Confirmed New Districts for 2015? [Archive]

Mr V

03-05-2014, 03:53

I think there are more issues than what is being communicated at this point.
I know one issue is whether or not they allow other neighboring states to join such as New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, etc.

And not directly related, but having some impact are the increase no. of teams in the Pan Pacific doing FIRST.
Australia is supposed to have a regional in 2015 and talks about a "super-regional" in Hawaii.

CA is too large for them to include neighboring states in the CA district and at this time FIRST really, really wants to draw district lines along state lines to make things easier. (They wouldn't allow N ID teams join the PNW district despite for some of those teams having to travel farther to the nearest Regional than for some of the farthest PNW District event) Yes MAR doesn't follow state lines. However the long term plan is to have the vast majority of the country in the District system and to allow inter-district play.

waialua359

03-05-2014, 14:07

CA is too large for them to include neighboring states in the CA district and at this time FIRST really, really wants to draw district lines along state lines to make things easier. (They wouldn't allow N ID teams join the PNW district despite for some of those teams having to travel farther to the nearest Regional than for some of the farthest PNW District event) Yes MAR doesn't follow state lines. However the long term plan is to have the vast majority of the country in the District system and to allow inter-district play.
Allowing certain neighboring states is the direct message talked about at CMPS. I was asked my opinion on the matter both there and previously at other events.
On the flip side, because CA is too large of an area to have a district, it adds to the difficulty in trying to implement as well, which was also discussed.

Zebra_Fact_Man

03-05-2014, 14:57

Everyone keeps saying that Cali/Texas are too large to run districts, but I don't understand this claim.

The whole reason why districts work better is because (besides giving teams double the guaranteed playing time for the same cost) they make the competitions more local. (In the case of MI) Instead of having 4-5 regional locations to choose from in the state (era 2008), now we have 15 district! More events = less drive distance. For my team specifically, our drive distances were 15 minutes away and 1.25 hours away. Not bad at all.

Yes, the State Championship could possibly pose the travel problem. So just locate it in the center of the state?? Like Oregon/Washington did. Plus, nobody's forcing you to go to the State Championship if you specifically can't afford it. If your team budget allows for one event, well now you get two for the same price.

I guess I can understand the whole lack-of-volunteers problem; not every region is blessed with enough volunteer peeps to cover the need.

DonRotolo

03-05-2014, 15:09

I guess I can understand the whole lack-of-volunteers problem; not every region is blessed with enough volunteer peeps to cover the need.Of course, you can require teams to provide X volunteers.

notmattlythgoe

03-05-2014, 15:16

VA, DC, and MD will not be going to the district model next year. Hopefully 2016 though.

Brandon_L

03-05-2014, 15:16

Plus, nobody's forcing you to go to the State Championship if you specifically can't afford it. If your team budget allows for one event, well now you get two for the same price.

When MAR went districts, I thought that would be the case of our team. Two districts and that's it, regardless of our performance and an invitation to MAR cmp. The MAR grant system has been a godsend though. I'm not sure of how it works internally, but their goal is to get every team that qualifies for MAR CMP to MAR CMP through the "MAR wallet" (it even has a twitter account) and it works. I couldn't be more thankful.

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could be wrong.

My point here is there are ways around this issue if the district leaders look into it enough.

VioletElizabeth

03-05-2014, 15:21

Of course, you can require teams to provide X volunteers.

Can students be volunteers? Just as a general question--I remember doing field reset somewhere (it may have been offseason) as an unofficial job, because they were short on people.

bam-bam

03-05-2014, 15:26

I've heard rumblings that an Indiana-Illinois district system was confirmed, which was why so many Indiana teams flew out to distant regionals this year. I'm about 80% certain of this, but could someone with more knowledge confirm?

JYang

03-05-2014, 15:27

Can students be volunteers? Just as a general question--I remember doing field reset somewhere (it may have been offseason) as an unofficial job, because they were short on people.

There are positions students can do, such as field reset, safety glasses handing out etc. However, positions like MC, GA, Judging, Ref, Inspectors, they cannot.

California regionals already suffer from not having enough volunteers. I am extremely worried about even more burn out if California goes districts.

m1506m

03-05-2014, 15:28

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could wrong.

Not free. Absolutely not free.

DampRobot

03-05-2014, 15:38

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could wrong.

Not free. Absolutely not free.

The story I heard is that the MSC people wanted to make it free, as it would be supported by sponsors, etc, but FIRST makes them charge the registration fee.

Zebra_Fact_Man

03-05-2014, 15:46

Of course, you can require teams to provide X volunteers.

Every MI team is "required" to provide 2 volunteers per year (not much of a requirement / more like a strong suggestion, but many provide more than two anyway, and alot of people are repeat offenders).

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could be wrong.

Word on the street is that the MSC could have been free (and FiM wanted it to be free), but Headquarters in NH required the the additional event fee to participate at the State Championship. FiM also wanted outside teams to be able to participate in disctrict events, but again Headquarters said no.

There's some paper posted here on CD about how districts came into fruition and why they work the way they do, but I'm much too lazy to go looking for it.

Can students be volunteers? Just as a general question--I remember doing field reset somewhere (it may have been offseason) as an unofficial job, because they were short on people.

Absolutely! There are MANY jobs that students can do at each event.

Gregor

03-05-2014, 15:48

There are positions students can do, such as field reset, safety glasses handing out etc. However, positions like MC, GA, Judging, Ref, Inspectors, they cannot.

Under none of those positions can I find an age requirement.

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/master-of-ceremonies-%28emcee%29

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/game-announcer

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/judge

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/referee

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/lead-robot-inspector

Now in practice most of these roles are filled by adults, but that's not always the case*.

*source, I'm a referee.

JYang

03-05-2014, 16:14

Under none of those positions can I find an age requirement.

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/master-of-ceremonies-%28emcee%29

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/game-announcer

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/judge

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/referee

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/lead-robot-inspector

Now in practice most of these roles are filled by adults, but that's not always the case*.

*source, I'm a referee.

Oh huhhh.... there was a page/document a while ago that said MC's are not allowed to be students (graduate students included).... now I have no clue where that page went ><

My bad then!

MrTechCenter

03-05-2014, 16:16

There are positions students can do, such as field reset, safety glasses handing out etc. However, positions like MC, GA, Judging, Ref, Inspectors, they cannot.

California regionals already suffer from not having enough volunteers. I am extremely worried about even more burn out if California goes districts.

When we did our offseason competition, we had our school's Key Club partner with us because they are a huge community service organization. We offered community service hours (which are a graduation requirement at our school) for those who volunteered at the event, and just like that we had an army of student volunteers, leaving all of the adults to do the more complex jobs. Some teams that attended had extra students that weren't doing anything, so they volunteered as well, allowing us to create shifts.

orangemoore

03-05-2014, 16:17

Mr V

03-05-2014, 16:28

The story I heard is that the MSC people wanted to make it free, as it would be supported by sponsors, etc, but FIRST makes them charge the registration fee.

Yes FiM wanted to make their DCMP free because the funds to run the event are derived from sponsors, just like all Regionals. However the current funding system for FIRST depends on those "second" play registration fees, which all goes to FIRST, to keep them in the black. Now they could do like MAR has done and provide grants to teams that qualify for DCMP but don't have the funding to attend. That is something that some of us in the PNW District have discussed working toward in the future.

Whippet

03-05-2014, 17:35

I'm ready for Texas to make the switch. We currently can't afford two regionals, and a switch to the district system will make a lot of rings more convenient for us.

PayneTrain

03-05-2014, 18:12

VA, DC, and MD will not be going to the district model next year. Hopefully 2016 though.

There's a saying that every time you bring up switching systems in Virginia it gets pushed back a year. ;)

Oblarg

03-05-2014, 18:29

There's a saying that every time you bring up switching systems in Virginia it gets pushed back a year. ;)

Honestly, the MD area isn't ready at all for the switch (well, outside of Baltimore, at least - I've got no idea how ready the teams over there are). We need a lot more networking between the teams here if we're going to handle the logistics of going to districts cleanly. I think even 2016 is a bit optimistic, tbh.

PayneTrain

03-05-2014, 19:52

Honestly, the MD area isn't ready at all for the switch (well, outside of Baltimore, at least - I've got no idea how ready the teams over there are). We need a lot more networking between the teams here if we're going to handle the logistics of going to districts cleanly. I think even 2016 is a bit optimistic, tbh.

Don't worry; between all of the mentions in this thread I think we've pushed it back to 2019.

