Third priority we make sure that Iowa, Eastern Kansas, Western Illinois, Western Kentucky, and Western Tennessee teams all have an opportunity to join the district. Final Priority we get the University of Missouri-Columbia on board to host the district championship in the Hearnes Center(it would be a perfect place for a district championship).
In total I had around 125 teams plus growth, 6 large district events, and 1 championship or around the same numbers as MAR, except for land size. I think we are close to being able to do this the problem is that travel would be hard for teams/volunteers for their second event. I would love to hear others opinions on this system setup.Sorry for putting this hear but I think it is possible.

As for the KC area going to a “mini” district I believe it would be good for the KC area local teams and bad for the KC teams that are not so local, Iowa and mid-Missouri teams come to mind. I also would miss seeing all of the KC teams heading across 270 for the St. Louis Regional.

#23

How would it be bad for Iowa teams? Our team currently travels to two regionals that are 4+ hours away, so traveling wouldn’t be anything new. If we can go to two events for the price of one, I’m pretty happy.

#24

My thought was the two weekends for 5 qual. spots would be a turnoff. But the price for two weekends of competition is nice.

#25

I agree, Sunday mornings are not really ideal for many. But missing nly Friday school solves that issue…

Where is the geographic center of the 48 teams, and what is the furthest travel distance? I ask because a 3 event system might be a better choice. Or a two event system, but teams are “obligated” to attend only one, and highest points winds the CMP berths. Award chairmans, EI, etc at the last event, teams “in the runnng” are asked to attend for awards (being a Saturday it may be easier to justify).

Find another 48 teams and run it like MAR…

Just thinking out loud.