Qualification Points for Nationals- Give away?

FIRST General Forum
1

I was a little concerned that the Qualification System was not even on the agenda at the recent First Forums but we did bring it up at the very end in Pa.

One suggestion made was that teams with an excess of QP’s be allowed to donate them to friend teams to allow them to qualify for the Nationals. I guess the mechanism would need to be a formal letter or through the TIMS system. In theory FIRST should have enough slots available in case each team “just qualifies” to attend so in essence teams with 10 or 15 QPs are taking 2-3 team slots.

What is your opinion on this?

WC

(PS- personally I want ALL the teams to attend)

2

I don’t mean to impose on anyone’s future opportunities but some teams don’t have friend teams with points to give away.

Thus, to be fair to everyone, I would have to say that this is a bad idea.

However, although not practical, I think nationals for everyone is a good idea. It would have to be longer than three days though.

3

Personally, I think a good system would be that you have to win something at the regional level to go to nationals. Anything from Team Spirit to Regional Champions to Chairmans award qualifies you for Nats. No more even or odd stuff.

4

I think getting as many teams to attend the Championship Event, while downplaying the importance of qualification, performance, or winning is a goal of prime important.

I think it’s a great idea.

5

*Originally posted by nerdcool64 *
**Personally, I think a good system would be that you have to win something at the regional level to go to nationals. Anything from Team Spirit to Regional Champions to Chairmans award qualifies you for Nats. No more even or odd stuff. **

what happens when teams goto multiply regionals, win more than one award, they are taking away other teams chances. In the past it was always who ever could register in time, any team #, no matter who won, What people fail to realize is as our #'s increase, this could be the only fair way to give everyone an equal chance, only going to nats every other year is fine, it gives other teams a chance to compete, with only reagional award winners, you are give possibly the same teams over and over again a chance to compete. and in cases like this year, all those last week reagional award winners would have next to no chance to come up with money for nats to travel, is that fair, ask for example 102, and 340 who sat at home, cause they won the J&J Mid-Atlanitc Regional, and only had 4 days to come up with the money and failed to do so, but had it been 2004, instead of 2003 then they would have already have been registered, and been able to compete, So while i ramble on and on, i hope people begin to see why even/odd is fair instead of winning awards

6

The real issue that needs to be addressed (From a pure competition point of view Krass) is the multiple regional participation. Some teams can afford to go to one while others can afford to go to several. This is fine if teams want to go to more than one, BUT, to make it fair to teams who can’t… the National Qualifying points should only be counted from your most successful regional.

As for passing of points, I am 100% against it. It’s just not fair to team’s who aren’t surrounded by a lot of successful teams… to name one good reason.

7

*Originally posted by WakeZero *
**

As for passing of points, I am 100% against it. It’s just not fair to team’s who aren’t surrounded by a lot of successful teams… to name one good reason. **

on a rebutle to your statement, Gracious Proffesionalism, it doesnt nessisarily have to be a team you are close to, gee team XXx needs points maybe team XX can help them out

8

I don’t believe this is a good idea at all.

As stated before, not all teams have ‘friend teams’ that they can borrow points from. Also, how do you know that you aren’t going to be starting hard feelings from this? Let’s say there are two teams that need a boost in points to go to the Championship. One is fairly successful, but unfortunately isn’t able to go because of the point situation; the other is only mildly successful but great friends with the team that has to decide. Who is to say that a team will make the ‘right’ decision when it comes down to it?

Also, we have had some dynamite rookies come through in the past. Some of these rookies don’t have friendships through teams yet, and so their great teamwork/spirit/robot might get them only so far, and then they’d have to beg some other team to give them the rest of the points (and what if it were still to no avail?)

A good idea, but it just sounds like a troublemaker and too much paperwork for FIRST to handle. I think I would almost approve of a different form of gameplay before I’d agree to this. Nobody’s to say that a team’s decision would be correct, and other teams could hold grudges against them for doing so.

In a gracious, professional world, none of that would happen. But we are just working towards a gracious, professional world - we’ve still got a long way to go.

9

*Originally posted by M. Krass *
**I think getting as many teams to attend the Championship Event, while downplaying the importance of qualification, performance, or winning is a goal of prime important.

I think it’s a great idea. **

I disagree.
Winning is still an important aspect of this competition. When it comes down to it (in theory) the best design, the best strategy, the best alliance wins, right? I believe it is a good thing to show our HS students these elegant designs, to further inspire them.

229 did not win nationals this year (we’re all shocked!) One of the first things I did when I got back from Houston, was email my team a link to the Wildstang Inventor Award Submission. I wanted to show my kids “this is what it took to win nationals this year” (plus some amazing driving, and a great alliance…) By doing so, I’ve inspired some of my kids even more to be a part of the team next year. I’ve made everyone want to “step it up” again.