Andrew Lawrence

03-05-2014, 20:02

Oh huhhh.... there was a page/document a while ago that said MC's are not allowed to be students (graduate students included).... now I have no clue where that page went ><

My bad then!

You sure? I was offered a position as MC a state where I was considering going to college because I knew the people out there (exact place will not be named publicly since I've decided not to go there).

Knufire

03-05-2014, 20:21

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could be wrong.

The story I heard is that the MSC people wanted to make it free, as it would be supported by sponsors, etc, but FIRST makes them charge the registration fee.

Word on the street is that the MSC could have been free (and FiM wanted it to be free), but Headquarters in NH required the the additional event fee to participate at the State Championship. FiM also wanted outside teams to be able to participate in disctrict events, but again Headquarters said no.

There's some paper posted here on CD about how districts came into fruition and why they work the way they do, but I'm much too lazy to go looking for it.

Here's the whitepaper: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2804

You might be getting confused with the grant provided by the state government this year that started this year. More information about that can be read in this document (http://www.techplan.org/downloads/pdfs/99h_first_rfp_20130814_105933_3.pdf).

4. State, National, and World Competition Grants
The MDE will provide funding for reasonable expenses for qualifying teams to
participate in State, National, or World FIRST Robotics Competitions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've heard rumblings that an Indiana-Illinois district system was confirmed, which was why so many Indiana teams flew out to distant regionals this year. I'm about 80% certain of this, but could someone with more knowledge confirm?

I haven't heard anything about them but I'm ready for them.

As far as I know, this has been pushed back to 2016. I'd still wait for an announcement from IndianaFIRST to be sure though.

Brandon Ha

04-05-2014, 00:49

MC's can definitely be graduate students, just very active and energetic ones. Ask Zach from the Enginerds 2009-2013. He was a old student then graduated, went to a local engineering college and comes back every now and then and MC's at some events. He is one of the better ones along with his cohorts.

cjrazdar15

04-05-2014, 00:56

I was speaking to the FIRST Regional Director of Indiana at CMP who said he was in the middle of talks to make Indiana a district system for 2015. I do believe he said it was looking bleak for this upcoming season, but he would push for it in years to come nonetheless.

Brandon_L

04-05-2014, 04:19

...

Thanks for clearing that up

Jessica Boucher

04-05-2014, 09:20

The volunteer age requirement is 13 for regionals / district events, 16 for Championship. Regionals and DEs can choose to raise this age if they want.

VC'd!

mklinker

04-05-2014, 19:58

Chris Fultz

04-05-2014, 20:23

This is disappointing news if true......

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Drivencrazy

05-05-2014, 07:12

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Do you know something us common folks do not??? ;)

Richard Wallace

05-05-2014, 08:17

Do you know something us common folks do not??? ;)Of course he does.

What Chris knows about IRI, he can tell us (or not) any time he wants.

What he knows about Indiana FIRST, may have to wait a little longer. Indiana has some of the best volunteers and planners in the FRC community. Whatever they are cooking up will be served when it is ready.

Coach Norm

05-05-2014, 12:30

The whole reason why districts work better is because (besides giving teams double the guaranteed playing time for the same cost) they make the competitions more local. (In the case of MI) Instead of having 4-5 regional locations to choose from in the state (era 2008), now we have 15 district! More events = less drive distance. For my team specifically, our drive distances were 15 minutes away and 1.25 hours away. Not bad at all.

Travel distance in Texas will always be an issue. Districts will provide more events that are probably closer when more events are added but we have teams from all over the state and many will always have to travel a great distance to get to at least one event.

I live in Central Texas (Austin) and it is a 3 hour drive to two of the current locations (Houston and Dallas and 5 hours (Lubbock) for another. Teams in far West Texas will have at least 5-6 hours to get to the closest location that could be a district tournament. I know that more locations will be holding tournaments but teams in the Lubbock, El Paso and the Valley areas will have large distances to travel for second events.

itsjustmrb

05-05-2014, 12:57

Lil' Lavery

05-05-2014, 13:11

There was a couple year period in which students were not allowed as MCs. This rule has since been lifted.

With regards to volunteers, having teams commit volunteers helps with a lot of positions (field reset, queue, etc), but it's the judges and trained positions that usually present the shortages. Avoiding overworking the finite supply of qualified FTAs, scorekeepers (yes, that's already an existing position), field supervisors, etc. is diffult during the first couple years of a district system. You often see the same field crew at many MAR districts, even if their positions have been shuffled around a bit.

Knufire

05-05-2014, 13:15

Looks like IndianaFIRST teams just got this email:

To Indiana FIRST Teams -

For the past few years, IndianaFIRST has been working to move Indiana into a "District" model for competition and away from the existing Regional model. We have looked closely at partnering with another state or states to do this. We have had several meetings with teams and team leaders around the state and have found broad support for this change in structure.

We want to give you an update on where we are with this initiative.

During the FIRST CHP event in St. Louis, we met with FIRST to discuss the option of an "Indiana" District as a stand alone area. This was our second detailed discussion with FIRST about this possibility. There are several reasons for the drive to "go alone", including control of our events, control of the financial responsibilities and the knowledge that our team base and volunteer base is strong enough to support this model as "Indiana". As a state, we currently host 2 regionals, 3 off-season events, plus we have held the Indiana CHP event at two other locations.

We are continuing to work with FIRST and are working to a final decision in the next few months. We will continue to keep you informed of the progress and status.

In general, we are proposing to have 3-4 District events spread around the state, and a state CHP. These district events and the state CHP would all be "in-season" events and be the qualifiers to continue on to the FIRST CHP event. We would have a designated number of "slots" for the FIRST CHP based on the number of teams in the state, the total number of teams in FIRST, and the total number of teams at the FIRST CHP. (If we had been a district in 2014 we would have likely had 12 spots at the CHP). Unless something changes with FIRST overall, teams would still have the option to travel out of Indiana for additional Regional competitions.

If you have questions about this model or or progress, please talk with the team that is leading the effort with FIRST. This core team is Jason Zielke, Chelsea Bowen, Andy Baker and Chris Fultz.

Mr V

05-05-2014, 13:25

I know I am not the norm, I live in South West Texas, 150 miles from any other FRC team. We are 150 miles from San Antonio, 180 from Laredo, 230 from Austin, 350 from Houston, 350 from Lubbock and 430 from Dallas. The actual registration cost of the regional is not at large as the travel and hotel costs. I appreciate the grants we have receive, as they cover almost all of our registration fees. If Texas goes to the district model, maybe they will consider travel costs for those teams that travel longer distances, which require hotel, meals, etc. that local teams do not have.

Mr. B

Through the OSPI grants (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) Washington FIRST Robotics was able to add travel stipends to the usual grant funds for those teams that would need to travel more than about an hour or so to one or both of the nearest district events. Hopefully your state can do something similar.

XaulZan11

05-05-2014, 14:01

Looks like IndianaFIRST teams just got this email:

That is better news (for us) than the rumored Indiana-Illinois district. Hopefully 71 will still attend Midwest, though.

Navid Shafa

05-05-2014, 14:06

dodar

05-05-2014, 14:12

If Indiana can make it work with 52 teams and less than 2% of the FRC populus, then anywhere can make it work. Israel is the same size, Florida isn't much bigger.

I thought we'd see California, Ontario, Minnesota or Texas go before a small state, but I'm eager to see how districts work in smaller regions.

I agree. Seeing Indiana move forward with this does give great help in setting the tone for similar size and team density states. I still see Florida waiting for the extra 40 teams to get to 150 before we go to districts.

I too thought we would see the other "FIRST Power States" go to districts before some of us smaller ones.

Laaba 80

05-05-2014, 14:19

If Indiana can make it work with 52 teams and less than 2% of the FRC populus, then anywhere can make it work.

Isn't it easier to work districts with less teams? Less teams means less events means less volunteers needed.

Navid Shafa

05-05-2014, 14:25

Isn't it easier to work districts with less teams?
I hope so. We'll find out ;)

Jacob Paikoff

05-05-2014, 14:26

I agree. Seeing Indiana move forward with this does give great help in setting the tone for similar size and team density states. I still see Florida waiting for the extra 40 teams to get to 150 before we go to districts.

I too thought we would see the other "FIRST Power States" go to districts before some of us smaller ones.

There were actually only 62 teams in Florida this year so that extra 40 would only get us to around a 100.

Based on conversations I've had with people in the know districts in Florida is nowhere close to happening, even though I think it could work within a year or two.

