The District System
 

The dawn of the districts is upon us. There are many areas that are in the process of implementing the system, a system which has seen so much success in the past, despite a significant amount of resistance early on. So now, FIRST wants to slowly bring everyone into the model.

I encourage everyone to check out slides 4-8 of this slide show to learn more about what such a large scale implementation of districts is planned to look like.

So I am interested to find out about a few more things:

Is your area trying to go to districts? How close are you to seeing it actually happen? Is there anything that your area wants to do to break the mold set by FiM and MAR?

Do you want districts in your area?/Are you happy that your area has districts? What are your main reasons for this opinion?

Given the above slide show, which I am sure you all looked at, how do you think FIRST will deal with international teams?

Side note: I understand that some of these question have been discussed before in various threads around Chief Delphi, but I have not found a place which really looks at the district model and just tears it apart for its benefits and flaws.

Re: The District System
 

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, But all I can see in the title slide and I can't get the slides to advance.

Re: The District System
 

My fault, I linked to the mobile version of the slide show. It should be fixed now.

Re: The District System
 

I've seen the image in slide 8 a few times now, but where did it come from. It's titled "FIRST's Vision." Is it an official FIRST document? If so, why was every team not located within US borders ignored? I sure hope "FIRST's Vision" isn't to close its borders to international teams...

Re: The District System
 

They do say that Worlds will have 24 international teams. I don't think they have thought that far ahead yet.

Re: The District System
 

Funny, it worked great on my iPad...

IMHO international teams can be invited to specific "region" level events, or perhaps to the super regionals, to qualify for CMP. The big issue there is their inability to attend multiple events unless they are adjacent weekends.

Re: The District System
 

"24 international teams" is mentioned in the top "bubble". And I believe that it is either an official FIRST Document of NEFIRST's graphical interpretation of an internal FIRST memo during District negotiations.


Also, having firsthand spent two years as a student in both regional competition and district system, despite initial hesitance towards the "feel" of districts, by my second district event, I was hooked and fell in love with the system.

Re: The District System
 

24 teams=4 regionals. 2011 was the last time there were 4 international regionals (Waterloo, GTR East/West, Isreal). Since then, Montreal and Calgary have been added. We want districts too! :rolleyes:

Re: The District System
 

I think that's what it's implying...that these teams would come from districts. Also, remember, 2011 was when this chart seems to be made(and it seems like it was a vision for 2013...ha...). From what I saw discussed here, no one could have expected the growth in Calgary-area this year(you go, 4334). I think it'll be a LONG time before we see a system like the one in this chart come to life, and who knows what the area-specific team breakdown will be (ie. states splitting up, states doing double region championships[like the NEFIRST proposal])

Re: The District System
 

I'm not sure I buy the idea that this is going to save all teams money. The new and smaller teams are going to get more bang for their buck. I get that. What about the teams that go to Worlds? It's going to cost them more than it does now. Realistically, you can get to worlds with $9k in registration fees. With this new system, $9k will only get you to the State Champs. I'm guessing another $5k would be needed to pay for Worlds. This will increase the costs of teams going to worlds over the current system.

Another question: If you won Chairman's or EI at the district level, are you allowed to compete on the field with your robot at the state level? Will the tradition of having RCA winners on the field at Worlds change in this new model?

Re: The District System
 

Well, generally, (at least in MAR), there are grants available for teams from the region committee, and, from Jim Zondag's (amazing) FiM whitepaper, an effort was made to make MSC free for teams. With the system being more widespread, FIRST could possibly allow it in the future.


Also, is that question about what happens currently? In both MAR and FiM, Chairmans autoqualifies you for region/state championships, but EI does not. Teams that win EI but don't make it to region/states do make an EI presentation to judges, however, and can still win it(as evident by 321 winning it at MAR Champs this year)

Re: The District System
 

I'm not positive about MAR or any new districts, but I know that FiM invites all district Chairman's winners to compete with their robot at the State Championship. However, EI winners do not. They come and can compete for the State EI without their robot, which if they win will then get their robot invited to the World Championship.

Re: The District System
 

This is would make a load of sense, but this is not the way things currently are, correct?

Re: The District System
 

Correct. Also to note is that registration costs do not go towards running the events(this is known already, even outside of districts). Also, both MAR and FiM do not use official FIRST fields(except for, in MAR, weekends when there are two districts), but fields owned by the regional committee. MAR's this year were transported in POD storage units.

Re: The District System
 

Are these lower quality versions than what we are used to in a Regional? Do they have an FMS?

Hate to be throwing out simple questions, but I missed the conversations out districts during the VA and Baltimore Regionals.

Re: The District System
 

No problem, if you have any more detailed questions don't hesitate to message me.

To my knowledge, no, they are not lower quality, and yes, they run the full FMS, are "serviced" by FTAs, and all the ways the field is run is exactly like a normal FIRST field (save for venue-specific queuing arrangements). This year in particular it was nice to know that, with the slightly different pyramid heights, we knew 100% we were playing on the same field for 2/3 events, and will for all our offseasons.

