KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Attended an interesting meeting put on by KC FIRST where area representatives (students and coaches) were asked to think about how a single regional with a dense local population, (but isolated by substantial distance from other regional events) could transition to a district system. The meeting emphasized that no decisions had been made yet and the committee was highly interested in collecting the opinions of local FRC teams.

Below is the proposal we were asked to consider (as best as I can remember)to help facilitate our discussion.

In place of the Greater Kansas City Regional in expensive Hale arena

• Hold the event over 2 Thursday, Friday, Saturday weekends (not necessarily consecutive) in KC area high school gymnasiums. (No specific locations were discussed.)
• Both weekends would start Thursday afterschool and allow a 6 hour “fix-it” window before each weekend where teams could unbag the robot as compensation for the late start on Thursdays.
• First weekend would be all qualification matches and end with an award ceremony Saturday evening with the awards a traditional regional would give away on Friday.
• Second weekend would continue with qualification matches and end with a standard 8 alliance elimination bracket.
• Qualifications for champs would be the traditional Regional Winners, RCA, EI, & RAS. (There was no discussion on if wildcards would be applicable.)
• Entrance fee still $5,000.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Some Pro’s from the meeting:

• More than twice as many qualification matches for a single $5,000 entry fee.
• After passing inspection and trying out the robot on a real field teams would still have a 6 hour fix-it window in their own shops to make improvements and then compete again.

o This could make a huge difference for those teams who struggle to compete the first weekend, especially if they can make some contacts with other teams to share resources or expertise before finishing their season!

• More qualification matches will give the ranking system for selecting alliance captains a better data set to function in and perhaps overcome some of the qualification schedule randomness.
• High School gymnasiums will force a smaller tournament size (Hale Arena was rated for up to 64 teams) and give each team a greater chance of being selected for eliminations.
• More time for judges to make the best selection for the traditional “Friday Night” awards.
• Significant cost savings over the large arena which (If corporate donors maintain their current level of giving) might be able to be used as grants to help offset travel expenses for those who would require hotel stays for the additional weekend.

Some Con’s from the meeting:

• All teams have to commit to both weekends, increasing the time commitment significantly over our current system.
• Need twice as many volunteers or a bigger time commitment from our current slate of volunteers.
• Concern that the grandeur of the event, and its ability to attract sponsors, will be diminished.
• This event model has a smaller capacity and as a stand-alone event (instead of one that includes a district championship) has limited room for growth.
• Would miss some of the competitive level and inspiration that the teams who travel in from more distant locations bring to the tournament.

FYI: According to FIRST there were 39 teams within a 50 mile radius of Hale Arena’s Zip Code that competed in “Ultimate Ascent”. (And according to “Where in the world is FIRST” it looks like there are another 7 or 8 teams a little farther out who can claim KC as their closest regional.) There was no discussion on if there would be a geographical area that would be given priority registration in this model, but it is one of the pressing questions.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

How would robots be stored between weekends? Would they have to be bagged and tagged again? Couldn't they use another venue that would have the space for one weekend instead of two?

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

You guys are crazy--in a good way.

I think the biggest problem would be ensuring everybody showed up both weekends; however, that could be worked around I'm sure. You'll probably lose the out-of-area teams that don't want to stay a couple extra weeks, or go and come back, but you won't have to create an artificial boundary to do so; the distance should take care of a lot of that.

If those can be lived with, I think you might be on to one of the best options for bringing districts to areas without the density for normal districts that I've seen (not that I've seen many of those). Something tells me that you'll have a few of the Hawaii teams watching closely if you do go for it.

@lpickett: As noted above, the current venue is rated at 64 teams (the 2013 event hosted 55), so the issue is not space. As I understand the proposal, teams would take their robots home, get 6 hours out of the bag, and bring them back, much like an MI or MAR district setup, but instead of two separate events, play one single event with a much longer timeframe. Imagine being able to take your robot back to your home shop between Friday and Saturday of a regional, and that's the rough equivalent.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I'd like to understand what the long term plan is. The last several years we've competed at KC and Minnesota events - if both go district we'll be looking for new regionals.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

That's an interesting idea. How many robots are in the KC area?

In the Michigan District system we get a bag window before the event. It's much more beneficial to have your bag window with your robot at your facility, with your full set of tools and resources.