MechEng83

05-05-2014, 14:36

My understanding is that FIRST wants a minimum of 100 teams for a district. At 1 district event for every 20 teams, that makes a minimum of 5 district events (and realistically 6, since 101 teams would force that). With Indiana at a little over half that number, this would be a unique kind of district model for areas with lower team density/smaller populations.

That being said, it seems that after 4 pages of discussion, there aren't any confirmed new districts for 2015 yet.

AdamHeard

05-05-2014, 14:42

Lil' Lavery

05-05-2014, 14:42

That being said, it seems that after 4 pages of discussion, there aren't any confirmed new districts for 2015 yet.
At this point in 2011, MAR wasn't confirmed as going to districts in 2012 yet. Things can happen much more quickly than many anticipate. On the other hand, in some regions it only takes a couple well positioned opponents of districts to prevent them from happening.

AdamHeard

05-05-2014, 14:45

This is new information to me. Care to elaborate on the details? North/South Split, any Championship information, etc?

We don't have any set details on what the district would be when it happens. I think you might have read the post wrong, we are confirmed that we are staying on the regional model for 2015, not districts.

Navid Shafa

05-05-2014, 14:47

We don't have any set details on what the district would be when it happens. I think you might have read the post wrong, we are confirmed that we are staying on the regional model for 2015, not districts.

You've got me trigger happy :(

Grim Tuesday

05-05-2014, 14:51

I just hope NY doesn't get any more districts surrounding it before it goes district. Since MAR and NE went district, our event choices have become very limited.

I hope FIRST creates a federal system where they define the districts within a given timeframe, so everyone is on the same page, and no areas get left out.

Navid Shafa

05-05-2014, 14:58

I just hope NY doesn't get any more districts surrounding it before it goes district.

With 147 teams in NY, you have more than Ontario and Texas. You are bigger than MAR and just about on par with the PNW as far as team count. Density might be a little iffy, but it can't be worse than some of area's everyone keeps pointing to.

dodar

05-05-2014, 15:11

There were actually only 62 teams in Florida this year so that extra 40 would only get us to around a 100.

Based on conversations I've had with people in the know districts in Florida is nowhere close to happening, even though I think it could work within a year or two.

The FIRST website has Florida listed at 112 teams; that's why I said 40 or so more to get us around 150. I dont see Florida ever going districts till we get around that number of teams. And Florida couldnt be a part of a region like MAR and PNW because of the distance that teams would have to travel.

waialua359

05-05-2014, 15:14

On another note, I wonder when teams will have the option to "join" a district not in their area?
We are running out of places to go and fast.

Link07

05-05-2014, 15:24

waialua359

05-05-2014, 15:27

As cool as new districts are, I'm personally looking forward to how the interdistrict play works out. I wonder how many teams will actually venture outside the region to go play in other districts. For example, I don't think it's really worth the investment for teams to travel far just to play in a high school gym.
I would play in a high school gym anyday in a remote area if it gave our team more chances to play at a fraction of the 20k I put up every season to compete.

Link07

05-05-2014, 15:29

I would play in a high school gym anyday in a remote area if it gave our team more chances to play at a fraction of the 20k I put up every season to compete.

This is true. I was mainly talking about teams already part of their own district system. (For example, a team from Maine going to play in NJ)

Lil' Lavery

05-05-2014, 15:36

With 147 teams in NY, you have more than Ontario and Texas. You are bigger than MAR and just about on par with the PNW as far as team count. Density might be a little iffy, but it can't be worse than some of area's everyone keeps pointing to.

While most regions experience issues with team density being consentrated in particular areas, New York is by far the worst example of this. The incredibly uneven distribution of teams in the NYC area compared to the rest of the state presents a unique challenge.

Nathan Streeter

05-05-2014, 15:52

...Florida couldnt be a part of a region like MAR and PNW because of the distance that teams would have to travel.

Florida's actually significantly smaller than the PNW. Florida has an area of ~66,000 sq mi, while the PNW has an area of ~160,000 sq mi (New England has an area of 71,000 sq mi, as a sidenote). The PNW also has larger length x width dimensions than FL, so straight-line distances aren't as bad either. As long as the DCMP is centrally located (i.e. Orlando or Tampa), travel should be better than what the PNW (or especially Upper Peninsula MI!) has. The districts can follow the team density so that few team will have more than 4 hours of travel for their two district events.

FIRST is sufficiently dense in a fair number of regions to enable a transition on that count... but there are other factors at play, most notably motivation to transition to districts. That motivation can overcome many other factors (i.e. younger region, fewer current volunteers, large geographic region)... just look at the PNW for that.

I have heard incredibly few complaints from district-regions saying they wish they could go back to regionals...

dodar

05-05-2014, 15:58

Florida's actually significantly smaller than the PNW. Florida has an area of ~66,000 sq mi, while the PNW has an area of ~160,000 sq mi (New England has an area of 71,000 sq mi, as a sidenote). The PNW also has larger length x width dimensions than FL, so straight-line distances aren't as bad either. As long as the DCMP is centrally located (i.e. Orlando or Tampa), travel should be better than what the PNW (or especially Upper Peninsula MI!) has. The districts can follow the team density so that few team will have more than 4 hours of travel for their two district events.

FIRST is sufficiently dense in a fair number of regions to enable a transition on that count... but there are other factors at play, most notably motivation to transition to districts. That motivation can overcome many other factors (i.e. younger region, fewer current volunteers, large geographic region)... just look at the PNW for that.

I have heard incredibly few complaints from district-regions saying they wish they could go back to regionals...

Perhaps you misread my post. Florida couldnt be a part of a region, i.e. Southeast Region (SER): Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina.

When the team density in Florida reaches the correct amount, Florida will be more than capable of becoming its own district system. Just the distance that would be had from having to make a region in the southeast with the correct team density would be very difficult for many of the southeastern states.

BrendanB

05-05-2014, 16:01

This is true. I was mainly talking about teams already part of their own district system. (For example, a team from Maine going to play in NJ)

I can see it happening. Right now a lot of teams in CT (and parts of MA) can easily venture down into MAR to compete at some of the events. For teams like us it isn't impossible (5 hours to get to NJ from southern NH) but isn't the most ideal. Troy, NY is a little further than CT in terms of distance so if New York goes to districts it wouldn't be that difficult for teams in our area to drive out to Troy.

For other teams it does get harder to see teams traveling across the country to compete but again I don't see it as impossible for a two day event in a high school. Many teams develop great relationships across the country every few years some teams travel far distances to compete to expand their horizons. For a few years, 1519's second "home" event was the North Carolina Regional competing in 2010, 2012, and 2013. That's not to say if North Carolina goes to Districts 1519 will sign up again but if its during school vacation instead of competing for a third day you can sight see or do something fun.

Time will tell but I see the most benefit for areas bordering districts who used to call other events "home". The Tech Valley Regional in New York was created to give teams in that area a close event once they got shut out of events in New England like GSR and WPI.

Who knows maybe the decreased cost of an additional event helps teams put that money towards traveling.

Alan Anderson

05-05-2014, 16:12

...I don't think it's really worth the investment for teams to travel far just to play in a high school gym.

There's a lot more to the quality of an event than the shape of the building. Don't forget that IRI is held in a high school gym.

Jacob Paikoff

05-05-2014, 16:21

The FIRST website has Florida listed at 112 teams; that's why I said 40 or so more to get us around 150. I dont see Florida ever going districts till we get around that number of teams. And Florida couldnt be a part of a region like MAR and PNW because of the distance that teams would have to travel.

If you go through all of the pages there are teams listed that would have been rookies this year and never got numbers as well as defunct teams. No idea why they're there but its been like that all season.

When we do go to districts I believe that Florida would be a region all to itself, Georgia team density is to far from the border to make it feasible.

Karthik

05-05-2014, 16:24

Christopher149

05-05-2014, 16:34

As cool as new districts are, I'm personally looking forward to how the interdistrict play works out. I wonder how many teams will actually venture outside the region to go play in other districts. For example, I don't think it's really worth the investment for teams to travel far just to play in a high school gym.

Interdistrict play could be interesting for us - Duluth, MN (out of district assuming no border changes) is closer than all but one Michigan event.

We travel far 'just to play in a high school gym' anyway.

Andrew Schreiber

05-05-2014, 17:24

If you go through all of the pages there are teams listed that would have been rookies this year and never got numbers as well as defunct teams. No idea why they're there but its been like that all season.

When we do go to districts I believe that Florida would be a region all to itself, Georgia team density is to far from the border to make it feasible.