Let’s see:
Bristol Meyer Squibb 2000
CHAOS 2000
Beatty 2001
WildStang 2001
Beatty 2002
RAGE 2002
WildStang 2003

These are all “winning” or at least finalist robots from nationals. They are all elegant, amazing, unique designs in their own right. When my students see them fight to the end, and see that they are “the best” it sparks a flame in them to try harder for next year. Without the competition, without the “winning” I do not believe this would be possible.

Guys… my kids are not as impressed by the:
-amazing business plan,
-the great way you pulled your team together,
-the way you overcame adversity,
-the way you helped to change our culture

my kids are impressed by the cool robots, and innovative designs.
(you should have heard them when they found out I drove 45’s ball drive). Yeah yeah… you can say all day long about how the goal of FIRST is changing culture, and how we should all be equal, etc… but I still believe the best way to change the culture is to effect these HS students one at a time, and on 229, that means showing them that engineering makes you a winner. Engineers are heros.

John

PS - It’s not just my HS kids, this whole post applies to ME when I was a HSer. Seeing Beatty 2001 sold me on engineering for life. “How can I do something like that next year?”

10

Any and all qualification for the championship event should be based solely on team merit and not patronage.

Tim Tedrow

11

*Originally posted by JVN *
**
Let’s see:
Bristol Meyer Squibb 2000
CHAOS 2000
Beatty 2001
WildStang 2001
Beatty 2002
RAGE 2002
WildStang 2003

These are all “winning” or at least finalist robots from nationals. They are all elegant, amazing, unique designs in their own right. When my students see them fight to the end, and see that they are “the best” it sparks a flame in them to try harder for next year. Without the competition, without the “winning” I do not believe this would be possible.**

However, there has easily been an equal or greater amount of unique designs, strategies, and mechanisms that were not on winning robots. I know you’re not suggesting otherwise, but I think it’s important that it gets mentioned.

FIRST can’t really show us which of the 800+ teams that compete is truly the best because there’s just no way for every match between all teams to take place. It’s entirely possible, though, that a combination of a unique strategy, or singular unique design on another robot not competing at an event could’ve beat any one of those robots.

My point, I guess, is that there are other circumstances that affect a team’s potential and ability to perform well at an event. This season, there could very well have been a robot or three that could’ve beat the winning alliance, but they were all sitting at home in a crate.

Furthermore, by getting as many teams into the Championship Event as we possibly can, we’re exposing more kids to those great designs. In FIRST, everyone learns from everyone, and the more people there are hanging around, the more learning is taking place.

I think that a system of goodwill as Wayne’s suggested could go a long way toward curtailing the increasing emphasis on winning. Winning is the result of a great design, yes, but it shouldn’t be a prominant piece of criteria in determining if you and your work should be allowed to inspire, nor if you should have another opportunity to be inspired.

12

*Originally posted by Wayne C. *
**(PS- personally I want ALL the teams to attend) **

I agree with you… I think all teams should be able to go… But as for sharing or giving points to other teams I don’t know…

As for the other posts about winning a Regional and qualifying, I think winning a regional should be worth less than its worth now…

13

*Originally posted by ttedrow *
Any and all qualification for the championship event should be based solely on team merit.

Well said. Short and to the point. I’d like to put on the table a system that would accomplish this in a fair manner. To be fair, we need a system that recognizes every way a team can excel in this competition. I think these criteria do that:

1). Any team who played on an alliance that went to the Semifinals at any event. (This way you can’t qualify just by being picked. You have to earn it with success in the elimination matches.)

2). Any team who finishes in the top XX% during the qualification rounds. (This number can be tweaked according to how many teams have registered in FIRST, how many regionals there are, and how much room there is at the Championship event.)

3.) Any team who wins a Regional Award. (This helps to emphasize the parts of FIRST that aren’t about competition.)

4.) Any previous champions or Chairman’s Award winners.

A team can prove they can win in the elims (1), they can prove they are good in the qualification rounds (2), they can prove that they are good at some other aspect of FIRST (3), or they already have proven themselves (4).

This may look familiar to you. I had posted this elsewhere, but I feel it’s appropriate to repost it here as well.

14

I also think we should have as many teams at Nationals as possible. If it were up to me and FIRST had the resources every team would be there. There are so many great teams which we do not get to see. Unfortunatly this is not the case.

I do not think lending or sharing points is the answer though. An alternative could be allowing semi-finalists and maybe even quarter finalists to attend and if this still does not fill nationals then open it up to teams with the highest # points under the amount needed to qualify (I think this was done last year, but I’m not sure).

Winning is not everything and FIRST has always pushed the fact that it is the experience you get out of the time spent working on the project and the people you interact with that makes it all worth while. Even though this is how I feel I think the competition/win aspect still plays a role and is important to many teams if only for the “prestige” factor.

