Bill Blogged - Where does the time go at CMP?

4/30/2011 Bill Blogged - Where does the time go at CMP?

Good Morning Teams,

The final episode of FRC Live! was yesterday morning and I’ve been too busy ever since to get to a computer. Here are the highlights of what was covered as the crowd and I discussed the future of FRC.

At the current rate of growth for FRC, we are going to face a space crunch at Championship (CMP) in a few years. Consider this. At each regional, six teams earn a space at Championship (the winning alliance, the Engineering Inspiration winner, the Chairman’s Award winner and the Rookie All Star team). This year we had 48 regionals. Add eighteen teams from the Michigan State Championship (When the District pilot began, the State Championship replaced three Regional events.) and you get a total of 306 teams. 352 teams competed this weekend. Not every team who qualifies to come to CMP can make it, so there are always a few empty slots, but as we continue to add new regionals each year, we are eventually going to run out of room. In the short run, there will be fewer and fewer spaces for non-qualifying teams at CMP. In the long run, we’re going to have to figure out a new system for determining which teams come to CMP.

This year, more Regional events went to the Bag & Tag (B&T) system. Next year, you can expect even more events will adopt the program. We know that there is room for improvement. We’re working to develop a system for teams who have no choice but to travel long distances to get to an event, and we’re working with locations where local teams have expressed an interest in participating, but the event facility is reluctant. Feedback from teams has resulted in two interesting observations. All teams were asked at the end of the year last year how they felt about B&T. I don’t have the stats at hand today, but somewhere around 90% of teams who had participated in a B&T event liked B&T and about 90% of teams who had not participated in B&T didn’t like B&T. So I’m asking you, give it a try, you might like it.

Did you notice the tubes in your 2011 kit were a different shade of blue than the blue tubes on the fields? There was a miscommunication with the factory in China and by the time we received the first samples, a lot of dark blue squares had already come off the production line. The most cost effective (and ecologically friendly) solution was to put the already produced miss-colored tubes in the kits and run just enough correctly colored tubes for competition. The blue tubes had to be air shipped to Manchester in order to arrive just in time to get them on the trucks headed to week one events.

If we had had more time between the moment the GDC finalized the game pieces and the day kits had to ship to make it to kickoffs, a lot of cost and confusion could have been avoided. This year, the GDC is taking heroic steps to try to complete development of the 2012 game by August. If we are successful, we will then immediately start work on the 2013 game. Hopefully, FRC will then be able to maintain a game development schedule where the game is finalized a year in advance allowing us more time to build fields, obtain game elements and test systems.

With the additional workload, the GDC has decided to add an additional rotating member position. We intend to invite one member of the FRC community to join the committee for a one year term. In February I invited members of the Hall of Fame and the Woodie Flowers Award winners to apply. Final selection will probably happen this weekend. I hope to be able to announce our selection soon.

I’ll let you know when the third episode is posted to the FRCTeamsGlobal YOUtube channel.

See you