In addition, with an event that big you are going to have a horrid amount of time between matches. In the Michigan system it's unusual to have more than 1 hour between matches, and many times it's a 30-45 minute turn around. Going to worlds and having huge downtime between matches stinks, quite frankly.

In addition, that means a full field teardown in the middle of your event.

Would it be possible to do it at two venues, have individual competitions, and simply go on a point basis of who qualifies for worlds? Especially for the mentors, taking off multiple vacation days for the same event would really stink.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Rebagged and taken back home. Keep in mind that the weekends may not be consecutive depending on when gymnasiums can be acquired. Teams might even travel to another regional event in the middle of the process if the weeks were far enough apart.

Yes, that is what we have now with Hale Arena, and besides the continued escalating costs for the arena there is no pressing need to change. What we do have is an opportunity to change if the perceived bennefit is great enough.

As more regions move to districts with closed borders local teams may find themselves with diminishing opportunities to attend a 2nd regional. This proposal helps to mitigate that problem and makes additional match play accesssible for teams who cannot afford that opportunity now.

Many have dreamed of an era when all of FIRST moves to a district model. Maybe then we can drop the artificial borders which preclude teams from playing wherever they want to. Perhaps when that day comes teams will be invited to Super Regionals based on geographic location and a point system where they can then qualify for the World Championship. This would be similar to how MSC and the MAR Championship are conducted now. One of the great challenges in this transition is developing the volunteer infrastructure at the local level to make it work. This proposal would allow us to start developing that in Kansas City in preparation for that future.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Somewhere between 39 and 48.

Exactly. This would provide that same bennefit to KC area teams that FiM and MAR teams currently enjoy.

I imagine the event would have to be capped at 48 teams to fit in a high school venue. This happens to matches our current numbers locally.

One of the consequences of trying to create a "season" for our sport instead of just an "event".

Currently FiM mentors take off 3 weekends (Two district events and MSC) before qualifying for Worlds. This would only be 2, albeit one of those weekends does not have elimination matches. FiM and MAR were created by folding in multiple regional events and thus had more than the traditional 6 berths for Worlds to offer. The point system helps decide who deserves them. Since this is a single event making the transition there are no additional berths to give out besides the standard 6. There is also no intermediate district championship to "pay for" before attending Worlds.

Full Discloser: I am not on the committee making this proposal but I was able to attend the meeting and hear the information first hand. I'll admit this proposal does not sound like a permanent solution, but rather a transitionary state before we grow large enough (or combine with enough other more distant areas) to develop a FiM style super regional.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I here what you're saying Tom, and that concern was certainly brought up at the meeting. The meeting was more of a time to gather these types concerns than it was to actually answer them though. Maybe we'll know more by the time CowTown ThrowDown rolls around at the beginning of November. Would love to see you come down, especially since we didn't get to play together at all in 2013.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Kansas City, you guys are on to something. Every establishment needs someone to come up with a crazy idea to keep it moving forward, and this just might be it. If you can come up with a way to accomplish the goals of the districts with a smaller group of teams, and it works, the landscape of FRC could radically change. Good luck with this, I'll be watching.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

The school limits us to two out of state trips a year, with special permission to also go to champs if we qualify. That's the main reason we haven't gone to any off season events.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

That helps me understand what you guys are up against. I was hoping you had more teams than that.

I still would support two seperate competitions and move them several weeks apart. Bag windows + 2 competitions back to back is pretty hard and stressful on everyone. The teams are going to learn a lot from eachother at the first competition, and by spacing them out I think they would have a better chance of putting those new ideas into practice.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

THIS DOES NOT REFLECT THE THOUGHTS OF TEAM 2410

I wasn't a huge fan when Mr. Ritter told me about it. I love the idea of up to 20(!) qualification matches, but I wasn't so much a fan of splitting it up over 2 weekends. You make a good argument for the plan, but I just didn't like the proposal. It seems much too cumbersome to spread Greater KC over 2 (possibly non-consecutive) weekends just for one competition. It also meant that suddenly instead of 6 weeks to choose from, we would have this and then pick from the remaining 4 weeks of competition, and keep in mind that our robot has to be working and back before the eliminations. Maybe it's just how familiar I am with the Michigan system. I like the district system and all, but I just don't think it's quite time for the Kansas City area to transition.