This map may be of some use to folks discussing this (https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?q=select+col7+from+1u_7AfaTejrRvKaVluH-O8DSjw0e9Z-gbsC_eh8pA&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.30100167914538&lng=-84.05501674921874&t=1&z=6&l=col7&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE)

It is coded such that you can tell both the density and longevity of a region. Red markers are 1992-1996 rookies. Green markers are 1997-2001. Blue is 2002 - 2005. Yellow is 2006 - 2013. And Blue dots are 2014 rookies.

I apologize that it's a little ugly, my styling options are limited on Google Maps and Fusion Tables refuses to let me get the geocoded data out which means I'm stuck redoing all the encoding before I can produce a new visualization.

scooty199

05-05-2014, 18:05

VA, DC, and MD will not be going to the district model next year. Hopefully 2016 though.

What was proposed for the VA, DC, and MD district lines?

I was talking with my former coach and thought VA is sort of a pain to draw district lines for.

AlexD744

05-05-2014, 18:15

This map may be of some use to folks discussing this (https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?q=select+col7+from+1u_7AfaTejrRvKaVluH-O8DSjw0e9Z-gbsC_eh8pA&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.30100167914538&lng=-84.05501674921874&t=1&z=6&l=col7&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE)

It is coded such that you can tell both the density and longevity of a region. Red markers are 1992-1996 rookies. Green markers are 1997-2001. Blue is 2002 - 2005. Yellow is 2006 - 2013. And Blue dots are 2014 rookies.

I apologize that it's a little ugly, my styling options are limited on Google Maps and Fusion Tables refuses to let me get the geocoded data out which means I'm stuck redoing all the encoding before I can produce a new visualization.

Not sure if it's my computer or not, but the link wouldn't open for me. I'd be very interested in seeing a map like that though!

Edit: Never mind, it works now

cadandcookies

05-05-2014, 18:16

Not sure if it's my computer or not, but the link wouldn't open for me. I'd be very interested in seeing a map like that though!

Try a different browser. Opened up fine for me in Chrome on my mobile.

Kevin Leonard

05-05-2014, 18:18

While most regions experience issues with team density being concentrated in particular areas, New York is by far the worst example of this. The incredibly uneven distribution of teams in the NYC area compared to the rest of the state presents a unique challenge.

I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal. Hold two or three district events in New York City, hold one on Long Island, then one in Rochester, Troy, and maybe Syracuse or Clarkson.
It becomes significantly easier if New York becomes a district the same year they start to allow cross-district play, since then teams near Troy could elect to go to an NE event instead, and perhaps some Canadian teams could go to the possible Clarkson event.

Then hold NY State Champs in either Albany or Syracuse, with some significant sponsors helping for travel fees for some teams in NYC and Long Island that make it.

It's not easy, sure, but I'm not sure its incredibly difficult either.

PayneTrain

05-05-2014, 18:28

What was proposed for the VA, DC, and MD district lines?

I was talking with my former coach and thought VA is sort of a pain to draw district lines for.

How do you figure? The DMV area has 5 very well defined population centers of teams and an operative 6th geographic center of Roanoke in the western part of the Commonwealth.

Christopher149

05-05-2014, 18:29

This map may be of some use to folks discussing this (https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?q=select+col7+from+1u_7AfaTejrRvKaVluH-O8DSjw0e9Z-gbsC_eh8pA&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.30100167914538&lng=-84.05501674921874&t=1&z=6&l=col7&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE)

It is coded such that you can tell both the density and longevity of a region. Red markers are 1992-1996 rookies. Green markers are 1997-2001. Blue is 2002 - 2005. Yellow is 2006 - 2013. And Blue dots are 2014 rookies.

I apologize that it's a little ugly, my styling options are limited on Google Maps and Fusion Tables refuses to let me get the geocoded data out which means I'm stuck redoing all the encoding before I can produce a new visualization.

I don't if there is a bug, but I think a number of team in the UP of MI should be yellow markers (teams from 2011-2013) instead of blue dots.

Andrew Schreiber

05-05-2014, 18:34

I don't if there is a bug, but I think a number of team in the UP of MI should be yellow markers (teams from 2011-2013) instead of blue dots.

Oops, my bad. That was a typo in the range bands on my end. Should be resolved now. The team number is also now a link to TBA.

Hoping I can find a quick way to redo all the geocoding tonight so I can redo this and actually style it in a less ugly way.

Christopher149

05-05-2014, 18:38

Gregor

05-05-2014, 18:47

For example, I don't think it's really worth the investment for teams to travel far just to play in a high school gym.

Quote from Jim Zondag's Paper on the District System. (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2804)

Q4: “District Events have fewer teams and are in smaller venues than many Regionals. Does this
diminish the experience?”

A4: No. In fact, many competitors in our area will tell you that the exact opposite is true. It is a lot
like seeing a great band in a small club vs. in a huge arena. Small venues often have a much higher
energy level and get the fans closer to the game. Smaller events allow teams to get more playing time.
Smaller events allow teams a better likelihood of winning the event and a better likelihood of winning
awards. Smaller events allow our high school robotics sport to be played in high schools where it
belongs. Now we have home games every year. Probably the biggest visible difference between a
Regional and a District is that Districts play with the arena lights on, which many of our competitors tell
us that they prefer.

Steven Donow

05-05-2014, 18:48

Quote from Jim Zondag's Paper on the District System. (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2804)

That's definitely an opinion you're stating and not one that everyone shares...there are some districts I've been to/seen on webcasts that definitely look like they would not be worth the travel for...

I find that the "smaller atmosphere factor" while isn't necessarily harmful, is something that often gets overestimated when discussing districts;I personally don't mind it/don't see much of a difference, but I've heard just as much of the opposite.

Link07

05-05-2014, 19:20

That's definitely an opinion you're stating and not one that everyone shares...there are some districts I've been to/seen on webcasts that definitely look like they would not be worth the travel for...

Agreed. I apologize for making blanket statements about high school events, as my experience only concerns MAR and my opinions are based soley on my experiences at these events.

And again, I'm specifically talking about 2015, and therefore I'm only discussing the four district areas we have now. I'm aware that some district teams are closer to other regionals than their own districts and would benefit in that way if that area went to districts and allowed for interdistrict play. The closest thing we have to that now is New England and MAR, which for some is a reasonable distance, for others, not so much.

Alex Cormier

05-05-2014, 19:36

With 147 teams in NY, you have more than Ontario and Texas. You are bigger than MAR and just about on par with the PNW as far as team count. Density might be a little iffy, but it can't be worse than some of area's everyone keeps pointing to.

I don't think the other places, states (except maybe california?) Have a travel time of 7-8 hours from one end of the state to the other. That's the issue with NYS. Majority are teams in the NYC area, with Rochester (FLR) next biggest with about 30 teams. ( 6 hour drive to NYC)

I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal. Hold two or three district events in New York City, hold one on Long Island, then one in Rochester, Troy, and maybe Syracuse or Clarkson.
It becomes significantly easier if New York becomes a district the same year they start to allow cross-district play, since then teams near Troy could elect to go to an NE event instead, and perhaps some Canadian teams could go to the possible Clarkson event.

Then hold NY State Champs in either Albany or Syracuse, with some significant sponsors helping for travel fees for some teams in NYC and Long Island that make it.

It's not easy, sure, but I'm not sure its incredibly difficult either.

I think the FLR regional at RIT would be an excellent spot for state champs.

Also, there have been talks about districts going on...

P.J.

05-05-2014, 19:48

AllenGregoryIV

05-05-2014, 20:07

Texas travel time is far longer than most other states.

El Paso to Houston is 10+ hours. If Houston hosted the state championship some teams would need to make that drive. Even if it was some place more central like Austin it would be 8+ hrs for them.

I want to go to districts as fast as possible but we would definitely have to do something to lessen the burden of travel for some of these teams.

Another issue is funding since Texas basically has regions with in it self and sponsors may want to keep their money closer to home instead of giving it to the entire state.

The last and probably biggest problem is our lack of team growth.
2010 = 104 teams
2011 = 144 teams
2012 = 147 teams
2013 = 139 teams
2014 = 132 teams

Until we can start growing teams it's going to be hard to sustain districts, no matter how much work we put in. Districts may help by providing a true State Championship and having more play per team but it still won't be easy.

Grim Tuesday

05-05-2014, 20:12

I don't think the other places, states (except maybe california?) Have a travel time of 7-8 hours from one end of the state to the other. That's the issue with NYS. Majority are teams in the NYC area, with Rochester (FLR) next biggest with about 30 teams. ( 6 hour drive to NYC)

I think the FLR regional at RIT would be an excellent spot for state champs.

Also, there have been talks about districts going on...

