Superregional

[IHateClouds]

More practically speaking, how would you designate these invitationals? If MIT were designated, somebody would complain that it rewards teams for being rich enough to fly to Massachusetts. (It is, after all, dominated by out-of-state teams.)

These invitationals would have to be designated by NSO. Also, just because you can fly to Massachusetts, doesn't mean you're good enough to win the bid there. Sure, Troy's probably going to fly out to MIT again, but they've already got a nats bid so it wouldn't affect the invy bid at all.


Overall, this system of wild card bids would allow teams to compete for a deserving spot at nationals without the need of a system of "superregionals" and extra tournaments just for teams that did well at states.

Thoughts?

i'm not sure that the idea of money being a barrier is that importnant considering that nats would be even farther and that this isnt the only way to qualify but is more of a bonus method. ofc, it isnt fair to teams with low budgets, but this would be an improvement on the current system. idk i might be biased living in an affluent district.

[builderguy135]

More practically speaking, how would you designate these invitationals? If MIT were designated, somebody would complain that it rewards teams for being rich enough to fly to Massachusetts. (It is, after all, dominated by out-of-state teams.)

These invitationals would have to be designated by NSO. Also, just because you can fly to Massachusetts, doesn't mean you're good enough to win the bid there. Sure, Troy's probably going to fly out to MIT again, but they've already got a nats bid so it wouldn't affect the invy bid at all.


Overall, this system of wild card bids would allow teams to compete for a deserving spot at nationals without the need of a system of "superregionals" and extra tournaments just for teams that did well at states.

Thoughts?

i'm not sure that the idea of money being a barrier is that importnant considering that nats would be even farther and that this isnt the only way to qualify but is more of a bonus method. ofc, it isnt fair to teams with low budgets, but this would be an improvement on the current system. idk i might be biased living in an affluent district.

penalty of 0.1 points for every mile your school is away from the competition /s

[EwwPhysics]

These invitationals would have to be designated by NSO. Also, just because you can fly to Massachusetts, doesn't mean you're good enough to win the bid there. Sure, Troy's probably going to fly out to MIT again, but they've already got a nats bid so it wouldn't affect the invy bid at all.


Overall, this system of wild card bids would allow teams to compete for a deserving spot at nationals without the need of a system of "superregionals" and extra tournaments just for teams that did well at states.

Thoughts?

i'm not sure that the idea of money being a barrier is that importnant considering that nats would be even farther and that this isnt the only way to qualify but is more of a bonus method. ofc, it isnt fair to teams with low budgets, but this would be an improvement on the current system. idk i might be biased living in an affluent district.

penalty of 0.1 points for every mile your school is away from the competition /s

This would just shift the bias from richer schools to schools that happen to be close by chance

[SilverBreeze]

i'm not sure that the idea of money being a barrier is that importnant considering that nats would be even farther and that this isnt the only way to qualify but is more of a bonus method. ofc, it isnt fair to teams with low budgets, but this would be an improvement on the current system. idk i might be biased living in an affluent district.

penalty of 0.1 points for every mile your school is away from the competition /s

This would just shift the bias from richer schools to schools that happen to be close by chance

This would require further support from some districts for group travel, and doesn't quite carry the same prestige as Nats, so some schools would run into travel/bureaucracy issues. I know some teams, cough, have already experienced issues with travel invites.

[builderguy135]

penalty of 0.1 points for every mile your school is away from the competition /s

This would just shift the bias from richer schools to schools that happen to be close by chance

This would require further support from some districts for group travel, and doesn't quite carry the same prestige as Nats, so some schools would run into travel/bureaucracy issues. I know some teams, cough, have already experienced issues with travel invites.

/s is used to indicate sarcasm

[gz839918]

Here's a sample map of 6 invitationals I made:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BOiWr ... sp=sharing

I tried to take the best balance between well-run invitationals and a spread of invites throughout the entire country so no team would have to travel too far to get to a competition (sorry Montana).

Part of the problem with more bids is that it's logistically frustrating to add more teams to a tournament. If you added 5 new C bids and 5 new B bids, you'd need to guarantee capacity for at least 160 more people (15 students and a coach per team), and realistically maybe 200-400 considering other coaches, alternates, chaperones, and staff to serve them. Nationals at Cornell limited its seating at awards to only 17 people per team, and everybody else had to sit apart on bleachers; 200 more people will further strain seating at awards, homerooms, dining, dorms, and so forth (think about how much you're stretching fire codes). Texas and New Jersey and Missouri surely deserve bids, but sadly, pulling it off is still hard no matter how bids are awarded :(

I understand that space is an issue, but 10% more people wouldn't make that big of a difference. I'm sure that the organizers would be able to figure out some way of fitting 200 more people in a space with already a few thousand people.

rip Montana

As much as I would like to see more teams at nationals, 10% more people is a big difference if you're breaking fire code regulations.

Additionally, 10% more people also is costly since teams aren't paying invitational fees to finance the national tournament. The cost goes into paying for 10% more homerooms, custodial staff, dining staff, and IT staff, some of whom are being paid overtime. And if you want 10 new bids in each division rather than 5, it's more like a 20% increase rather than 10%. (Think about the worst nationals you've attended, and now make it 20% harder for the organizers to keep organized.) I'd be a bit cautious before saying that the organizers would somehow figure it out.

