Registration 2012 [Archive] - Page 2

TrevorJ

08-12-2011, 10:49

The Tri-City area (Bay county, Saginaw county, and Midland county) has a population of roughly 400,000, but only a handful of FRC teams. FiM may target this area for a district because of the low team density, but high potential for growth.

Basel A

08-12-2011, 14:28

Team 2337 attended the Lansing District in 2009 and it appeared to be well-run. I was personally disappointed the event did not come back for the following years. It's nice to have an event in the state capital as it is much easier to connect to and invite state congressmen and officials (the governor attended in 2009).

Mark McLeod

15-12-2011, 12:33

Since registration closed on December 1, FRC has:

Gained 42 teams
Lost 21 teams
Net 21 (noon on 12/15/11)A casual look at the overall registration number might not reveal that much is going on but HQ is probably a blur of activity.

More than 8 Regional lists have changed in the last day.

14.2% gain (293 teams) over last season
20% of teams are new (471) (about the same % as last year)
-8.6% team loss

EricLeifermann

15-12-2011, 12:43

The best place for new exposure would to put a district event in Marquette Michigan (I'd say Houghton but not enough teams would actually trek that far to come to a competition) in District 1. Yes it is a drive for the teams in Lower Michigan but the UP is an awesome place and is well worth the trip also the UP is slowly growing with teams and this new competition would help speed it up. It would also help keep costs down for the teams in district 1 as they have to travel upwards of 10 hours one way to get to 1 competition and then to force them to do it twice is ridiculous. FIM was created to save teams $, get the costs of competitions down and to give teams more play for the price. All teams in District 1 don't see the benefit of it because they have to travel so far.

IKE

15-12-2011, 14:12

Anyone ever been to Sault Ste. Marie, MI?

Looks like there is an Airfield and a University. It is also 5 hours from Houghton, and 5 hours from Troy, MI.

Mark McLeod

16-12-2011, 11:33

FiM has begun clearing the District waitlists.

Kettering, Traverse City, West Michigan, Detroit, & Livonia are full now.
Troy & Northville have 4 openings between them
Niles is still only half full
Waterford has 10 unassigned slots12 Regional events have each had a few minor team changes in the past 24 hours.

In all, a net of 45 teams have added in (teams have dropped out too).

mdiradoorian

17-12-2011, 20:16

It is wierd how they extended the date for regionals to December 19th to allow more teams to apply.

Andrew Schreiber

03-01-2012, 01:12

Now that registration is done...

EWCP has published a new team distribution map. It is available on our blog at http://ewcp.org/blog/2012/01/03/FRC-2012-team-distributions/

Alpha Beta

03-01-2012, 10:21

Now that registration is done...

EWCP has published a new team distribution map. It is available on our blog at http://ewcp.org/blog/2012/01/03/FRC-2012-team-distributions/

The distribution does give a nice sense of which areas might have the team density to support a district like system.

http://lswhs.leesummit.k12.mo.us/ambailey/Team%20Distribution%202012.jpeg

I'm not sure if team densities will ever approach FIM and MAR levels in the midwest. The population isn't as dense. On the flip side, the midwestern culture is used to driving longer distances to do things. Perhaps we can support the district system over a much broader geographical area.

jwfoss

03-01-2012, 10:24

The distribution does give a nice sense of which areas might have the team density to support a district like system.
I would agree that this map clearly shows that with FiM and MAR, New England would be the next area targeted for districts.

Mark McLeod

03-01-2012, 10:27

Nice region grouping graphic.

The team coordinates in the most recent All FRC Teams Ever (http://www.team358.org/files/frc_records/All_FRC_Teams_Ever.xls) have been refined.
About a third now reflect the actual school location and the only duplicate coordinates are of teams hosted at the same school.
It's not perfect, as some teams don't give enough information to pinpoint their location any closer than a town, and mistakes may have been made, but it's better than it was.

The coordinates that have been examined and are fairly accurate are marked.
If anyone wants to volunteer corrections, they will be cheerfully accepted.

