Advancement - Answers

[Billie Jean]

Find answers to questions about Advancement to the next event level here.

[Billie Jean]

Subject: TieBreaker Points

Q: Could someone explain the rationale behind the TieBreaker points? It seems to me that it does not encourage Gracious Professionalism, nor reflects a teams performance. It does not encourage Gracious Professionalism because if a team does well in a match, being on track to score 150 plus points, and the opposing alliance didn't have one of their robots land, a team is "encouraged" to get penalties to bolster their opposing alliance's score, in case they are faced with a tiebreaker situation.

A: TieBreaker points are awarded based on the losing alliances pre-penalized score. In the scenario described, each alliance will still only receive the pre-penalized score of the losing alliance, regardless if the alliance that is performing well in the match attempts to obtain penalties to boost the losing alliances score. Section 5.8 in the Game Manual part 1 provides a full explanation along with examples of how TieBreaker points are awarded.

[Billie Jean]

Subject: FIRST Championship and Religious Holidays

Q: We are looking for a clarification about the conflict of the Houston World Championship with major religious holidays. Will teams that advance to Houston but are not permitted to attend that Championship due to religious reasons (for instance, our school will not allow us to compete that week due to Holy Week / Easter) be able to trade spots with a Detroit-bound team or otherwise be considered for the Detroit championship?

FRC has come out with a policy that can be found on their blog:

https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/2019-religious-exception-cmp-houston

and we know that exemptions have been already made for some religious groups. The FRC team at our school has already applied for an exemption in the event that they qualify, but we haven't heard any additional information about this from FTC.

Our state championship is coming up in a couple of weeks, and the answer to this question may dictate how alliance selection plays out, since only the Winning Alliance Captain is guaranteed an advancement slot to the FIRST Championship, and there are other teams at the event besides us who are in this same situation. That is, the decision to accept an alliance invitation or not may come down to if an affected teams will be allowed to advance to the next level or not.

Thank you for your consideration.

A: We recognize that the holidays which fall on the Houston Championship can create challenges for teams who directly advance to the Houston Championship. FIRST Tech Challenge Championship spots have very limited flexibility. Since your team has not qualified currently, we cannot make any guarantees that we can swap teams between events.

We ask that FIRST Tech Challenge teams email any requests for exceptions AFTER they qualify for the Championship. If a team has already confirmed their advancement to the Championship and would like to request an exception, please email [email protected]. Requests made prior to confirmed advancement are not being considered at this time.