15

*Originally posted by “Big Mike” *
**on a rebutle to your statement, Gracious Proffesionalism, it doesnt nessisarily have to be a team you are close to, gee team XXx needs points maybe team XX can help them out **

In a rebuttal to your point, this still leaves an unfairness to teams who are not around a lot of successful teams. Think about it, if Team A is surrounded by 10 teams with Pt’s to spare, and Team B is surrounded by only 1… Team A has 9 more chances to get to Nationals then Team B. Assuming Gracious Professionalism works in this situation, lets say 10 teams not in the area have Pt’s to spare… that gives Team A 20 chances, and Team B with only 11. In other words, its still unfair.

16

I see a lot of discussion about varying systems being “fair” or “unfair.” I think a lot of this is misguided. Think about it – just what is fair? Can you quantify it in some mathematical equation? Can you possibly control every variable – or even a fraction of a per cent of them? NO!

No matter how elegant an idea is, someone can say – and rightly so – that it is not fair. There might always be circumstances stacked against a particular team or group of teams. As an alternative question, is it fair to those teams that one of these systems could hlep to deny them that help because someone else might not get it equally?

Seriously, I think people need to think about “fairness.” It’s not a concrete, easily defined, easily quantifiable idea. Its broad and its abstract and it AIN’T EVER GOIN’ TO HAPPEN, to put it eloquently.

This has been particularly discouraging. Did no one listen to Dean this year when he said that this game was NOT going to be fair? Personally, I thought that was one of the best statements he made. Some teams WILL have more money. Some teams more resouces. Some better mentors. Some more students. Some more involvment. Some will just be left behind. These things happen; we are not perfect. But the challenge of FIRST is not complaining about these things, but rather trying to overcome them despite your circumstances. Rather than criticize something because it is not fair, try making it better. But remember, life is never, despite our hardest and most sincere efforts, going to be the least bit fair (I’m not trying to be cynical here in case it came off that way).

Think about it. What if there are extra spaces to send teams to nationals? What would be fair? A random lottery. No, for then the teams that deserve to go would be disadvantaged. But how do we figure out those teams? And how do we weigh them against each other? There is no completely fair way. BUT, is it not better to give teams the wonderful opportunity of competing at nationals if it can be done than not doing so. Look, if we want FIRST to be the great thing that it can be, we just might have to risk like Dean did, the slight chance that it’s not going to be fair.

17

*Originally posted by WakeZero *
**In a rebuttal to your point, this still leaves an unfairness to teams who are not around a lot of successful teams. Think about it, if Team A is surrounded by 10 teams with Pt’s to spare, and Team B is surrounded by only 1… Team A has 9 more chances to get to Nationals then Team B. Assuming Gracious Professionalism works in this situation, lets say 10 teams not in the area have Pt’s to spare… that gives Team A 20 chances, and Team B with only 11. In other words, its still unfair. **

That logic is flawed, though.

If you’re considering all teams that have extra points and all teams that need points, each team that needs points has an equal chance of receiving them.

If you operate under the assumption that teams are more likely to give their points to local teams, which may be true, then there may be a bias toward teams that are located in more populated areas. But, similarly, it’s a lot easier for a team here on Long Island to attend 2, 3, or 4 regionals due to their proximity then it might be for a team in, say, Seattle. For those teams, they must travel much further to attend a second event, let alone 3 or 4.

Besides, I think this might encourage teams to form relationships with one another off the field. This happens a bit already, but encouraging that isn’t really a bad thing, in my mind.

18

I agree that not all teams should be allowed to go. One idea that i;ve been throwing around is that for nats you have to be a current or previous year regional winner, or regional technology awayrd winner (Delphi, Motorola, Xerox, GM). This would make the competition much more fun and intense. The odd/even qualification is very unfair to teams with amazing robots such as 176 this year. Thier robot was great and even brought thier alliance to become finalists at BC4, but since they did not win in the 2002 season or win a regional this year they could not go to nationals. Just some of my thoughts… Giving away points would be very unfair to teams who do not have a close team, or a ‘sister’ team. Say team ‘A’ won two regionals, and team ‘B’ who has the same sponsor made a robot that worked about twice in competition and seeded last or close to last. Naturally team ‘A’ would give thier extra points to team ‘B’ allowing a non-award winning team to go and could possibly prevent a last weekend regional winner from getting a spot for nationals.

Oops! left out regional chairman award and the engineering inspriation award

19

I agree that not all teams should be allowed to go. One idea that i;ve been throwing around is that for nats you have to be a current or previous year regional winner, or regional technology awayrd winner (Delphi, Motorola, Xerox, GM).

Hey what about regional chairmans winner??

20

what about the Egnineering Ispiration award winners… it is FIRST’s second highest team award, only second to the chairmans award, shouldnt they qualify for nationals?

~Mike