Andrew Schreiber

03-01-2012, 10:51

The distribution does give a nice sense of which areas might have the team density to support a district like system.

http://lswhs.leesummit.k12.mo.us/ambailey/Team%20Distribution%202012.jpeg

I'm not sure if team densities will ever approach FIM and MAR levels in the midwest. The population isn't as dense. On the flip side, the midwestern culture is used to driving longer distances to do things. Perhaps we can support the district system over a much broader geographical area.

This is a good point about population densities. I recall seeing population density somewhere. I'll see if I can dig that up and overlay the map with it sometime this week.

RoboMom

03-01-2012, 11:11

I would agree that this map clearly shows that with FiM and MAR, New England would be the next area targeted for districts.

Minor point of clarification:
MAR=NJ, eastern part of PA, and DE

National Capital Region: MD, DC, VA

For now.

JohnBoucher

03-01-2012, 11:43

Minor point of clarification:
MAR=NJ, eastern part of PA, and DE

National Capital Region: MD, DC, VA

For now.

This is the first I have heard about the National Capital Region. New for 2013?

Hallry

03-01-2012, 11:58

This is the first I have heard about the National Capital Region. New for 2013?

That's just the name of the region, it's not an actual district system like FiM or MAR (as of now).

RoboMom

03-01-2012, 14:03

This is the first I have heard about the National Capital Region. New for 2013?

Been around for at least 3-4 years. http://www.mdfirst.org/about-us/first-national-capital-region.html
http://www.dc-first.org/about-us/sponsors
http://www.virginiafirst.org/community/sponsors

The region shares major sponsorship for events.

DonRotolo

03-01-2012, 18:35

I'm not sure if team densities will ever approach FIM and MAR levels in the midwest. The population isn't as dense. Well, yeah, here in MAR we sure have a lock on people who are dense. :p

Mark McLeod

04-01-2012, 13:52

Welcome to the latest FRC rookie team 4411, from Beijing, China.
The Middle School attached to Northern Jiaotong University

They have signed up fpr the Seattle Olympic Regional.

mdiradoorian

04-01-2012, 14:06

Welcome to the latest FRC rookie team 4411, from Beijing, China.
The Middle School attached to Northern Jiaotong University

They have signed up fpr the Seattle Olympic Regional.

Wow that is great that first has attracted teams from Asia as well as Europe, South America, and obviously North America.

JaneYoung

05-01-2012, 14:05

Richard Wallace

05-01-2012, 14:21

Hooo boy... the barn doors are opening now!Jane, will you please parse that one for the benefit of those not fortunate enough to reside within the great State of Texas? :rolleyes:

I wouldn't want our new friends in China to get the impression they are being compared to escaped livestock. :confused:

JaneYoung

05-01-2012, 14:45

Jane, will you please parse that one for the benefit of those not fortunate enough to reside within the great State of Texas? :rolleyes:

I wouldn't want our new friends in China to get the impression they are being compared to escaped livestock. :confused:

Of course. That means that we are going to see some wonderful opportunities coming in the next few years. There's no stopping them (the opportunities).

Jane

P.S. Can I keep the, hooo boy! ? That means: :D with a little :ahh: followed by a :D which = AWEsome!

Mark McLeod

19-01-2012, 14:35

I thought I should mention the new Michigan District event at Gull Lake High School in Richland, MI.
The Michigan people know all about it, but the rest of us may not have heard.

It's a week 1 event and 20 teams are currently registered there.

Waitlist clearing across a lot of events has been going on, too.

Mark McLeod

11-02-2012, 08:19

Here's the (semi) final registration plot for this year.
Currently at 2346 teams.

China dropped out on us.

465 new teams (19.8%)
24 resurected ex-vets
1857 returning from last season
13.6% gain over last season
91% team retention

Koko Ed

11-02-2012, 12:00

EricH

11-02-2012, 13:00

33 now.
We need to do a draft next week in Fantasy FIRST.
Yeah, I posted that in the FF forum back when I saw the announcement. Sneaky multiplying Michiganders.:D

Koko Ed

11-02-2012, 13:18

Yeah, I posted that in the FF forum back when I saw the announcement. Sneaky multiplying Michiganders.:D

Like roaches they are.

