Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

My memory is a little foggy, but I think it was discussed at the MAR board meeting last June. I seem to remember that Lehigh was the only viable venue available week 6/7. I think Temple was booked those weekends. No idea about cost difference between those different sites. I think the Sun Center (Trenton) was getting very expensive.

The Philly/Trenton area is probably the geographic center of MAR. Philly was a bus ride for us last year, but ~2-2.5 hours to Lehigh means it's an overnight trip now, and I'm sure other teams are in the same boat.

I understand that FIRST wants the prestige of a big event, but $4K + lodging is a good chunk of change, especially when you're looking at World Championships 2 weeks later.

We really just aren't big enough to be justifying a 50-60 team regional championship. Michigan has 206 teams and 64 attend MSC. We're at 109 teams this year, and this was an unusually big year for growth. I didn't run numbers for PA, but NJ has had minimal growth up until this year. NJ had 56 teams in 2006 and was at 62 teams in 2012 (peaked at 64 in 2010).

If you look at it, there really isn't much difference in size between a large district event and MAR CMP. We scraped together 53 teams last year, Bridgewater is hosting 43 teams for their district event.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

I updated the sheet with week 4 results. Not official by any stretch, but good for people who want to see where they stand. Let me know if you find any errors.

Anyone with 50+ points is a near-lock for MAR CMP. I highlighted those teams in pink, and also highlighted Bridgewater teams who earned 25+ points at their first event (45 teams in total). The real cutoff is likely to be lower (possibly significantly lower), so don't despair if you're on the bubble.

2013 MAR Standings

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Geographically, Lehigh is pretty close to the center of the MAR area. Remember that MAR extends as far west as Harrisburg. In terms of population centers, most of the teams are located East of Lehigh along the I-95 corridor, though.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Attached is the week 4 update of my MAR Standings sheet. If you find any errors, please let me know.

Since there are teams who haven't played all of their events, I have the teams sorted by their points average. I've got two weeks to figure out how to deal with teams (like 303) that are playing in 3 district events (only the first two count).

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

The geographic center of MAR is actually just outside of Ewing, NJ (this was discussed at a board meeting). That makes Philly and or Trenton ideal locations for the MAR Championship, just from a location perspective.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Sarah, that is probably the center of population for MAR. Sean is right that Lehigh probably pretty close on the geographic center for an area that extends as far west as Harrisburg, as far north as Tunkhannock, PA (north of NJ) and as far south as Middletown, DE.
That doesn't mean I like booking a hotel to volunteer there, Temple was a shorter commute for me than any district. However, I am interested to see a new venue. Maybe we will keep changing venues as needed.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

It doesn’t matter that Harrisburg or Tunkhannick are a part of MAR if there are no teams there; so I found the center of all 2013 teams in MAR. I used this list of teams: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...NHZ kE#gid=22
And this list of coordinates: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=25
I found the center of all MAR teams to be 40.39724, -74.8769 (somewhere in Lambertville, NJ).
This is:
32.3 miles to the Liacouras Center in Philidelphia,
28.5 miles to Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, and
14.2 miles to the Sun National Bank center in Trenton.
Interestingly, the new MAR championship is closer to the center of teams than the old MAR championship.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

222 is from Tunkhannock.
2559 is from Harrisburg.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

I know that there are teams from those places, they were part of my calculations. My statement was meant to be taken rhetorically; some places have more teams than others and should have more weight in choosing a spot for MAR championships. The geographic center of a region doesn't matter; its the population center that does.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Actually, what are they all? The team-weighted center, the geographic-based center, and the team-size-weighted center are all different means of answering the same question. All are justifiably as valid.

Another would be the team-funding-inverse-weighted center, basing the weight of a team off of the inverse of it's funding, thus giving less-well funded teams more weight due to their difficulties in traveling.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

its Lambertville :)

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Good idea.

Here, 40.38577925, -74.95323414, is the center weighted by average district score. After all, why should a team's location matter if they don't attend the championships? Either way, it's still in Lambertville, just a little farther west, suggesting that the good teams are pretty evenly distributed over MAR.

The inverse-funding center sounds like the best idea, but unfortunately I don't think that that information is publicly available. I tried to replicate it by finding the inverse-size-of-sponsor-list center. I know that some sponsors give more than others and that this isn't perfect, but hopefully the size of the sponsor list roughly correlates to team funding. Anyway, that center is 40.44366073, -74.80339903. It's in a place called Ringoes, NJ. It's a little farther north and a little farther east than the center of teams.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

Another possible metric to use (that I don't know how to determine, so I'll let you guys who do know do it) to compare these locations, is take the team list from MAR Championships last year, or even the team list from NJ/PA regionals in years past(obviously excluding teams from outside the MAR area).

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

The problem with that metric is that many teams declined to attend MAR championships because of the distance last year. MAR had to go down the rank 64th team just to get 53 to attend. If teams that can’t attend because of distance are not counted then we generate a feedback loop and move MAR championships further away from them again.

The center of teams that attended MAR championships last year is 40.32755, -74.9932. It is further south and west than the other centers I calculated. It’s in New Hope, PA.

Re: 2013 MAR Standings
 

It is also important to note that one of the goals of MAR is to help grow FRC participation in the supported region. I don't think anyone would disagree that the MAR Champs this year is in a lower team population area. By holding the event in such an area there is a greater chance of new teams being formed there than say in Philly, where there are already many teams with much smaller room to grow new teams.