Re: Registration 2013
 

I like the term "waitpool".

Re: Registration 2013
 

Well, it is somewhat ordered. Rookies get first priority, and then it goes by teams registered for the least number of events.

Re: Registration 2013
 

7 Ontario teams just dropped out from these events:

• 7 Toronto East
• 1 Toronto West
• 1 Montreal
• 1 Waterloo

A BC and MD team also dropped out.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Which teams?

EDIT: Fair warning, I fear this may be only the first wave of withdrawals from Ontario teams.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Note, I took current team lists and compared them to the team lists used for Fantasy First, which were generated in December.

GTR East:
188
886
919
1219
1246
1605
2185
2198

Montreal:
1246

Waterloo:
188
4647
4677
4691

GTR West:
886
2185

Pity to see all these teams missing, in particular 188, a perennial powerhouse.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I had no idea that it was public that FIRST wanted to move over to the district system, it just seemed as obvious as gravity. I assume we will see a wave of regions switch over to the district model this offseason, which I suspected after seeing a quick first-year success with MAR on top of the continuing success in Michigan.

I think the idea of super regionals is frankly, a scary one. You would create massive scheduling nightmares and severely affect the average team's budget if they made it that far. At this point in time, it seems almost nebulous. For the time being you can still easily allocate slots to teams right off of their single or multi-state district competitions rankings. Don't go trying to turn FRC on its head, just direct it to a more sustainable growth model.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Don't expect to see it happen too terribly quickly, but I'm sure it will happen. There are potential issues with volunteers in the area if you suddenly have to support a larger number of district events (especially in the key volunteer roles like Lead Robot Inspector or Head Ref).

Next, how do you handle teams that don't easily fall into a region? There are still areas with very low FRC population density. For those areas, teams would need to travel for 2 district events, plus the district champs, plus champs, or find a regional farther away to attend. Today, they are likely traveling to their nearest regional, which could be in an area that could be converted to districts.

Based on the growth maps in the first post to this thread, there are clearly areas of the country where this wouldn't be much of an issue... but there are also areas where it would be.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Remembering that some team attrition is normal...
The Canadian teams missing now from last year are:

188 Toronto, ON, Canada
843 Oakville, ON, Canada
886 North York, ON, Canada
919 Toronto, ON, Canada
1009 North York, ON Canada
1053 Ottawa, ON, Canada
1219 Toronto, ON, Canada
1221 Mississauga, ON, Canada
1246 Scarborough, ON, Canada
1404 Toronto, ON, Canada
1514 Toronto, ON, Canada
1535 Sault Ste Marie, ON, Canada
1605 Toronto, ON Canada
1835 Toronto, ON, Canada
2076 Toronto, ON Canada
2185 Toronto, ON
2198 Toronto, ON, Canada
3531 Montreal, QC, Canada
3739 London, ON, Canada
3978 Montreal, QC Canada
3980 Montreal, QC Canada
4022 Waterdown, ON Canada
4062 Ste-Genevieve, QC Canada
4094 Angus, ON Canada
4147 Yarmouth, NS Canada
4236 mississauga, ON Canada
4248 Whitby, ON Canada
4249 Brampton, ON Canada
4250 Cobourg, ON Canada
4258 Markham, ON Canada
4307 Ajax, ON Canada
4308 Mississauga, ON Canada
4357 Port Hope, ON Canada
4367 Mississauga, ON Canada
　

A defunct veteran team tried to return but dropped:

2609 Guelph, ON Canada (last played in 2011)


Also rookies who registered then dropped out were from:

Calgary, AB Canada
Calgary, AB Canada
Westlock, AB Canada
Shawnigan Lake, BC Canada
Tecumseh, ON Canada
Richmond Hill, ON Canada
Mississauga, ON Canada

Re: Registration 2013
 

Thanks for these.

Keep in mind that any missing teams not located in Ontario are unaffected by the labour issues.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Mark do you have numbers for teams lost in a specific region with the number of teams similar to the number of Canadian teams?

Re: Registration 2013
 

I can probably find a similar area team-#-wise, but I think using Ontario last year might have more relevance, due to economic/societal/government/union/etc. differences.

This year's Ontario team loss is quite a bit higher than last year - about 22% higher.

In 2012 there were 78 Ontario teams. An overall gain of 20% on the previous season.
10 teams were lost.
Between 2012 and 2013 there was only a one team difference in potential rookies dropping out, so that's probably not significant.
So, in Ontario that translates into a 15.4% loss of veteran teams in 2012. By the way, that was about 6% worse than the average veteran loss.

Currently, for 2013 there are 29 teams missing and 72 registered. An overall loss of 7.6%.
So in 2013 there is a 37.2% loss of veteran teams. Almost 29% worse than the across-the-board average veteran team loss of 8.5%.

The # of rookie teams was very similar- 21 in 2012 vs. 23 in 2013.

Here are the Ontario teams that didn't play in 2012, but did play in 2011:

1006 Port Perry, ON, Canada
1312 Walkerton, ON, Canada
2361 Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
2609 Guelph, ON, Canada
2670 Toronto, ON, Canada
3040 Toronto, ON, Canada
3563 Innisfil, ON, Canada
3590 Toronto, ON, Canada
3664 Burlington, ON, Canada
3698 Mississauga, ON, Canada



Almost 2012 rookies who didn't stick around:

Mississauga, ON Canada
Toronto, ON Canada

Re: Registration 2013
 

According to their twitter account, 188 is back in business.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Fixed it for you. I suspect they're working on the angle of getting a waiver from the union to participate that I've heard rumours of

Re: Registration 2013
 

It would be very sad if 188 is not able to compete. They are one of the Grand Old teams we have played with over the years, always a great example for other teams to follow.

Re: Registration 2013
 

How FIRST handles less population dense areas will definitely be key to the success of the District system. Having lived in Arizona as FRC got started there and Iowa now I've gotten a front row seat to FRC when there aren't a huge amount of teams or events around. The northern plains (Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, western Kansas) and the mountain west (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) don't have any events or many teams right now and have a substantial amount of distance to travel to the nearest events. Where we're at in Iowa there are about 5 events equal distance from us but all are a 4-5 hour drive to get to so we'd be looking at substantial travel time for a district system. The southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, lumping in Utah since they have a regional) has clusters of teams and a handful of events but they are spaced 6+ hours apart. Assuming teams could not compete in the California district events Vegas and Phoenix are the best off since they are 5 hours apart (though a Tucson, AZ regional has been discussed), Denver is over 7 hours from the closest competition. Eliminating the entry fee for a 2nd event sure helps but I think we could see a lot of "skeleton crews" consisting of the drive team and 1 or 2 mentors attending events when these areas become part of a district due to the substantial travel costs. Either that or teams will just forgo the 2nd event entirely.

Short of "forcing" new events in these areas and hoping new teams start up with them I'm not sure how FIRST is going to effectively move the District system into these areas on their timeline. I think it can happen in the future but 2015 is an ambitious goal for these regions.

We could always try to add one in Southern Minnesota/Northern Iowa ;) If only there were teams there...