Re: The District System
 

Identical to every other FRC field except for ownership.

Re: The District System
 

I'm glad that you are putting these "simple" questions out there. I am learning a lot about the district system, and I think it is really valuable for the community to have somewhere to look for a collection of various info about districts.

IMHO, you should continue to ask away for other people to see and learn.

Re: The District System
 

I started in FRC when my local tournament was a Regional. The year after that is when the District model went into effect in Michigan. The biggest change everyone needs to understand is that there will be more District Tournament events with fewer teams at each tournament. FIM is usually around 40 teams with MAR averages a few less. In Michigan, you play 12 matches during qualifications at both of the two District events. The smaller team count at each District tournament means it is more likely you will be in the elimination round and play in additional matches.

More District tournaments, for most teams, will mean there will be a local tournament that will be close enough not to incur a hotel bill. This local event is great for family, friends and your sponsors to attend and see why we all do this.

The district model will close the gap between power house teams and all the other teams. Most District model teams make noticeable improvements in their robot between their first and second tournaments. Giving teams more chances to learn and improve.

The District Model is the next step for FRC and it will probably not end there.

Re: The District System
 

I'm all for more time on the field. Running a small team for 5 years, I understand the disparity in FIRST. I'm just concerned about the economic strain for any team that makes it out of the State competition. There is a huge difference in 2 and 3 paid events a year. The only way this makes sense is for those who qualify for states to go for free. FIRST wants to follow the state athletics model. That's what they do: competing in the State competition is free.

Re: The District System
 

An understandable concern as FRC is not cheap by any means.

As Steven mentioned above, MAR has grants that every team is eligible to apply for and receive to help or completely cover District Championship and World Championship fees. I'm not sure what FiM does/has but I would imagine they have something similar. Where does this money come from? Those big fancy regional events cost somewhere in the ballpark of $200k (at least for the two Regional's encompassed now by MAR) which does not come from registration fees. Assuming these same donations continue, running all district events and the district championship costs significantly less (not sure of exact amount, assume <$100k). There is now extra money for operating expenses and grants for teams. As one of the MAR board of directors likes to put it at events, (paraphrasing) MAR doesn't want the reason you can't attend either the district championship or worlds to be money.

I don't know specifics for your region, but guessing from your location listed here you would be encompassed in a "Capital Region" district? If so, one of my mentors from when I went to high school is heavily involved with looking into the district model there. I ran into him and MAR Champs last year and one of our district events this year. If you send me a private message I'll dig up his contact information for you. Yes, FIRST really is a small world...

Re: The District System
 

I love a lot about the district model personally, but an issue I know the state we both have teams in is going to run into a money issue. 5/6 teams who won awards at the Virginia Regional only attended one regional event and some barely made the financial cut for championships to the point where 422 was subsidizing the costs for merit based teams to go. There are a lot of reasons some of these teams aren't making enough money, but putting less strain on all teams by dropping the requirement a state/regional CMP $4k registration fee would be nice.

Re: The District System
 

I'm not on the FiM board, so I'm not exactly sure how the price for our state championship is set. I think it is based on FIRST's standard price for teams going to a second regional, and was set up that way as part of the operating agreement between FiM and FIRST. As the district model is expanded, perhaps this arrangement can be revised to allow the various district championships to be managed along the "district event" model rather than the "regional" model (i.e., lower cost).

In Michigan, there are usually a few (2-5??) qualified teams that decline their invitation to MSC. Money is usually a factor, but many of those teams decline because they chose to spend their money on other things (for example, they were already pre-registered for CMP or they competed in out-of-state events).

The "worst case scenario" with the district system is that you pay your $5K entry fee, go to two events (24 matches + elims). You decline the district championship because you couldn't come up with $4K in March. In the regional system, you pay your $5K entry fees and go to one event (8-12 matches + elims). You didn't sign up for a second event because you didn't have another $4K last October/November. The district model always gets you more playing time for the initial investment, and gives you more time to come up with additional money if needed.

For anybody that has been following the "mentor burnout" thread (which deals with much more than burnout), the structure of the district model accomodates some of the proposed solutions much better than the regional model. Most mentors and students can attend 2 district events for the same time off work/school as one regional event. The average playing time for "elite" and "struggling" teams is brought much closer - moreso by bringing up the bottom than bringing down the top. Robot access/out of bag time can be set as desired to accomodate goals for fostering continuous improvement while preventing an arms-race mentality or "wait and copy what works" mentality, reducing the "need" to build practice robots, etc.

I realize that the district model presents some challenges to some teams, but on the whole I think it is a necessary and good thing for the continued growth of FRC.

Re: The District System
 

You say realistically, but I disagree. You're making a tremendous assumption: that a team can register for a single regional and win it. That's a 3/60*100, or 5% change a team could go. So realistically you're going only once every 20 years, unless you're a top level robot.

I realize that statistic is flawed and that many robots are perpetual bottom dwellers and others are always near the top, but in terms of chances to go you're far better with the district system. Imagine being one of those really good robots who has to go up against the 2056 / 1114 co-designed pair every single year, so you never win a regional at all.