The problem with that is RIT has traditionally donated the space, which is why the timing of FLR fluctuates. It used to always be week 1, now it's week 5. The venue is so good it might be worth paying for, though.

I know Code Red has thrown around the idea of hosting a district, if NY were to go District - we have the proper facilities (either in the High School, at Cornell, or Ithaca College) and a nice central location between Rochester, Albany, Buffalo and NYC. The thing is, we're not connected to the powers that be in organizing such a thing. Just some food for thought, I have no idea if the current team leadership/school district would be up for it.

Personally, I would love for NY to go district, or allow NY teams to join other districts. For us, both events require hotel stays (Rochester is a 2 hour drive, our second regional is usually a 6 hour one). I imagine capital region teams feel the same way about NE events. So why not allow a team to "check into" a district for a full season. They would pay the district registration fee, and go to say, MAR events for the entire season, and if they qualify, they get to go to MAR CMP, just like a MAR team would.

Christopher149

05-05-2014, 20:20

Before Escanaba got a district this year, most teams in the UP had a 6 or 7 hour drive just to get to their nearest event in Traverse City. Then if I'm remembering correctly many of these teams used the Western Michigan district (in the Grand Rapids area) as their second event, which is an 8 or 9 hour drive. If they wanted to do a Detroit area event we're talking upwards of 10 hours. So while it isn't fun, it is possible.

I will note that the 6-7 hours really only applies to the western UP (857, 2153, 2586) - Escanaba, the Soo, Marquette are closer to TC. Before districts, a popular choice for us was Milwaukee (~6 hr). Now, Duluth is ~4 hr.

Anyway, 857 has used as events in MI: TC+Troy, TC+GVSU (x2), TC+St. Joe, Esky+TC. Fun fact: we went to St. Joseph via MI->WI->IL->IN->MI.

And, MSC is 10+ hours (GMaps tells me it's less, but it's wrong especially if you ever have to stop).

Kevin Leonard

05-05-2014, 20:47

I think the FLR regional at RIT would be an excellent spot for state champs.
Also, there have been talks about districts going on...

RIT is way too far for NYC teams and Long Island teams to travel. My suggestion would be the Syracuse Carrier Dome or the Times Union Center in Albany.
Much more centrally located than Rochester is.

MARS_James

05-05-2014, 20:58

So time to throw my hat in to the Florida Debate:

Combining this:
Looks like IndianaFIRST teams just got this email:

And this:

(https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?q=select+col7+from+1u_7AfaTejrRvKaVluH-O8DSjw0e9Z-gbsC_eh8pA&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.30100167914538&lng=-84.05501674921874&t=1&z=6&l=col7&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE)

If Florida were to go districts as Florida only 3 teams who have only ever competed in Florida would have to find new homes (3998 in Georgia, and 4707 and 4091 from the Dominican Republic) but not the main point

If we were to host 4 districts and we would stick them in population dense areas they would be:
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
and The Merrit Island/Melbourne area.
And Orlando would most likely host championship

So teams such as 2556 would have to travel 5 hours to it's closest district(s).

EricH

05-05-2014, 21:02

I don't think the other places, states (except maybe california?) Have a travel time of 7-8 hours from one end of the state to the other.

California's L.A. to Sacramento time is a good solid 6 hours, depending on how much traffic you hit going through the L.A. area. I've had that one several times. San Diego is another 2-3 hours south of L.A. For anybody north of Sacramento, toss in another couple hours--not that there are all that many teams up there.

For all practical purposes, 8-9 hours end-to-end, in good traffic. Hit downtown L.A. at rush hour, or central Orange County at about the same time, or worse, Valencia (northern L.A. county, but rather busy in terms of slow traffic) at a bad time, and you may as well stop and eat for an hour or more because you'll spend at least that long in the traffic. In other words, anywhere between 8 and 10 hours depending on how skilled you are at avoiding rush hour traffic.

Now, consider this: I've traveled bit around the Midwest, though more in the northern Plains region, and to/from there from California. To get from one major city to another major city is typically about a long day (10-12 hours total); from regional hub to regional hub tends to be about 4-6 hours (depending on size of regional hub--smaller tends to be closer, larger tends to be farther). Someone from the Northeast, where all the states are smaller (I believe that the entire New England area could fit into Texas with room to spare!) wouldn't necessarily find that part easy to grasp. So, for those of you thinking that the other states don't have an end-to-end drive that is that long, imagine going from New York City to somewhere in central Maine, by way of Boston (bonus points for going through in rush hour). That's probably pretty typical for an end-to-end west of the Mississippi.

dodar

05-05-2014, 21:06

So time to throw my hat in to the Florida Debate:

Combining this:

And this:

If Florida were to go districts as Florida only 3 teams who have only ever competed in Florida would have to find new homes (3998 in Georgia, and 4707 and 4091 from the Dominican Republic) but not the main point

If we were to host 4 districts and we would stick them in population dense areas they would be:
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
and The Merrit Island/Melbourne area.
And Orlando would most likely host championship

So teams such as 2556 would have to travel 5 hours to it's closest district(s).

I always thought like a good way to do it(In a perfect world) in the first year of Florida districts would be one a week: Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Melbourne, Tampa, Jacksonville. Then Week 6 would be a bye week before champs at UCF.

Back in reality, though, this is why Florida is a ways off from districts. As there are enough North Florida teams to care about, but not enough team density to warrant a district.

Maximillian

05-05-2014, 21:39

I know Code Red has thrown around the idea of hosting a district, if NY were to go District - we have the proper facilities (either in the High School, at Cornell, or Ithaca College) and a nice central location between Rochester, Albany, Buffalo and NYC. The thing is, we're not connected to the powers that be in organizing such a thing. Just some food for thought, I have no idea if the current team leadership/school district would be up for it.

I may be able to get Trumansburg to help out if this actually happened. We probably wouldn't be a huge help but its something. However unlikely this is it would be cool if it happened.

Phyrxes

05-05-2014, 22:09

How do you figure? The DMV area has 5 very well defined population centers of teams and an operative 6th geographic center of Roanoke in the western part of the Commonwealth.

From what I've heard the issue isn't necessarily DMV but what is going to happen to NC if SC goes into a district with parts (or most?) GA (as I suspect will happen).

AlexD744

05-05-2014, 23:51

I always thought like a good way to do it(In a perfect world) in the first year of Florida districts would be one a week: Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Melbourne, Tampa, Jacksonville. Then Week 6 would be a bye week before champs at UCF.

Back in reality, though, this is why Florida is a ways off from districts. As there are enough North Florida teams to care about, but not enough team density to warrant a district.

I was going to post something along these lines in the Florida Rankings thread, but since the debate has started again here goes.

So, here's a proposal. Instead of sitting and waiting for Florida to be ready for districts, why don't we set up a committee of people to try and prepare the state for the transition. Regardless of whether or not it speeds up the process, it will make the transition smoother if planning begins a few years before the switch happens. Districts are going to happen. Period. The question is will Florida be ready?

The committee could address problems such as:
-team density (specifically in north florida)
-scouting venue locations
-securing funds for a field
-is there a good solution to accommodate our out of state friends? Perhaps discussions with them
-team retention!!!
-key volunteer recruitment and training (this is especially important to have done early. In NE this year I knew quite a few people who volunteered every week because of the need for key volunteers)
-etc.

Do we know of anyone in Florida FIRST that would head something like this up? I would certainly be willing to help as much as I can from Boston... Thinking I might send this proposal to the RD's. Thoughts?

AlexD744

05-05-2014, 23:54

Oops, my bad. That was a typo in the range bands on my end. Should be resolved now. The team number is also now a link to TBA.

Hoping I can find a quick way to redo all the geocoding tonight so I can redo this and actually style it in a less ugly way.

Also, Andrew. Do you know of a way to show when there are multiple teams in a city? For example, 108 and 744 are both from Ft. Lauderdale so it covers up one of them and I know there's a handful of teams in Miami, but only shows 1. I think I ran into this problem when trying to do something similar a few years ago, but never figured it out.

cadandcookies

06-05-2014, 00:16

Also, Andrew. Do you know of a way to show when there are multiple teams in a city? For example, 108 and 744 are both from Ft. Lauderdale so it covers up one of them and I know there's a handful of teams in Miami, but only shows 1. I think I ran into this problem when trying to do something similar a few years ago, but never figured it out.

Google maps only has one location for a city, so it's a baked in limitation. More precise data (high schools maybe? But that would be a good deal of manual work) would separate the points.

Andrew Schreiber

06-05-2014, 00:25

Google maps only has one location for a city, so it's a baked in limitation. More precise data (high schools maybe? But that would be a good deal of manual work) would separate the points.