Andrew Schreiber

13-02-2012, 12:32

Like roaches they are.

:mad:

Koko Ed

13-02-2012, 13:24

:mad:
Gremlins then?

Mark McLeod

23-02-2012, 11:45

The Championship has been admitting teams off of the waitlist-about the same time as last year.
Originally, 142 teams were let in during open registration back in October.
It dropped to a low of ~123 teams after payments came due.
It's now back up to 140 teams.

Total registration now stands at 2343 teams.

Here are the % of teams doing more than one event:
# Events - # Teams - % of all Teams
5 ----- 2 ----- 0.1%
4 ---- 10 ----- 0.4%
3 --- 131 ----- 5.6%
2 --- 725 ---- 30.9%
1 -- 1475 ---- 63.0%

PayneTrain

23-02-2012, 22:41

I've noticed that in addition to a rise in 3-event teams that are attending 2 districts and an outside regional, more teams are moving towards 3 regionals. Do you think it will be a growing trend in places that don't have districts?

Mark McLeod

21-08-2012, 10:35

Here's a late addition of when each event reached initial capacity (blue bar) and when it finished drawing from the waitlist if it reached max advertised capacity (red bar). Those events where the blue/red bar reaches the top are those that never reached maximum capacity. The scale is in days from registration opening. The blue bar can be thought of as the free market, while the red bar represents the controlled market of the Regional Director/FIRST HQ's discretion. The Blue goes quickly, but the red lags.

The first chart is in order from left to right based on which events reached initial capacity first.
The second chart is in order by when the team list was finalized from the waitlist.

FIRST HQ is highly concerned with all teams getting their first Regional, but don't care so much if they get a second Regional, so some waitlists drag on and never seem to close.

Gregor

21-08-2012, 11:35

How many days must teams wait before second and third regional registration opens?

Mark McLeod

21-08-2012, 11:43

All in the FIRST calendar: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/frc-season-calendar

Mark McLeod

23-08-2012, 13:32

Here are some charts of interest.
These show how old the teams are that have dropped out each of the years from 1999 to 2012.

The number in the pie wedge is the number of teams that didn't return from the previous year, and the color of the wedge corresponds to the number of year's the team actually competed. This includes teams that may have skipped a year, but the skipped years weren't counted.

In the 2nd attachment the % in the pie wedge is the % of all teams lost that year.

rsisk

23-08-2012, 13:47

Here are some charts of interest.
These show how old the teams are that have dropped out each of the years from 1999 to 2012.

The number in the pie wedge is the number of teams that didn't return from the previous year, and the color of the wedge corresponds to the number of year's the team actually competed. This includes teams that may have skipped a year, but the skipped years weren't counted.

Any chance you could express the loss in percentages of the total loss that year? I'm hoping it will make a y2y comparison easier

Mark McLeod

23-08-2012, 14:26

See if the 2nd attachment fits what you want.

rsisk

23-08-2012, 19:28

Thanks Mark.

So what occurred in 2000 and 2001? It looks like we have made steady improvement in retaining new teams since then, but those two years really stand out.

Mark McLeod

24-08-2012, 09:11

That cross-year comparison of % might be deceptive and I'm thinking about other ways to portray this kind of data. Maybe normalize % against the total number of teams each year, so losing 1% of total teams in 1999 can reasonably be compared to 1% of teams in 2012.
For instance, 1999 lost 12.7% of it's teams, while 2000 lost almost 5% fewer (7.9%) of it's teams.
P.S. I added full comparison charts that show the difference.

The "problem" with 2000 is that it had the lowest overall dropout rate of all the years charted, so the percentages are disproportional in comparison to the surrounding years. 2000 only lost 32 teams.
Most of the other years are pretty similar with less than a 1% spread in losses of total teams (7.9% - 8.8%), so the charts do generally work in comparison. The outliers, where comparison doesn't work, are 1999(12.7%), 2002(10%), and 2005(11.9%), all poor years for retaining teams.