Chief Delphi - The District System

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Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Ross (Post 1276761)

Funny that you chose a team that traveled to 2 US regionals in 3 of the last 4 years.

::rtm::

Well... That's awkward. I just chose 383 because cmrnpizzo was referencing teams at the Boston regional in the last 2 years, so I decided to do the same. Did not know that they were one of the few teams in distant parts of the world whom actually attend 2 regionals.

I still stand by my point.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1276716)

Even if that was the only alternative (it's not, as pointed out by other posters), yes. A week less to prepare for St. Louis still leaves several days to prepare. Infinitely better than trying (unsuccessfully) to fill spots the morning of load in at MAR Championship.

Having a school bus drive you to a competition or booking airfare is simply not a reasonable comparison. This is MAR. We are not within driving distance of st Louis to commute home each night. Over half of the teams attending MAR champs didn't need to book hotel rooms. We all need to book hotels in St. Louis. If you are talking about unreasonable expectations, FIRST wanted a check cut by my board of ed within 24 hours of offering me a waitlist spot. They wouldn't take a purchase order. That is unreasonable, not having sixty teams in MAR who know they have a good shot at going to MAR champs being told to confirm the travel plans they already secured. The one team who fell through wasn't prepared to even consider going and had no intention of taking their students. Those students were mad and had a huge meeting with their superintendent after saying this is unacceptable and will never happen again. That is why they were filling one spot Thursday morning.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pault (Post 1276763)

Should have gone with Chilean Heart (I forget their number). Went to GLR in 2008, then were shut out of MI due to districts being implemented. They've found a home in Los Angeles ever since.

Deciding what district an "outlier" falls under should, IMO, be left up to the team's "home" event and the team to figure out. For the Chileans, their "home" event is Los Angeles; should California go to a district format, I would be all for allowing them to join that district rather than having to find a new "home" event.

The other part--attending two events with high travel cost/awkward time to get there--is not just a problem for international teams outside of Canada. There's the HI and Israel regionals, with their team groups, which are too small for a district system currently (and, in the case of HI, in-state travel can be a bit of a pain if you have to switch islands). There are some other blocs of teams--Kansas City among them--that are in a similar boat but could theoretically combine with another bloc to form 2-3 district events with a "reasonable" drive time. There's the UP teams in MI, who have to travel with hotel to a minimum of one if not two events.

That said, there are ways to make it manageable; for example, I could see international teams going to back-to-back events in Weeks 1/2 and taking the intervening time to do some tourism. It could also be possible to apply a "correction factor" to the points for teams that can only do one event, or have certain championship events have "at-large" slots for international teams on top of their in-district slots.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pault (Post 1276754)

This is a great idea, but I see one problem: FIRST becoming 100% districts. Why, because it is easy for the U.S. and Canada to do districts (for the most part, at least), but what about those international teams, like 383 from Brazil? It is difficult enough for them to make 1 competition, but 2? And then if they make district championships, 3? Not to mention how it would be decided what district they would fall under. I just can't see FIRST going all districts within the next 15 years, and by that time who knows what crazy new system they will have found to manage teams. If a 100% districts system does happen, I sure would love interdistrict play. But the chances of that are pretty low.

I understood the reference ;) This is where the system would get a little bit wonky but it could still work. Like when hypothetical rankings are placed on CD, the international team could only attend one event and then have their points doubled to compensate for one less event. Then, if they were to qualify for district CMP there would be an additional spot added to that competition so that a team who otherwise would have qualified wouldn't lose their spot based on an assumption.

This would help limit the number of competitions that international teams are *forced* to attend while still providing them a nearly equal opportunity.

I forgot to define international. I think that it would be safe assumption that anyone outside of continental North America could be considered international. My apologies to 359 and company, but Hawaii is essentially international territory in terms of location.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14 (Post 1276796)

the international team could only attend one event

I might be taking this in a different direction than you intended. I haven't been to a district event, but can anyone who has comment on how they would feel if they only attended a single district event for their entire season? The concept of getting more bang for your buck has been thrown around quite a bit, but I don't see how only attending a single district event all year and then possibly not qualifying for the district championships would in any way benefit international teams. You can't auto-qualify all international (extracontinental?) teams. Some regions could support at least a few district events, but some teams would be stranded if all of FIRST transitioned without adding significant international team growth. Unfortunately, significant international team growth requires more international events, which, in turn, require more teams, which, in turn, require more events, which, in turn...

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZehP (Post 1276799)

Pardon me, I didn't mean for to appear that the international teams were only allowed to attend one event. It would be their decision to attend 1, 2, or more events. I simply meant that since international teams have significantly more difficulty in attending events they could opt before the season started to only attend one and then have those scores doubled, or like 383 does simply attend multiple events.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZehP (Post 1276799)

The international (OCONUS) teams that already only attend one regional wouldn't be losing anything at all--in fact, you could argue they'd be gaining because with doubling the points, etc, the system could be set up that they're more likely to qualify for Worlds.

This would make sense, since under districts, you can be good but not awesome (what would be a regional's tickets to Worlds) at your first and even second event, yet still qualify for Worlds be winning the District Championships. (<<Us) Maybe hold N slots at Champs for single-event OCONUS teams and invite based on a quasi-points ranking.

I also wouldn't stress too much about the district vs. regional atmosphere (if anyone is). Maybe the ones in high school gyms wouldn't be so great when crossing an ocean, but there are districts at universities. Plus, some big-city regionals could probably turn into double district events in same/similar venues and keep their same "big show" impact.

Re: The District System

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrendanB (Post 1276444)

During a meeting last night to discuss NEFIRST something that was brought up was the timeline for qualifying for St. Louis. This past year our team qualified in week 6 and experienced a massive scramble to organize travel for 42 people to travel from New Hampshire to St. Louis. This wasn't easy. Chasing down plane tickets and group travel (not necessarily for the rate but to have everyone together) was extremely hard to do 2 weeks out with Southwest nearly telling us to forget it.

As the district model expands with NE going into it this upcoming season, how will travel plans to St. Louis change? In 3-5 years down the road we could nearly 50%+ of teams attending St. Louis finding out a week and a half in advance they are moving on to CMP.

For regions that are closer like FIM and MAR its a solid days drive. For places like New England and further out west, hopping on a bus isn't so easy (or cheap for that matter). How will smaller teams who may have just drained their budget and their community resources just making it to the district championship afford registration + travel after potentially traveling to two district events plus the district championship? NE has several teams who for unfortunate remote reasons will have to travel to 1-2 districts plus the district championship and due to their location, there isn't much around.

Following along, how will items like flight and hotel change? Maybe we see places like NEFIRST approaching airlines and bus companies to have buses and planes ready to go for teams who qualify. We could potentially have 25 teams plus the legacy/HOF teams in New England (30). Similarly, will regions begin reserving hotels so their is a place to stay for said teams.

These were just one of the many things we discussed but as the district model expands these issues will become bigger for the areas further away. Our team barely scrapped by organizing travel this year and we aren't excited about doing it with a week to do so!

A question for the current teams in districts: Do you have a good idea of who is already going BEFORE the district championship starts?

I agree with you. The first thing I thought of when I learned of the NE district model was add both the travel expenses and travel timeline and while the expenses increased, the timeline decreased making travel much more complex and expensive. Mentors from several CT teams met just this week to discuss if there are ways we can possibly book travel early as a huge group to be utilized by whatever team needs it. There would be a lot of rules and guidelines we would have to put in place but it's an idea we are just kicking around. I plan on contacting a travel agent soon to see if they have any ideas as well.
BTW, it was great alliancing with your team at WPI :)