As I read the manual, it sounds like the opposite:
Since it does not count towards the district’s total allotted slots (because let’s say 3310 qualifies through winning the Rock City Regional), one more team from the District leaderboard will be invited to Houston Half-Champs.
I think you need to read again.
10.12.3.6 Regional Participation
District Teams do not earn points for their actions at any Regionals they may attend, nor are eligible for FIRST Championship qualifying judged awards at those events. However, if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional event, that slot does count as part of the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season.
In your example, 3310 is going to Houston Half-Champs, regardless of their state on the TX District leaderboard. If TX is sending 20 teams, and 3310 is in 40th (normally not even remotely in range of going), TX will be able to send 19 teams from near the top of the leaderboard*, plus 3310. If 3310 is first on that list, it’s 3310 and 19 other teams.
*Or wherever the DCMPCA/DCMPEI teams are on the board, plus the whole “near the top” group.
(2018 Game Manual section 10.12.3.6) However, if a District Team does earn a slot at the FIRST Championship while attending a Regional event, that slot does count as part of the total Championship allocation the District is receiving for the season.
I see what you mean. “part of the total” could be understood as an addition to determine the total or subtraction from the total.
Section 10.12.3.8 makes it clear.
(2018 Game Manual section 10.12.3.8) Districts receive the percentage of ‘available slots’ at their assigned FIRST Championship location, rounded up to the nearest whole slot, equal to the percentage of teams they have in their District compared to the total of all FIRST Robotics Competition teams in the current season who would normally be assigned to their FIRST Championship location. ‘Available slots’ are calculated by taking the total number of slots at each FIRST Championship location, subtracting the number of pre-qualified teams assigned to that location, and also subtracting a 10% allowance for waitlisted teams, as Districts are still allowed to send waitlisted teams to the FIRST Championship. Further, this overall calculation uses a ‘snapshot’ of teams that have registered and paid as of a specific day a week or so after season payment due.
These slots are guaranteed to the Districts and populated with the following teams:
• qualifying award winners from the District Championship (Chairman’s Award, Engineering Award, and Rookie All Star winners),
• teams on the District Championship Playoff Winning Alliance (including any Back-Up teams participating),
• qualifying award winners among district teams who traveled to Regionals,
• teams on the final District ranking list, as deep in the ranking list as the District needs to go to fill their allocation.
The number of available slots for TX teams is a fixed number (excluding wait-list). Qualification at a regional is part of the four bullet points used to fill those slots. Therefore a regional qualification subtracts from the total and reduces the slots remaining for the forth bullet point.
Is there is a third option that is better than districts or regionals? It sounds like the teams you are describing would have had an even worse time in the regional model. They would have to pay twice as much to compete in the same number of events (but not the same number of matches), would likely have had to pay more for travel, and likely would have been ranked lower than they were at a district. And after all of that they still wouldn’t have qualified for the next level of competition.
This still doesn’t make sense. If lets say a couple teams go to a third event, and team up and win, they are still taking points that could have gone to another team that is attending their second event, right?
I feel like there is some relation to the total amount of district points available in an entire district, in that since there is less points available in the total since those points taken by the 3rd-event-playing winners essentially disappear, each point a team gains at this event is worth more. But still doesn’t make exact sense.
Related to OP, when Ontario transitioned to the district model, we collected the most common/important questions asked by the community, and produced a presentation and webinar that made its rounds to several of the FRC workshops and conferences that were hosted by teams throughout the district.
Here is a video archive of the webinar.
Not all information will apply to Texas, as every district will still have its minor implementation differences, but it will give you a good idea of what to expect.
Good luck, and best wishes with the district transition!
Sorry had a bit of a mental lapse. In MI, when districts started, some awards were worth 2 points, such as the team spirit award. Even though I wasn’t in FRC then, I’ve looked at old team stats for a team like 217 and saw only 2 DP in awards, while today I basically ignore the awards category on TBA. This is why I wrote 2 and not 5.
For some reason my brain inserted the word “not” in the manual. This is what I get for reading it at 11 PM! My bad! ::rtm:: 
Hey, it is only natural. That is what Software Guys do.