I'm actually halfway through implementing a fix for this using leaflet.js. The geocoding tool I initially used decided it didn't like... well anything outside the continental US (somehow 383 is from Portugal...) So I'm redoing that. If you don't care about the fact that non US teams are just blatantly wrong shoot me a PM and I'll send you a link.

cadandcookies

06-05-2014, 00:28

I'm actually halfway through implementing a fix for this using leaflet.js. The geocoding tool I initially used decided it didn't like... well anything outside the continental US (somehow 383 is from Portugal...) So I'm redoing that. If you don't care about the fact that non US teams are just blatantly wrong shoot me a PM and I'll send you a link.

I speak a too soon!

Mr V

06-05-2014, 00:32

I was going to post something along these lines in the Florida Rankings thread, but since the debate has started again here goes.

So, here's a proposal. Instead of sitting and waiting for Florida to be ready for districts, why don't we set up a committee of people to try and prepare the state for the transition. Regardless of whether or not it speeds up the process, it will make the transition smoother if planning begins a few years before the switch happens. Districts are going to happen. Period. The question is will Florida be ready?

The committee could address problems such as:
-team density (specifically in north florida)
-scouting venue locations
-securing funds for a field
-is there a good solution to accommodate our out of state friends? Perhaps discussions with them
-team retention!!!
-key volunteer recruitment and training (this is especially important to have done early. In NE this year I knew quite a few people who volunteered every week because of the need for key volunteers)
-etc.

Do we know of anyone in Florida FIRST that would head something like this up? I would certainly be willing to help as much as I can from Boston... Thinking I might send this proposal to the RD's. Thoughts?

This a thousands times this and not just for Florida but everywhere.

It is a lot of work to make the transition to the district. For PNW FIRST originally told us they wanted us to move to the District system for the 2013 season in mid 2012. We put it off for a year and used off season events, with an official field, between the 2012 and 2013 season to start to train FTAs and other volunteers. About this time in 2013 people started to tour potential tons of sites.

One thing that could potentially lessen the cost of moving to the District system is the new field that AndyMark developed. It has yet to be approved for official use by FIRST but will be used for IRI and some other off-season events and FIRST personnel will observe how it performs and if it is similar enough with the current field. FIRST wants to be able to make a single design of game specific elements that will work properly with both versions. The AM field is set to retail for $20,000 including the 3 road cases that it fits in. This is much less than the current field purchased from the fabricator that FIRST uses and that doesn't include the road cases which is another significant cost.

Andy had fliers about the field that he was handing out at CMP.

DampRobot

06-05-2014, 01:13

One thing that could potentially lessen the cost of moving to the District system is the new field that AndyMark developed. It has yet to be approved for official use by FIRST but will be used for IRI and some other off-season events and FIRST personnel will observe how it performs and if it is similar enough with the current field. FIRST wants to be able to make a single design of game specific elements that will work properly with both versions. The AM field is set to retail for $20,000 including the 3 road cases that it fits in. This is much less than the current field purchased from the fabricator that FIRST uses and that doesn't include the road cases which is another significant cost.

Andy had fliers about the field that he was handing out at CMP.

How did they manage that? I've packed a few offseason fields, and the field barriers alone probably take up two cases. Even if you really skimp on the safety stuff (thinner field barriers, different driver station construction), I doubt your be able to fit that stuff into three road cases.

That said, if this really does work as well as a regular field, it would be really nice in terms of transportation. Few people realize how logistically difficult it is just to transport this stuff. If we could fit a field in the back of a large van or two rather than a moving truck, it would make events a lot easier and cheaper to plan.

Mr V

06-05-2014, 02:31

How did they manage that? I've packed a few offseason fields, and the field barriers alone probably take up two cases. Even if you really skimp on the safety stuff (thinner field barriers, different driver station construction), I doubt your be able to fit that stuff into three road cases.

That said, if this really does work as well as a regular field, it would be really nice in terms of transportation. Few people realize how logistically difficult it is just to transport this stuff. If we could fit a field in the back of a large van or two rather than a moving truck, it would make events a lot easier and cheaper to plan.

The picture I saw included at least one road case that was aprox as tall as the tool road cases. I'm also not sure if the width is the same as our traditional FRC road cases though I would suspect so. One thing I know that is significantly different is that side boarders have the polycarb pop riveted to it and I believe that is what fits into a single tall case. So that takes the sides from 3 short cases to one tall case. I'm not sure how the handle the driver's stations that now takes up two tall cases and two short ones. I'm guessing each end would have their own case and I would imagine they would also be tall cases.

I for one am very bummed about the timing of this as Washington FIRST Robotics spent a big chunk of money purchasing fields from FIRST's fabricator and then spent a lot of money on parts and a lot of time to build road cases for the two fields that we own.

Thad House

06-05-2014, 02:44

The picture I saw included at least one road case that was aprox as tall as the tool road cases. I'm also not sure if the width is the same as our traditional FRC road cases though I would suspect so. One thing I know that is significantly different is that side boarders have the polycarb pop riveted to it and I believe that is what fits into a single tall case. So that takes the sides from 3 short cases to one tall case. I'm not sure how the handle the driver's stations that now takes up two tall cases and two short ones. I'm guessing each end would have their own case and I would imagine they would also be tall cases.

I for one am very bummed about the timing of this as Washington FIRST Robotics spent a big chunk of money purchasing fields from FIRST's fabricator and then spent a lot of money on parts and a lot of time to build road cases for the two fields that we own.

Looking at FIRST's basic field drawings for this year, it looks like all it includes is the side panels, and the supports for the driver station. Since the driver stations themselves have been different for the past 4 years, maybe those would be included with the FIRST provided parts, and the AM field would just be the sides and the uprights for the driver stations however large they are. That seems like it would fit in 3 cases without too much trouble, and is believable.

Mr V

06-05-2014, 03:11

Looking at FIRST's basic field drawings for this year, it looks like all it includes is the side panels, and the supports for the driver station. Since the driver stations themselves have been different for the past 4 years, maybe those would be included with the FIRST provided parts, and the AM field would just be the sides and the uprights for the driver stations however large they are. That seems like it would fit in 3 cases without too much trouble, and is believable.

The "standard" official FRC field perimeter includes everything for a 27' x 54' field, except the poly carb that goes over the outside sections of the driver's station. The center 3 sections of the driver's station have remained the same for a number of years, it is just the panels in the outside sections that are different or are deleted. I've got a pallet in storage at the Washington FIRST Robotics Fieldhouse with those items that were not used in this years field configuration. That includes 4 diamond plate panels and 4 of the top cross members per field.

The AM field would replicate the connection system used on the driver's station so that you could substitute a different lower panel in the outside sections of the driver's station as was done this season, where the low goal was. It would also need the ability place the corner uprights on either side of the 3 center sections where the drivers actually stand as was done last season, to attach the angled feeder station and low goal.

Cory

06-05-2014, 09:47

For all practical purposes, 8-9 hours end-to-end, in good traffic. Hit downtown L.A. at rush hour, or central Orange County at about the same time, or worse, Valencia (northern L.A. county, but rather busy in terms of slow traffic) at a bad time, and you may as well stop and eat for an hour or more because you'll spend at least that long in the traffic. In other words, anywhere between 8 and 10 hours depending on how skilled you are at avoiding rush hour traffic.

CA is more like 14 hours end to end, but I don't know how many, if any teams are on the Oregon border.

Andrew Schreiber

06-05-2014, 09:58

CA is more like 14 hours end to end, but I don't know how many, if any teams are on the Oregon border.

Inside California, 0. The furthest north team in the state is in Oroville (4643).

In Oregon, there's a cluster around Medford of 4 teams.

Libby K

06-05-2014, 10:15

Oh huhhh.... there was a page/document a while ago that said MC's are not allowed to be students (graduate students included).... now I have no clue where that page went

I know at one point that was a rule, but it is no longer. In Mid-Atlantic, for example, both Katie and Kelsey Stevens (MC & GA respectively) are college students. Zach Orr in Michigan. James Spencer, out in Canada, is a graduate student. I'm sure you can find other examples all over the world, but those are just the few I have in my head right now.

No person under 13 years of age may volunteer (at all.) I believe if you're under 16 you're generally assigned with your parent in a role where both people can work together.

As a volunteer coordinator, I make sure to put minors and younger students in 'flexible' roles (field reset, safety glass, pit admin support, etc) since these are not event-critical and can be swapped in for other people.

