Today, I attended a tournament where a team wanted to participate in one of the skills challenges but eventually opted not to because they had already qualified for Worlds and didn’t want to risk taking a spot away from another team. Last year, we had a similar situation: we had qualified for Worlds at an early tournament in our region and had considered attending another local event, since there were more than 5 months between our event and Dallas. However, we chose not to, as the thought of possibly taking a spot away from another team was unpalatable. But the long hiatus before Worlds without touching a field was unwise, and the team performed poorly there.
There ought to be a way that teams that have qualified can participate in a second event without feeling bad about hurting the other teams’ chances by being there. It makes sense to me to allow a tournament to “fill its quota” of advancing teams in the event that a pre-qualified team wins a top award by selecting a team from lower down in a priority list something like the following
Another added benefit is that if one team claims multiple awards at a single event (Tournament Champion, plus Excellence and/or Skills awards), they don’t have to feel bad about displacing other teams from those spots, either.
In a previous year several team sponsors in our area agreed to encourage the captains of teams who had already qualified for (I believe it was Atlanta, at the time) to consider selecting allies who had not yet qualified, in an attempt to prevent the winning alliance from being comprised of more than one “already qualified” team.
Over the past couple years we’ve had a significant increase in the number of teams and tournaments in our area, and it hasn’t been an issue.
If the team wanted to compete, but not qualify, they could simply do their best run, then touch their robot at the last second of the run, graciously disqualfiying themselves should they achieve the highest score at the competition. That seems a tad “over the top”, however, when simply asking the tournament organizers for permission to do a demonstration run would be sufficient.
On the other hand… this is supposed to be a qualifying process to ensure that the best robots and teams make it to the championships. If you can’t beat the best in your area, how are you going to compete against the best in the world?
Dtengineering, I agree with your last point. This is supposed to be a qualification process. Only teams that can win should be allowed to go to Dallas - it isn’t about getting as many teams as possible to go. They should only qualify if they’re competent enough to win (or I guess lucky enough to get selected 3rd string by a good team?).
I think another aspect of this one is where you live. If you live right near a really good team i can see it being frustration to show up at every event and see that that team is there and is blowing everybody out of the water. But like you said it is supposed to be a process where the best move on. I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately after qualifying in January i still have 2 more competitions to go to before worlds. I am still undecided as to what i am going to do at the next competition i go to. I am not trying to say that just because i qualified for worlds i am going to be the best robot there but i am pretty sure in qualifying i will have some easy matches.
This is one of those arguments that we will never “solve” but it is nice to see everyone’s opinion
Success can breed options, too. The Vancouver, BC, VRC organizers have decided to split the year-ending March 20 event from one super-event of 60+ teams into two tournaments. The first will be the “Tournament of Champions” and will be made up of experienced teams, many of which have already qualified for worlds. The other event will be a “Rising Stars” tournament for rookies, teams with limited resources, and some teams for whom this will be their first tournament. A pair of 30-team events will give the best a chance to compete with their peers, and the rookies a chance to improve their skills. If you are familiar with US college basketball, this is like the NCAA “March Madness” championships and the NIT “next best 64” tournament.
Like some other VEX competitions this is an experiment to see if this improves the experience of students, just like the college competition was an experiment last year, and the growing number of middle school tournaments are testing the experience for younger students. The new TSA VEX competition and even the classroom competition program are other ways to play with VEX robots.
After March 20 I’m sure the participants of the Twin Tournaments (hey – I made up a name for them!) in Vancouver will report on the format and let us know how they liked it.
I like what Blake wrote (an often occurrence). I’d like to add “Go help other teams”. At each event there are a few teams that are having problems that would benefit from you and your teams efforts.
In our area we have a few “monster” teams that do what Blake suggested. They come, they compete hard and either pick two teams to play with in the finals to help boost them into the Worlds or pass on the finals.
But there is that prize issue and as event directors we can help. At the Eastern PA Regional in March we will ask teams to not participate in the skills and programming challenge if they have qualified for Worlds. We will ask them to participate in our “Champions Skills and Programming Challenge” where it’s the combined score that wins. This gives them a chance to strut their stuff, smack on the other big dogs and take home the prizes. A win for everyone.
I also like what Rick is doing on the Left Coast, two smaller events wrapped up in one. Mid-Atlantic is doing something along the same lines with the 2 day high school and the one day middle school events at the same time. The “Twin Tournaments” gives the excitement of 80+ teams but also a chance to compete but not get totally crushed.
Not me! I was just the messenger, it is Lance B and the teachers and volunteers of the Pacific Youth Robotics Society who came up with this clever strategy.