Greater KC was an amazing home grown event where we had our closely knit teams and the occasional out of regional-er whom we would warmly welcome and, for lack of a better term, assimilate into our home. If it switched to the proposed system, then we would have to take a serious look at attending.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I like the idea in general, but do not like the idea of two 3-day competitions, both starting on Thursday.

One of the best things about MAR is that most competitions are Saturday/Sunday, so I do not have to take a day off work to attend. Parents (and administrations) like that no school is missed.

The 6-hour window is to compensate for the loss of the traditional Thursday practice session. I would question having a six hour fix it window for a 3 day event...

Nonetheless: the right way to go about creating such a system, is to gather lots of input from all those involved and be very transparent with how decisions are made. You won't be able to please everyone, but you can design the system so that almost everyone can live with it.

From experience, having all those extra matches really helps a lot of teams who usually won't attend a second regional.

Good luck and keep us informed.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Due to scheduling conflicts KC FIRST held their inaugurral FTC tournament on a Sunday morning this year. Many objected to school events trying to encroach on a time slot traditionally reserved for church/worship. My personal feelings aside I would not be able to make the pitch in my community that they should choose robotics over other Sunday morning options.

I'm not sure what Thursday agendas would be like. My first thought is that it would be somewhat like champs. Start in late afternoon after the traditional work day has ended, say 5:00. Only skeleton crews allowed. Permitted tasks limited to unbagging the robot, passing inspection and maybe setting up the pit. Dependening on the venue field set-up might be going on at the same time so as to minimize the disruption of facilities to the host school. Practice matches Friday morning, with qualification matches starting after lunch. Just spitballing here, I've really got no inside information.

Currently local teams miss 2 days of school to attend the regional event (Thrusday and Friday). In this model students would still miss just 2 days of school (Friday, Friday) and some would argue that it is easier to make those days up when they are not consecutive.

My initial thoughts upon hearing this proposal were not overwhelming positive. In my opinion the Greater Kansas City regional is one of the finest in the Nation. The level of competitions is always very solid, the dancing and cheering is the most energetic I've seen anywhere. The volunteers are top notch. Why mess with near perfection?

The idea continues to grow on me as I realize it is not about trying to make the top teams better as much as it is about improving the experience for the bottom half of the league. There are many teams whose robots do not meet their performance expectations at their first event, but they might be dramatically improved for a second event if they could afford to go. Sports are about teams getting better over the course of a season and peaking at the right time. This model gives teams just a little longer to "peak" if they don't come out of the gates great.

In addition, teams like 935 would have to spend twice as much for gas and hotels (total of 12 hour drive time!). Funny thing is, KC is our closest regional.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Funny thing, when I Google city to city directions it places Oklahoma City 2 minutes closer to Newton than Kansas City, Missouri. :rolleyes: Perhaps if I googled school to arena distances I might find KC closer. It's that close.

Regardless, the point is clear. In a less population dense area the GKC regional is the most attractive option for some relatively distant teams. Travel expenses would increase while still only vying for 5 or 6 spots at championship. For a similar travel expense (albeit a much larger registration fee) you could travel to two separate regionals, meet twice as many teams, and double your chances to qualify. For teams with the resources to go to two tournaments that still sounds like the better option. For teams without that kind of financial capital...?

When the comittee meets I hope they seriously consider travel grants to schools in your situation as an associated cost. I know they were hoping to be able to redistribute some money to teams with savings in this new model.

PS. If I didn't get to sleep in my own bed during the KC regional I doubt I'd find this proposal the least bit intriguing.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Spending two weekends for only one event would be a deal breaker for our team.

Why are they looking at an in-between solution instead of figuring out how to make a district system work?

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Only thing I am going to add to this thread is to mention that the Sunday we held the FTC tournament was also Super Bowl Sunday.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I'm not sure I understand the point of this system over other potential systems. What is the true benefit of more than doubling the qualification matches with no increase in the number of intense elimination matches? Sure the more qualification matches you run the more "accurately" the standings will sort the teams. But what do teams get out of playing the same teams over and over again in qualification matches. With only 48 teams and 25+* qual matches you play with or against every team almost 3 times! Seems excessive to me.


