So as of this year, Ohio has had some changes in (as far as I am aware) both HS and MS awards.
Previously, basically every year before, at an average tournament with a regular amount of teams (say, 40?), both tournament champions would qualify, excellence, design, and skills champ would too.
Now, there are virtually no competitions, regardless of how many people are going to them where design or skills champ qualify.
For example, soon there will be a non-blended tournament where about 65 teams will go. It should be a regular tournament, etc. but only the two TCs and the Excellence winner will qualify. In previous years, this number would have been enough for not only Design and Skills to qualify, it would have also potentially made some smaller awards like even Build or the new Innovate qualify (had it been there)
Now, Design and Skills seem to be lumped in with the other small awards. For another example, at an early season tournament (Kennedy Group HS) there were over 70 teams, which is a massive event. Yet, according to the robotevents page, only TCs and Excellence qualified still. I am fairly sure Design and Skills and Innovate qualified there too, but I might be making that up.
Our competitions this year are mostly the same as the ones we went to last year, and every single that would have had Design or Skills qualify last year no longer does, despite having roughly the same team count.
I hear it is because we have a new Regional Manager. Are there any other states experiencing this, and is there any way we could get it changed? It’s kind of weird. We are already qualified, and many, many more teams will be via skills list as we also have a bigger state event than usual this year, but it is a really odd change and I would like to see people’s general opinions on it
(btw, I’m not necessarily saying it’s a bad change, as the same amount of teams qualify (just through skills) it is just really odd and I feel like the old way might have been better)