Insert nots, ors, ands, nors, xors. It is that Boolean brain at work.:rolleyes:
Yes, the points at that event captured by 3rd play teams “go away”.
But now that there are less total points in the whole district pool, any points that have been won at other events are worth relatively more. And the points from the late-season event that go to teams that get 2nd, 3rd … xth place points are also relatively more valuable.
It’s impossible to tell whether it’s a net loss or gain for any given team, because if Team Powerhouse wasn’t playing at a 3rd event, we don’t know how the results would have turned out. You can’t blithely say that the 2nd place Team Not Quite As Powerful would have gotten first place and should have a higher point total. Taking Team Powerhouse out of the event would have changed the whole event. For one thing, the schedule would have been completely different, and maybe Team Not Quite As Powerful would have ranked differently.
Yep, that’s what got me confused, thanks for clarifying.
Edit: On a slightly related note, does anyone know what the impact is of FRC becoming an official UIL event? How will this affect teams?
My strong suspicion/impression is that this will have no impact to teams other than:
- if you’re UIL you’re eligible for additional award(s)
- some teams may use the UIL aspect of it to leverage for (more) support
Also wanted to comment on Coopers post - I don’t think they’ve officially stated that Austin Convention Center is where the district champs will be. Last I remember hearing at LSC’s official “District FAQ” session, they have some place they potentially have a great deal on. I don’t even recall if they indicated that it’d be in Austin or not…I’ve got in my head that it may have been implied this particular location may not be in Austin. Total speculation, but maybe a big FIRST sponsor in the state wants it in their city (San Antonio or Dallas)? I feel pretty comfortable ruling Houston out at least until world champs moves from Houston.
How does the district system account for pre-qualification by Champs win / EI / Chairman’s finalist,(pretty sure they are still using this route of pre-qualification) as will be the case with 2468, 3847, and 148 (granted 148 is also always pre-qualified as an original and sustaining team)?
It seems like we’re going to see some “2468/148/3847 stole my team’s district points why did we switch to districts I hate this it’s terrible” kinds of posts next spring, when these three good teams seed high or earn good awards.
Prequal teams take one of the qualifier spots. For example, if Texas had 20 qualification slots, 148 would always take one if then, so there would be 19 slots open to non-148 teams
This is not the case. Original/Sustaining and Hall of Fame teams DO NOT count against the slot total. So in FiM 27, 51, 67, and now 2834 are NOT included in the however many points slots we get every year.
However, teams that pre qualified the year before DO take a slot. So 2468 and 3847 will remove two slots. If I remember the rules correctly.
FRC already is a UIL event, with an offseason state championship that this year was May 18-19. Under the new district set-up, there is no separate offseason UIL state championship but the UIL affiliated teams will be ‘tracked in a separate spreadsheet’ (according to the First in Texas website). I presume that the standard district ranking system will be used to determine UIL rankings.
How did Appreciate and Spectrum pre-qualify? Is it from champs awards?
Yes, due to awards from champs. Spectrum won EI and Appreciate won Chairman’s Finalist.
I understand the part about the UIL awards, but am more concerned with things such as specific UIL rules that may affect the program or things that schools are more willing to provide now that robotics is officially a UIL event. Seems like not much will change in that aspect.
Earlier in the thread it was said that there are presumably 10 district events. Currently we are at 6 regionals. If you were to add in the 2017 Brazos Valley event, and maybe a district event in Austin, it will be interesting to see where the other 2 events will be. Maybe another in Dallas?
It’s my understanding that none of the pre-qualified teams including 2468 and 3847 will take spots since that is already included in the math for team distribution.
Here is the data used this year to calculate spots for the Championships. Pre-qualified teams are taken out before they do a percentage of spots for each area. Also section 10.12.3.8 of the manual specifically shows how slots are removed and pre-qualified teams from the previous year are not on that list. If this wasn’t the case in theory Indiana could have 5 of their 9 spots taken up before the season even began if they received 2 CCF and 3 EI awards at the championship the year before.
This could change since it’s not an “evergreen” rule but that’s at least how it was for this season.