Plus if you are going to change the model of the competition why not change the way teams are selected to go to the championship? What is stopping them from splitting it into two "district" events with the top three point accruing robots going to champs after the second event? Teams don't need 29 qual matches and then one set of elims. But they could use 20 qual matches and two sets of elims. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think that the three "best" robots should accompany the RCA, EI, and RAS winners to the champs. Even though a two event system isn't nearly as good at this as say a 15 event system I think you would still get closer than just sending the winners from one event.

When I heard this idea I was sort of baffled. I hope this isn't what they end up going with. This totally takes away the clout from the event and I am almost positive that after the first year the RPC will see a significant drop in corporate financial support meaning that there will be even less money to give to teams that would have to travel a significant distance.

*Fri1:9am-6pm, Sat1: 9am-6pm, Fri2: 9am-6pm, Sat2: 9am-noon with 1 hour lunch breaks on Fri1, Fri2, Sat1 yields about 230 possible matches with a 7 min turnaround time. With 48 teams this turns out to a little over 29 matches per team.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

So going off of the 39-48 teams estimate:

Why not just directly implement what MAR and FiM do, but skip the Regional Championships aspect?

Hold two "district" events, and have every team compete at both events. Practice matches/inspection Thursday night, 10-12 qualification matches Fri/Sat AM, and then eliminations on Sat afternoon. Repeat at a different venue. Award RCA, EI, and RAS at the 2nd event, and then qualify the 3 highest rated teams by points. Every team would get 20-24 qualification matches, you would have two sets of elimination matches, and there's no problem if teams come one weekend and not the other (separate schedule). If you have ~42 teams, you should be able to squeeze in 12 qualification matches (same as MAR/FiM). If you end up with 48 teams, you would still have 10 qualification matches (same as the current KC Regional).

With a little more growth, you can go to 3 district events. 48 teams would give you 3 district events with 32 teams at each. Add a district championship if/when you grow to ~4/5 district events (80-100 teams).

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

How about we take a little more expanded/crazy view for a future district model(I have been dreaming about this for months it seams just a bit "too" crazy right now :D ). First priority we add a new regional in Memphis and Rolla or Cape Girardeau (will be a "little ;) " difficult right now). Next priority we get both Missouri Regional, the Oklahoma Regional, and the just added Razorback Regional all on board(a bit more easy than priority one). Third priority we make sure that Iowa, Eastern Kansas, Western Illinois, Western Kentucky, and Western Tennessee teams all have an opportunity to join the district. Final Priority we get the University of Missouri-Columbia on board to host the district championship in the Hearnes Center(it would be a perfect place for a district championship).
In total I had around 125 teams plus growth, 6 large district events, and 1 championship or around the same numbers as MAR, except for land size. I think we are close to being able to do this the problem is that travel would be hard for teams/volunteers for their second event. I would love to hear others opinions on this system setup.Sorry for putting this hear but I think it is possible.

As for the KC area going to a "mini" district I believe it would be good for the KC area local teams and bad for the KC teams that are not so local, Iowa and mid-Missouri teams come to mind. I also would miss seeing all of the KC teams heading across 270 for the St. Louis Regional.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

How would it be bad for Iowa teams? Our team currently travels to two regionals that are 4+ hours away, so traveling wouldn't be anything new. If we can go to two events for the price of one, I'm pretty happy.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

My thought was the two weekends for 5 qual. spots would be a turnoff. But the price for two weekends of competition is nice.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I agree, Sunday mornings are not really ideal for many. But missing nly Friday school solves that issue...

Where is the geographic center of the 48 teams, and what is the furthest travel distance? I ask because a 3 event system might be a better choice. Or a two event system, but teams are "obligated" to attend only one, and highest points winds the CMP berths. Award chairmans, EI, etc at the last event, teams "in the runnng" are asked to attend for awards (being a Saturday it may be easier to justify).

Find another 48 teams and run it like MAR....

Just thinking out loud.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I agree that a full district system like FiM or MAR would be preferred. These events started by folding multiple regionals into the system. Rumor is we haven't found a neighboring regional to pair with yet. :( St. Louis, Arkansas, and Oklahoma are all attractive options for a partnership with Kansas City. Did some thinking about what it would look like to partner with the other regional in our state and create a Missouri district. Below is my introductory analysis. Again keep in mind that I am not currently on any regional planning committee, and have limited influence to motivate change.

