I was thinking like what if FRC had an All Star game where they invite the best teams to compete in skills challenge or do an East vs. West type case. Life split the globe in half to do East vs. West. Thoughts?
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It’s called IRI
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Or Chezy Champs, tends to have a lot more west coast talent than IRI.
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The first year of 2champs, the winning alliances from each played together in the “Festival of Champions.” The event was discontinued after 2017.
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I still have a shirt from 2010 or so, which actually says “IRI: The Allstar Game of FIRST” or something very close to that. That was the year that a particular mentor who was MCing had a very blunt discussion with the crowd about people standing on the upper running track and pointing to the side the 469 was going to redirect each soccer ball.
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This was my suggestion last year to fill the space between the Einstein matches at the FIRST Championship. Leave some other fields assembled and run some matches between some of the fan favorites who didn’t make Einstein. I’m sure many of those teams would be willing to play a few more exhibition matches.
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I like it, but in a way I worry about it. Some years, certain teams don’t make it through bad luck, or the luck of the draw, etc. I would hate for the crowd to watch those matches and then look at the finals matches and ask “why isn’t THAT robot on the championship field instead of this one”.
It might diminish what’s going on with the Einstein matches.
I think a better idea would be a breakdown of the match that was just played. Sort of like the the NFL does, where they can draw on the screen and do x’s and o’s and lines and explain subtle aspects of the game and why the winning team won.
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This is totally off-topic but something that comes up from time to time, but I think it’s one of the more misunderstood “rules”. It came up during a drivers meeting at one of our events last season. But, it is completely legal for the stands to signal to the drive team as long as the drive team isn’t using electronic devices to do so. Every year we have people in the stands yelling for the driveteam to go climb or do XYZ. 2017 had teams with signs to signal to their driveteam how many gears the opposing alliance has scored. Just want to bring this up as people often see it and assume other teams are cheating when they are not.
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Speaking of NFL, I think a combine style event would be fun for the down time. Far shots, sprints, or how many of something would be really fun to watch and it wouldnt take away for the Einstein matches coming up.
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Oooo… a skills competition. Slalom, shooting, relays…
Yeah, that would be fun.
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That was one of our fond memories of our rookie year. They could not believe a rookie was blocking their shots. Our driver and bot was quick enough to run down the ball. Clearing the upper deck didn’t slow them down.
My favorite IRI tee/Slogan was from 2006 or 2007:
IRI: Where the Egos come to play
I don’t know if they still use that line because I haven’t gone in a long time.
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There are several scattered threads recounting teams getting prissy about signaling with simple signs from the stands, but it’s been legal since…forever.
Of all the places for “dirty tricks” like that to come out, it should be expected at IRI.
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I was just discussing something similar with another mentor, albeit not for the top teams. More of a modified game/ games that just focused on specific parts of the game. The idea was to do something unique, doesn’t require as many teams, and a little easier to manage without building/ renting a full field.
One idea was to do a 1v1, 2v2, or 1v1v1 game with a half size field and only the speaker and source, with teams scoring notes marked in their color into the same goal (like 2022) and just counting the scored notes after the match.
Another idea was to do something like soccer penalty kicks, with one team on offense and one on defense, trying to score from specific spots on the field that get different amounts of points. Teams would be allowed to install a tall, narrow blocking mechanism to try and block shots. Though this one might take too long if you have too many teams.
This reminds me of the At Home challenges from the dark days.
Not sure how I feel about this. At least it’s not the whole event, just an add on
I remember.
The event cost over $250k. Not sustainable so it was one and done.
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This is a strange connection between the subject and the initial post.
Let’s take a step back to look at what the NBA (and other sports) All Star game is.
In those leagues, teams can make the playoffs. Star players are spread across teams and this is a chance to celebrate the individual contributors outside of the team context.
If we use that with FRC, it’d be strange to invite teams. We already have a method to do so. That method pulls teams in based both on awards and competition results. If you find a third metric to invite teams, what would it be?
If you’re looking for the NBA format, you’d be taking individuals from teams and bringing them together. But also, to do what?
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They don’t do the X and O drawing on the screen but the breakdown that Robotics Game Day does is great. A lot of teams don’t get to see it since its only for FiM. They do one event a week during the season and then cover FiM state championship.
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PNW does this (and a couple other things such as team interviews) at District Champs.