For bigger roles (MC/GA/Ref/Inspector), it's greatly advised that these people be adults, and beyond that I go by maturity level. If you're 19 and can handle yourself in the role, then you've got it. If you're 45 and can't treat a student with respect - sorry, you're out. It's not about your status as a student, but about how you can handle the role.

In the words of Jess: VC'd!

With regards to volunteers, having teams commit volunteers helps with a lot of positions (field reset, queue, etc), but it's the judges and trained positions that usually present the shortages. Avoiding overworking the finite supply of qualified FTAs, scorekeepers (yes, that's already an existing position), field supervisors, etc. is diffult during the first couple years of a district system. You often see the same field crew at many MAR districts, even if their positions have been shuffled around a bit.

This is a big challenge in MAR (the only district I have experience with, so that's where I'm speaking from). The nice thing is, MAR has 8 (9?) offseasons now where people interested in new volunteer roles they may not have tried out before can get involved. I know at MidKnight Mayhem, we're training new FTAAs, Field Supervisors, Scorekeepers, and Refs. Can't speak for any other events, but our hope is to get people with experience in those roles so that by the time the season comes around they'll be another person to throw into those rotations.

I find that the "smaller atmosphere factor" while isn't necessarily harmful, is something that often gets overestimated when discussing districts;I personally don't mind it/don't see much of a difference, but I've heard just as much of the opposite.

My advice to new districts: Don't lose the energy, the flash or the 'show' of a big regional. The quote from Zondag's paper clearly rings true in MI, just from seeing their events on a webcast. In my head, I think it's really important to put effort forth to maintain that atmosphere, because if there's not an active move towards maintaining the excitement (and don't forget, the FIRST branding!), the district events just end up looking like off-seasons. And why would I pay $2500 + travel for an offseason?

Other advice: Make sure your events are evenly spread out. In MAR, the team I work with is set pretty closely to the population center of teams, and yet we have to drive an hour or more to any of our district events (2+ hours for DCMP). I can't speak for our neighboring teams, but this is a pretty stressful thing on our budget. In fact, since going to districts 1923 has spent about as much money on hotels/buses/other transport in one season than we did from 2006-2010. Part of that is from team growth (30 > 100+ students), and part of that is because we need a bus and a hotel for each of our events now rather than -maybe- once per year. It's tough on us.

Oops. I'd intended for this to be a quick post. Turned into a brain dump. Sorry all! :)

quad

06-05-2014, 11:05

Also, Andrew. Do you know of a way to show when there are multiple teams in a city? For example, 108 and 744 are both from Ft. Lauderdale so it covers up one of them and I know there's a handful of teams in Miami, but only shows 1. I think I ran into this problem when trying to do something similar a few years ago, but never figured it out.

FWIW team358.org (http://team358.org/files/frc_records/) has that data for >90% of the FRC teams by mapping the school or organization associated w/ the team number

Andrew Schreiber

06-05-2014, 11:18

FWIW team358.org (http://team358.org/files/frc_records/) has that data for >90% of the FRC teams by mapping the school or organization associated w/ the team number

Which actually doesn't work all that well. That data is significantly harder to place on a map than an address. The far simpler approach is merely to indicate that there are multiple teams sharing that team. An approach Google Maps does not allow me to use easily. I've created a map using leaflet.js, OpenStreetMap and D3. Data was geocoded via the datasciencetoolkit api using R. It was then exported as a CSV.

I'm posting this with the caveat that non continental US data is flat out wrong. It's probably useful for this discussion for most of you, I apologize to folks who it got wrong. I'm in the process of re geocoding the data in the next few days (I may have stuff I need to take care of tonight so I might not get to it) using Texas A&M's Geo Services. If that continues to be problematic I'll just find the teams that are being problems and do them manually (I'm not looking forward to this).

EDIT AGAIN: Thanks to Nate Laverdue who found my missing Canadians... and a few other teams. Any teams with St (as in Saint) in their location are located in Germany. Don't ask me why.

With my disclaimers out of the way: http://bl.ocks.org/schreiaj/raw/2374ea9049e00a134f24/

Edit: And just so we're clear, Mark's work is awesome. Thank you to him and Team 358 for all their archival work. I'd have a much harder time doing stuff like this without their data resources.

Jacob Bendicksen

06-05-2014, 11:43

Inside California, 0. The furthest north team in the state is in Oroville (4643).

In Oregon, there's a cluster around Medford of 4 teams.

I believe that the team that had to travel the farthest within Oregon for DCMP was 4057 (KB Bots) from Klamath Falls, roughly a 5 hour drive.

Navid Shafa

06-05-2014, 15:40

As a volunteer coordinator, I make sure to put minors and younger students in 'flexible' roles (field reset, safety glass, pit admin support, etc) since these are not event-critical and can be swapped in for other people.

In general, I like your procedures. However, I would argue that especially this year, field reset was 'Event Critical'. Several young kids in this role scared me. To be fair, it wasn't just young kids either :p

It certainly improved over the season, but a lot of people weren't familiar with the rules. Often field-reset wouldn't know who to hand the ball to, what to do in the event of a full-field score, or a ball being scored in the wrong goal, etc. If field-reset continues to have such a large impact on game-play, I might suggest we expand age restrictions to 16+ in that role too.

Brandon_L

06-05-2014, 15:51

I can't speak for our neighboring teams, but this is a pretty stressful thing on our budget.

Maybe you can't, but I'm sure we'd all agree :rolleyes:

Lil' Lavery

06-05-2014, 16:12

Other advice: Make sure your events are evenly spread out. In MAR, the team I work with is set pretty closely to the population center of teams, and yet we have to drive an hour or more to any of our district events (2+ hours for DCMP). I can't speak for our neighboring teams, but this is a pretty stressful thing on our budget. In fact, since going to districts 1923 has spent about as much money on hotels/buses/other transport in one season than we did from 2006-2010. Part of that is from team growth (30 > 100+ students), and part of that is because we need a bus and a hotel for each of our events now rather than -maybe- once per year. It's tough on us.

Why do you have hotel rooms for events that a 1 hour away? 1712 hasn't stayed in a hotel once since MAR went to districts. Granted, Hatboro and Chestnut Hill are both an easy commute for us, but we've also attended events in Lenape (1 hr) and Bethlehem (70min) without booking hotels. Those are equivalent commute as WWPW to Mt Olive or Lenape. We use school buses to commute to events, so we haven't spent a penny of team funds on travelling since MAR districts began.

Navid Shafa

06-05-2014, 16:18

Why do you have hotel rooms for events that a 1 hour away? 1712 hasn't stayed in a hotel once since MAR went to districts.

Yeah, this is one of the reason districts are supposed to help cut down on costs...

A lot of teams just car-pool or drive to close districts individually. Cutting costs on travel and lodging is a must.

Libby K

06-05-2014, 16:20

In general, I like your procedures. However, I would argue that especially this year, field reset was 'Event Critical'. Several young kids in this role scared me. To be fair, it wasn't just young kids either :p

It certainly improved over the season, but a lot of people weren't familiar with the rules. Often field-reset wouldn't know who to hand the ball to, what to do in the event of a full-field score, or a ball being scored in the wrong goal, etc. If field-reset continues to have such a large impact on game-play, I might suggest we expand age restrictions to 16+ in that role too.

For this year, ABSOLUTELY. I'm just speaking generally. :)

Why do you have hotel rooms for events that a 1 hour away? .

School requirement, as I understand from our teacher/advisor. Both because of our group size and the distance from the school. X chaperones on the trip for Y number of students, and so on. We also have to bump-up to the 'nice' (read: expensive) buses instead of yellow school buses once you're over 45min away. Believe me, if we didn't have to, we wouldn't. But it's still kind of frustrating that we would have to ask our team parents to drive over an hour for every single event when we used to drive ~15 min for the regional. We're just the unlucky ones on the map, I suppose.

Brandon_L

06-05-2014, 16:31

Why do you have hotel rooms for events that a 1 hour away? 1712 hasn't stayed in a hotel once since MAR went to districts. Granted, Hatboro and Chestnut Hill are both an easy commute for us, but we've also attended events in Lenape (1 hr) and Bethlehem (70min) without booking hotels. Those are equivalent commute as WWPW to Mt Olive or Lenape. We use school buses to commute to events, so we haven't spent a penny of team funds on travelling since MAR districts began.

Regardless, MAR has a thing for holding events in the middle of nowhere and it really impacts teams with a 'lesser budget'.

Kevin Pardus

10-06-2014, 11:34

Since no new confirmed district events have been recently posted; may be it is time to start listing confirmed events, which may help identify possible areas for new potential districts.