Unlike many states considering the district model, Missouri’s population (and FRC) centers are on the borders of the state. It would make sense to have a Missouri-plus state championship and allow teams from neighboring states to join in. It would be super if teams outside of the state could opt in or out on an annual basis.

61 teams from the state of Missouri participated in FRC in 2013.

• 29/61 played at the GKC Regional.
• 31/61 played at the St. Louis Regional.
• 1/61 played only at the Oklahoma Regional.

21/61 participated in a 2nd regional. (1 of those went to a 3rd regional)

• 7/21 teams also participated at Cross Roads.
• 8/21 teams also participated in Razorback.
• 3/21 teams also participated in Oklahoma
• 2/21 teams also participated in Alamo.
• 1/21 teams also participated in Queen City.
• 1/21 teams also participated in Hub City

Kansas had 20 teams participate in 2013, 16 of which played in the GKC regional. Most of the Kansas Teams are just over the border from Kansas City. There are no regional events currently in Kansas. 4/20 teams participated in a 2nd regional, split evenly between Razorback and Oklahoma.

Illinois had 7 teams participate in the St. Louis regional. Chicago has a regional on the opposite end of the state. None of the 7 teams aforementioned attended Chicago this year. 6/7 have attended the St. Louis regional every year of their existence and those 6 have never attended the Midwest regional in Chicago.

Iowa had 5 teams participate in 2013. 4/5 have a history of attending events in the state of Missouri. There are no regional events currently in the state of Iowa. (If Minnesota ever closes their border like Michigan has this would also greatly impact these teams.)

The Razorback Regional in Arkansas had 41 teams this year, and is located only 45 minutes outside of Missouri’s southern border. Nearly 1/4th (9/41) of the teams playing at Razorback would likely be drawn away by a Missouri district. No Arkansas teams played in Missouri this year. (I believe the health of the Arkansas regional is strong enough to deal with a district forming on their northern border, but it should be pointed out that 8 out of the 9 teams mentioned did play in the elimination rounds.)

I would love to see a 4 tournament district set up with 2 events in St. Louis, and 2 events in Kansas City. Each district venue would need to hold between 42 and 48 teams, with an event needing at least 32 teams attending to be viable. I could see KC on weeks 1 and 4, and St. Louis on weeks 2 and 5 with the championship in week 7. The championship should be somewhere between 48 and 64 teams in size. By combining 2 regionals together we should have 12 slots to send to champs. I would propose sending 2 chairman’s winner, 2 EI winners, 3 member winning alliance, 1 RAS, and the next 4 teams not already qualified based on points.

PS. I'm afforded the luxury of daydreaming here. No doubt the move of a local city to host 2 or 3 events instead of 1 is no small task. Maybe the KC proposal that started this thread is the first step in securing volunteer resources to help with the transition.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Being in a district system where there were two events in KC and two events in STL would be great for our team. I'd be excited about it if it happened.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Some interesting ideas for a Missouri district from another thread.


Since GKC and St. Louis were on the same weekend for the first time this year we never had the opportunity to get all the top teams in the state together. An invitational state championship offseason event would be a fantastic way to practice the logistics for a potential district championship without having to pay FIRST an exhorbinant entrance fee (which does not funnel back to the local tournament organizers). Lots of models (Minnesota, Indiana, etc..) to choose from. Noticed that St. Louis does not currently host an offseason event... (No pressure. :p ) Since it doesn't make sense to border off Southern Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas from Missouri, I'd invite them too based on points.

Jaxom already did a nice job of tallying up district points for Missouri and Kansas here. Just need to combine the lists and sprinkle in the Illinois and Iowa teams who attended Missouri regionals this year. (Maybe include 525 too for fun even though they, for the first time since 2006, did not play in Missouri and by school policy wouldn't be able to attend an offseason event here.)