As for choosing tournament sites, MIT and friends are respected by everybody, but this isn't true of all tournaments. When I was a competitor, I felt the UChicago Invitational was rather sketchy, and I saw that some tests were hardly up to caliber. It's not at all obvious which invitationals are truly suited for this purpose. Further, the Chattahoochee Invitational drives an enormous amount of fundraising for the Chattahoochee team, so they'd be at a great loss if they couldn't use it to fund themselves, keeping in mind that the state registration fee is supposed to be the only fee teams have to pay to participate in official tournaments. (Also consider how sketchy it would seem if you were a Georgia team and, in order to make nats, you had to kowtow to one of your state's two winning teams by paying them money. And you might not even make it.)

Also if WWP-North is fond of DUSO, you all should come compete next year and meet up with some of us in NC :)
and hopefully there will be even more invitationals in NC in the future

[builderguy135]

As for choosing tournament sites, MIT and friends are respected by everybody, but this isn't true of all tournaments. When I was a competitor, I felt the UChicago Invitational was rather sketchy, and I saw that some tests were hardly up to caliber. It's not at all obvious which invitationals are truly suited for this purpose. Further, the Chattahoochee Invitational drives an enormous amount of fundraising for the Chattahoochee team, so they'd be at a great loss if they couldn't use it to fund themselves, keeping in mind that the state registration fee is supposed to be the only fee teams have to pay to participate in official tournaments. (Also consider how sketchy it would seem if you were a Georgia team and, in order to make nats, you had to kowtow to one of your state's two winning teams by paying them money. And you might not even make it.)

I chose tournaments, preferably collegiate, that were close to large states such as CA, TX, NY, OH, and PA. UChicago was the only collegiate invitational that seemed to be near OH/IL, and ngl there didn't seem like there were many better choices lol.

Also if WWP-North is fond of DUSO, you all should come compete next year and meet up with some of us in NC :)
and hopefully there will be even more invitationals in NC in the future

Personally I would, but I highly doubt that this would happen. We had enough trouble funding to go to MIT and it would be near impossible to go to two overnighters. Plus, we didn't even have a bus for SOUP sooooo ‾\_(ツ)_/‾
Thanks for the offer though!

[SilverBreeze]

This would just shift the bias from richer schools to schools that happen to be close by chance

This would require further support from some districts for group travel, and doesn't quite carry the same prestige as Nats, so some schools would run into travel/bureaucracy issues. I know some teams, cough, have already experienced issues with travel invites.

/s is used to indicate sarcasm

Sorry about ambiguity. I was referring to the topic of traveling to superregionals in general, not rebutting your comment.

[builderguy135]

This would require further support from some districts for group travel, and doesn't quite carry the same prestige as Nats, so some schools would run into travel/bureaucracy issues. I know some teams, cough, have already experienced issues with travel invites.

/s is used to indicate sarcasm

Sorry about ambiguity. I was referring to the topic of traveling to superregionals in general, not rebutting your comment.

Shoot, I quoted the wrong comment as well, meant to quote @EwwPhysics (sorry!)

[EwwPhysics]

Here's a sample map of 6 invitationals I made:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BOiWr ... sp=sharing

I tried to take the best balance between well-run invitationals and a spread of invites throughout the entire country so no team would have to travel too far to get to a competition (sorry Montana).

Part of the problem with more bids is that it's logistically frustrating to add more teams to a tournament. If you added 5 new C bids and 5 new B bids, you'd need to guarantee capacity for at least 160 more people (15 students and a coach per team), and realistically maybe 200-400 considering other coaches, alternates, chaperones, and staff to serve them. Nationals at Cornell limited its seating at awards to only 17 people per team, and everybody else had to sit apart on bleachers; 200 more people will further strain seating at awards, homerooms, dining, dorms, and so forth (think about how much you're stretching fire codes). Texas and New Jersey and Missouri surely deserve bids, but sadly, pulling it off is still hard no matter how bids are awarded :(

I understand that space is an issue, but 10% more people wouldn't make that big of a difference. I'm sure that the organizers would be able to figure out some way of fitting 200 more people in a space with already a few thousand people.

rip Montana

As much as I would like to see more teams at nationals, 10% more people is a big difference if you're breaking fire code regulations.

Additionally, 10% more people also is costly since teams aren't paying invitational fees to finance the national tournament. The cost goes into paying for 10% more homerooms, custodial staff, dining staff, and IT staff, some of whom are being paid overtime. And if you want 10 new bids in each division rather than 5, it's more like a 20% increase rather than 10%. (Think about the worst nationals you've attended, and now make it 20% harder for the organizers to keep organized.) I'd be a bit cautious before saying that the organizers would somehow figure it out.

As for choosing tournament sites, MIT and friends are respected by everybody, but this isn't true of all tournaments. When I was a competitor, I felt the UChicago Invitational was rather sketchy, and I saw that some tests were hardly up to caliber. It's not at all obvious which invitationals are truly suited for this purpose. Further, the Chattahoochee Invitational drives an enormous amount of fundraising for the Chattahoochee team, so they'd be at a great loss if they couldn't use it to fund themselves, keeping in mind that the state registration fee is supposed to be the only fee teams have to pay to participate in official tournaments. (Also consider how sketchy it would seem if you were a Georgia team and, in order to make nats, you had to kowtow to one of your state's two winning teams by paying them money. And you might not even make it.)

Also if WWP-North is fond of DUSO, you all should come compete next year and meet up with some of us in NC :)
and hopefully there will be even more invitationals in NC in the future

I think that if invies were designated as the ones that would give bids for nats, they would definitely be monitored much more closely (eg. it would be made sure that the tests were high quality and followed the rules, and test graders wouldn’t be randomly thrown into events as they often are in invies).