Confirmed 2015 FRC Events:

Week 1 / 26-28 Feb 2015 - Palmetto - Myrtle Beach Convention Center

Week 4 / 19-21 Mar 2015 - Virginia - VCU Siegel Center
NOTE: This confirmation means 1) the National Capital Region (VA, DC & MD) will continue to operate under the old regional format (no surprise there) and 2) both the Greater DC Regional & Chesapeake Regional will also function next season.

Hallry

10-06-2014, 12:04

Confirmed 2015 FRC Events:

Week 1 / 26-28 Feb 2015 - Palmetto - Myrtle Beach Convention Center

Week 4 / 19-21 Mar 2015 - Virginia - VCU Siegel Center

NOTE: This confirmation means
1) the National Capital Region (VA, DC & MD) will continue to operate under the old regional format (no surprise there) and
2) both the Greater DC Regional & Chesapeake Regional will also function next season.

Yes to the first, but not necessarily to the second. Just because the Virignia Regional is confirmed does not necessarily mean that the Greater DC and Cheseapeake Regional are also 100% confirmed. Just look at what's happening in Nevada, it seems to be likely that the Las Vegas Regional will not be returning due to monetary issues.

notmattlythgoe

10-06-2014, 12:06

Yes to the first, but not necessarily to the second. Just because the Virignia Regional is confirmed does not necessarily mean that the Greater DC and Cheseapeake Regional are also 100% confirmed. Just look at what's happening in Nevada, it seems to be likely that the Las Vegas Regional will not be returning due to monetary issues.

I think he means more that Chesapeake and DC will not be operating as districts since VA is not operating as a district.

mrmummert

10-06-2014, 12:16

Two things i know and recall....

One....I've heard that when the National Capitol district is set up that
because of Virginia First's long ties to VCU that supposedly the Seigel
Center will be the site of the district Championship. Also...if you look
at the schedule for the Seigel Center for next year they already list the
dates for the Virginia regional as being confirmed. The dates given indicate
days needed for a regional since a regional takes a day longer to set up
and hold compared to a district event.

Two....When we attended the Chesapeake regional this year it was
mentioned that the Chesapeake regional would be held at the Comcast
Center for the next three years (not sure if it included this year) I think
this was worked out thru the Dean of U of M's Engineering school.
So the Comcast center will be used for either a district or regional
for a couple more years.

On another note....the move of both the DC and Chesapeake regionals
may indicate a early move to district type venues...but thats just
speculation on my part.

PayneTrain

10-06-2014, 12:52

Anyone who went to the Patriot Center this year probably can figure it would be a far bettwer district venue than regional venue. With 10 fewer pit stalls the aisles might be wider than 6 feet and you might even be able to see the field because they can push it back further and expand seating.

Alex2614

10-06-2014, 23:12

Which actually doesn't work all that well. That data is significantly harder to place on a map than an address. The far simpler approach is merely to indicate that there are multiple teams sharing that team. An approach Google Maps does not allow me to use easily. I've created a map using leaflet.js, OpenStreetMap and D3. Data was geocoded via the datasciencetoolkit api using R. It was then exported as a CSV.

I'm posting this with the caveat that non continental US data is flat out wrong. It's probably useful for this discussion for most of you, I apologize to folks who it got wrong. I'm in the process of re geocoding the data in the next few days (I may have stuff I need to take care of tonight so I might not get to it) using Texas A&M's Geo Services. If that continues to be problematic I'll just find the teams that are being problems and do them manually (I'm not looking forward to this).

The GIS Major in me is drooling, but quivering at the same time. I've been wanting to utilize Arc to do something like this, but it's hard to keep up with this kind of data.

However, on a different note, all of this talk about travel time, district events near them, volunteer base, etc. has got me thinking.

All I want is an event of any kind in West Virginia! Our closest regional is 2 hours away, and the next closest is at least 4-6. We traveled six hours for Knoxville and 10 hours for Palmetto this year. Our off-season event in August is the first FRC event to EVER be held in WV, and we don't have the volunteer base that others do. I guess the moral of my story is be thankful for what you have, everybody. :)

ehfeinberg

11-06-2014, 00:39

On another note....the move of both the DC and Chesapeake regionals may indicate a early move to district type venues...but thats just speculation on my part.

I think thats just speculation. I thought the real reason was how large the costs were for the two regionals were both being in major expensive convention centers. I remember hearing that the old DC Regional was one of (if not the) most expensive regionals to put on. Shame, both locations were exponentially better than the two locations used this year. (Honestly, anything would be better than the Greater DC regional this year)

One....I've heard that when the National Capitol district is set up that because of Virginia First's long ties to VCU that supposedly the Seigel Center will be the site of the district Championship.

Thats a shame. The largest portion of FRC teams in the DMV is around the DC-Baltimore corridor. Combined with it being the nations capital, a district championship anywhere not close to DC would be a major mistake.

Kevin Pardus

11-06-2014, 09:26

While attending both the NC Regional and VA Regional, I heard talk that once the National Capital Region (VA, DC, & MD) had converted over to the District Model that NC might be included in an expanded NCR.

If that happens then the center of mass for FRC teams within that new NCR would move farther south from the DC-Baltimore corridor towards Richmond.

Also the cost of venues to handle a 64+ team championship event within the Baltimore-DC area is extreme. One of the reasons why regional venues were downsized from both the Washington & Baltimore Convention Centers. And as stated previously in this thread the Patriot & Comcast Centers were hard pressed to handle 50+ teams (both would do well as 40-45 team district events).

Plus the cost of lodging in the whole Baltimore-DC-NOVA area is extreme as well. So most teams from outside that area would be traveling far twice a day to stay in lower cost alternatives. Also, being the Baltimore-DC-NOVA area during a District/Region Championship is not a critical issue, since there will be very little, if any, free time for tourist activities in most team's trip schedules.

Andrew Schreiber

11-06-2014, 10:23

The GIS Major in me is drooling, but quivering at the same time. I've been wanting to utilize Arc to do something like this, but it's hard to keep up with this kind of data.

However, on a different note, all of this talk about travel time, district events near them, volunteer base, etc. has got me thinking.

All I want is an event of any kind in West Virginia! Our closest regional is 2 hours away, and the next closest is at least 4-6. We traveled six hours for Knoxville and 10 hours for Palmetto this year. Our off-season event in August is the first FRC event to EVER be held in WV, and we don't have the volunteer base that others do. I guess the moral of my story is be thankful for what you have, everybody. :)

What do you need as far as data? What format would you like it as?

Kevin Pardus

14-06-2014, 07:24

Check out the "Indiana going to Districts for 2015" thread - Great news!!
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=129784

As reported by the IndianaFirst Twitter account and Facebook, we'll be going to districts for the 2015 FRC season!
https://twitter.com/indianafirst/status/477635846049259521
More details as they are announced.

Danny

My understanding is that it won't be just Indiana, but Indiana and Illinois combined.

This is Indiana alone.

The State CHP will be a smaller event than the other larger districts.

We are excited that FIRST has agreed to this model for smaller Districts and will be working with FIRST to make it successful.

Qbot2640

14-06-2014, 08:58

While attending both the NC Regional and VA Regional, I heard talk that once the National Capital Region (VA, DC, & MD) had converted over to the District Model that NC might be included in an expanded NCR.

I have heard very recently that Virginia - Maryland - DC will move to district in 2016 And North Carolina will NOT combine into that district.

Kevin Pardus

14-06-2014, 09:58

DonRotolo

14-06-2014, 10:28

Well, it seems Indiana is confirmed (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129784) as a district!

Qbot2640

14-06-2014, 12:57

I had heard that NC was looking to try and move into the District mode. If a possible combination of VA, MD, DC & NC is not in the cards (as stated previously); and discussions for either a NC-SC or a NC-TN combination have fallen by the wayside. May be NC can pull-off an 'Indiana' and go solo into the world of district events.

I personally would love to combine with SC for a "Carolinas" district...but the rumors I've heard is there is resistance to that idea from our southern half (just rumors I've heard...nothing concrete). As for Tennessee - North Carolina, that creates a district that is larger west to east than the distance (south to north) from NC to Maine. Just not geographically feasible.

NOTE: Loved playing down in the NC Regional last season, especially during eliminations teamed up with FRC 2640 & FRC 4828. May be it was wishfully thinking on my part that a VA-MD-DC-NC region was possible, combining a lot of great teams and folks together. It is also my understanding that the NCR (VA-MD-DC) will go District in 2016.

Yes...it was fun. We enjoyed adding the "Bake" to your "Shake"!