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Sorry to "hijack" the thread but I think this would be a viable option for the offseason event that we are planning to run this fall. The event would be ran on either Aug.9-10 or just the 10 depending on what the teams want. I think we would want to invite the top 32 ranked teams that competed at both Missouri Regionals.(We would also invite teams 16 and 525 if all 32 decline.) Registration would be for $200 if we would only run on the 10th then we would run the event just like Indiana except that we would have elimination alliances of 4 with alliance selection based off of Cowtown's and VRC's additions to the selection process.(i.e. 1-8 can't pick themselves, 1 picks first during the first two rounds of selection then 8 picks first in the final round, and all 4 teams have to play at least once during each elimination round). We would highly consider doing this if teams are on board for it.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Ran the numbers for Iowa and Illinois teams that played in KC or SL to combine with Jaxom's Kansas and Missouri Rankings.
Total is the sum of 2 events. Best is the highest of the 2 events. Average is the average of the two events. I ranked on average. Of course teams who only played one event will have all 3 numbers the same. Ranking based on this. The ranking system does not award points for Chairman's, Rookie All Star, or Engineering Inspiration.

(By the way 1625 and 2451 are Northern Illinois teams, much closer to Chicago and probably not a target for an expanded Missouri district. They are marked in blue. Teams in red did not play in a Missouri regional this year.)

There are 94 teams in this list. Green line represents the top 32. For an Indiana style championship the purple line represents the top 24. If I was running a district championship with to qualify for champs I would be tempted to invite 48 teams (orange line).

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Hate to revive an old thread, but any official word on the switch? I heard from a member of our team that the motion to a district system did pass but I'm wary to accept it as final word, since the switch conversation has sorta died out.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Wasn't aware that we had taken a vote, other than one of interest in looking at options. One of the options on the table was leaving things as they are.

Part of the conversation in the meeting last month was that a nation wide district system was not a forgone conclusion, depending on which direction the new president of FIRST wanted to go. It was the direction we were going with the previous president.

I wonder if all the talk from the Pacific Northwest district thread about a nation wide system by 2017 is a reflection of that new leadership?

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Tom, I'm just throwing this out there (and this will sound crazy), but is there a reason we don't have a regional/event in Iowa? I imagine we could easily get all the Iowa Teams, a few Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota teams to come over... I think that we could pretty easily get 60+ teams who would want to play against the Iowa power houses, that would be a stones throw away :)
If KC moves towards districts, this might be something for all of us Iowa teams to consider checking into. When we were in KC I was thinking to myself, "Wouldn't the State Fairgrounds Jacobson Center make a GREAT place for a regional?" Since it does sit in the crossroads of 35 & 80! haha

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I believe that a nationwide district system would work for most teams, but not everyone. If you look at the map, states like us (Iowa) that have minimal FRC teams would have to drive aways away to district events. As it is, our 2 regionals that 967 & 525 came to are long drives 5+ hour bus rides. It's not very sustainable to have teams like ours drive to more events that are further away and get housing for longer. As I tossed out above, if KC did go to the district system, I see that as a niche for Iowa to pickup and start a regional up here to play our powerhouse teams :)

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

Could be a challenge once Minnesota goes to district format but I'd love to see it happen. Iowa is the home of the new FTC super regional so we have some FIRST success here - even though FRC has lagged a bit.

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I don't know if this would be possible, but looking at the schedule from last year, it might be... Wouldn't it be cool to have a SUPER Super Regional?!? Combine our FTC super regional with an FRC regional? :) Again, I think that the state fairgrounds (or maybe the events complex) would be a great place for it. Thoughts?

Re: KC Regional Considering District Model
 

I want to thank Aaron for describing what happened in that meeting. I wasn't able to attend but was told information would be posted on the KC FIRST website soon after. However, a month later, no word from anyone about it. I do understand that this is something that needs to be made official before anything is announced. I'm just glad I randomly stumbled on this thread.

Now about the potential move to this semi-district model. I can see the advantages as far as more qualification matches go, but I can't say I like much beyond that. KC by itself has a bunch of teams in the metro area (which is fairly sizable), but it's very sporadic once you get out of the general area. Until the number of teams increases, then I think the current regional format works until a nation-wide district system is implemented.

As it is, Hale Arena is the cheapest venue in all of FIRST. With the square footage that is available, it's an amazing deal and my favorite venue that I've ever been in for a competition (I am slightly biased :P). So I'm slightly confused as to how the RPC is wanting to move to save money, yet regionals in much more expensive venues are still operating.