New England District System Proposal
 

NE FIRST has posted a proposal on their website detailing the New England District Model. There are a couple of differences from the Michigan and MAR systems, I wanted to see what others think about it.

Here's a link to the post: http://www.nefirst.org/2013/01/03/nefirstdistricts/

*NOTE* I wasn't exactly sure where to post this, someone please let me know if it should be in a different forum.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

The main question I have is which venue in New England will they use to host at least 80 teams for the district championship. All of the current regionals in New England are the perfect size for 40-50 team regionals, but I can't see any venues that could comfortably hold 80 or more teams.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

The District Championships aren't as large as all that.
Last year the number of teams attending each were:

• (64) teams at the FiM Championship
• (53) teams at the MAR Championship

So, if NE FIRST is similar to MAR, then the existing venues would support what is needed.
With the point system it's easy to restrict attendance to what the venue will support.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Based on current teams, how many teams will be playing in this district system?

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Looks like 154 in NH, VT, ME, MA, RI, CT

vs

• (209) FiM - 132 teams when they first started and settled on a 64 team district Championship
• (108?) MAR

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

From the proposal:
"We will expand the size to at least 80 teams, and provide two fields with the same amount of matches in other districts. The combined regional planning committees will form to become the District Championship Committee and bring the best that each NE event has to offer. Locations have not been decided as of this time."

I was very surprised to read this, it's a decent idea but I can't think of anywhere in New England with enough space.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Then how do they get so many more spots even though they have 55 less teams than us. They have 154 teams. We have 209 teams. Yet, they get 30 teams going to CMP but we only get 18.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

I figured "expand" meant they had to start with something smaller, but still a two field venue with pits probably means a convention center like Hartford, which does have plenty of room.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

147.

What I find interesting is that the 147 team NE District sends 30 teams while the 190 team FiM District sends 18.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

It may be because New England will have had 5 regionals before going to districts, while Michigan had 3 at the time. Assuming you had the full six spots per regional that qualify for championships, those two numbers do make sense. Although I do agree that more teams in an area should have more qualifiers.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Its a good proposal. I would go as far as to say a really good proposal.

The exception I would have is that 30+ Championship slots would be going to a pool of 147 teams. If the Championship was by population I would thing that 147/2500(ish) *400=23.5 would be the reasonable number I would give NE. In other words I would give them 23 or 24 slots.

If 30 go to 147 teams, you have about a 1/5 chance. If 18/190 get to go, you have a worse than 1/10 chance...

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Personally if I was FIRST I would give NE 24 slots if it was up to me.
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If I was NE, I would submit for the full 30 slots and have FIRST talk me down. I don't think 30 is an unreasonable number to request from a District Championship (MAR and FiM included).

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

To be clear this is just a proposal and I would assume many of the details will change by the time the negotiations with FIRST are completed. I like the bigger district championship, I say the more teams who can attend the event the better.

Also, I have a question: does Michigan and/or MAR grant automatic slots at the District Championship for winners of District events like it says in the proposal?

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

I agree that it looks really good.

The one thing I am disappointed in at this point is that there is only 1 EI slot but 2 RAS and 5 CA. To be fair to the importance of that award I think it should be 2 EI at least. Especially since the other awards give you points to put toward your total to compete for the other slots available but EI, CA, and RAS do not.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

No. If the winners were all invited per the proposal from NE, from the 10 possibly 11 districts, you would have to have 66 slots. If you include th 12 sign up slots for NE, when they reach 200-ish team like MI, then they will have the possibility for 2 points based slots at their 80 team event... Realistically, tehre is a fari amount of event winner overlap. Often 2/3 of the winning alliance will win some other event as well. So instead of 66, they would only take up about 56 (Assumes 10 repeaters) of the 80 slots thus with the 12 (sign ups), you would also have about 12 getting in from points. Of course, they have a couple of years before they reach that point.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

After a facebook conversation on the NE FIRST page, it seems that you're right, the two field thing is part of their growth strategy.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

FiM is up to 11 districts this year, over 200 teams.

So why, even based on last years numbers, does NE get to send 20% of their teams, MAR 12%, and FiM only 9%? And if you divide it by this year's counts, FiM is less than 9%.

When will FIRST recognize that FiM created an atmosphere for growth in teams, and allow more teams to advance? We'd be up to 5 regional events by now too.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Maybe those championship slots are reserved for the dozen teams that will buy there way to the District Championship.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

Also no for MAR, although actually winning a district (even as 2nd pick) was enough points to qualify in 2012.

For the CMP slots, I feel that the 30:147 and 18:190 equations are going to have to change. I see a ratio of about 1:7, meaning NEF=21, MAR=14 and FiM=27.

If I were in MI, I'd be howling very loudly at being punished for the successful growing of FRC.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

FiM should be on the phone figuring out why FiNE gets 12 more slots with 50 fewer teams. I saw that number and my jaw dropped.

If multiple regions are going to switch over to districts soon, why not start accurately apportioning slots? Just saying "You had x regionals for 6x slots before, so you're stuck with that number" sounds careless.

However, as someone who has been watching district models developing in multiple areas, I always like to see progress.

Re: New England District System Proposal
 

From the proposal:

They're just following the precedent, the number may(and probably should) be reduced after negotiations with FIRST. It's like the saying goes, shoot for the stars and if you miss, you'll hit the moon.