You would be much better in the district system where you could save your money until you have a good robot then be virtually guaranteed of going. Nearly 1/2 of the field at MSC gets to go to World Championships.

1718 has gone to worlds every year the district system has been in place without ever winning a district until this year.

Re: The District System
 

The MSC was designed to be 100% free to teams. FIRST headquarters made the $5k fee mandatory.

Re: The District System
 

Teams who qualify for a championship should not face a prohibative financial burden. Would love to see FIRST compromise here, and maybe with our new president there will be some opportunity for renegotiations.

Currently the registration fee for Worlds is $5,000, and the fee for a second regional is $4,000. I could invision a compromise where we charge a $5,000 entry fee to the state championship, pass along a lesser amount to FIRST HQ, and use the difference to cover the World championship registration fee for those that qualify along with a $1000 travel stipend to the teams who didn't qualify so they can send some representatives to champs as spectators.

For example if 48 teams attend a state championship that advanced 12 slots to the world championship $60,000 would be needed (minus two $5,000 grants from NASA which covers the 2 EI winner.) to cover the championship registration fees. If $240,000 were collected in registration that would leave $190,000. Give $1,000 travel grant to spectate at champs to each of the 36 teams who didn't qualify and that would leave $149,000 to pass along to FIRST HQ, or roughly $3,200 per attending team.

Re: The District System
 

All district teams get two events for the price of a regional. Even if they do not go to the district championship, they are way ahead of the game. We have some teams who do not attend the championship.

Re: The District System
 

What is FIRST's justification for this? Is it that it is unfair to give some teams 3 events at the same cost that other teams get 2 based on performance?

Re: The District System
 

I think it would be unfair to give teams 3 competitions inside a district system compared to a team getting only 1 regional. Maybe that was their reasoning.

Re: The District System
 

Well by that logic it's unfair to give teams 2 competitions for the price of one.

Re: The District System
 

IDK, that may be their logic; or it might not be. I personally believe that it is unfair for teams to be able to go to 2 competitions for the price that others get 1.

Re: The District System
 

I see it as they're leading the charge to get everyone two competitions for the price of one. If they weren't allowed to do it until everyone could, it would never happen.

Re: The District System
 

Really?

You do know, of course, that the $5,000 entry fee does NOT go towards the costs of running a competition, right?

So what you're saying is that it's unfair if the organizers are efficient with their money and can run two* districts for the price of a regional. Not sure I can buy into that.

*or several.

Re: The District System
 

I mean from the team's perspective.(this whole thread has been from the team's perspective) Allowing only a portion of teams to attend competitions at half the price that other teams can is pretty much saying that certain teams' seasons are worth more than others'.

Re: The District System
 

I have never understood the "fairness" argument against the district system. Of course it's "unfair." It's a new, improved, system designed primarily to drive costs down, and I would hope that this serves as an incentive for many regions to adopt this new, improved, cheaper system. Don't drag other regions down just because yours isn't there yet.

Re: The District System
 

I was hesitant at first but the cost reduction outweighs the negatives. You pay $6500 for 24 matches(12 in each event) plus another $4000 for an additional 10-12 at District Championships (as was case at MAR). 36 matches in one year is hard to argue compared to 8-10 matches that certain regionals have. The districts are much more low key with fewer teams per event. This far outweighs the past costs where you would pay around $6000 for 8-10 matches, if you lose 4, it becomes hard for certain teams to win and you go home with a sour taste in you mouth. Spending 6 weeks to build a robot just to have it lose within a day. With districts, you can at least have another shot.

Re: The District System
 

Just because I dont think it's fair doesnt mean I dont want them to have it. Life aint fair, this is just another life lesson FIRST will teach kids. Do I think it is unfair both for an overall experience and a competitive experience, yes; but do I think it would also be unfair to not allow FiM and MAR to not do this just to make everyone else feel equal, yes.

Re: The District System
 

For my team and the others in the New York capital region, it is difficult to say what our "area" is. We are located 3 hours north of NYC, 3 hours south of Montreal, 4 hours east of Buffalo, and 3 hours west of Boston. So we're kinda stuck in this middle of nowhere/equidistant from everywhere place that requires us to travel to find any FRC events.

The result is that all but 1 or 2 of the teams primarily go to New England events like WPI, Connecticut, or Manchester because they are closest. Most of us would call New England "our region" and the New England Regionals have always treated us as their own.

Now with New England going to districts in 2014 (been told this with "100% certainty", not trying to spread rumors), this will almost certainly result in precluding us from competing in New England. There was a proposal brought up at one point in discussions that might allow our teams to still compete in New England, but we have heard that FIRST has dropped the banhammer on that. While it is disappointing for us to be locked out of the place where we have competed for the better parts of 22 seasons, I do understand that the lines need to be drawn somewhere.

Luckily, in an effort to accommodate our teams' situations, an Albany, NY regional event has been confirmed for 2014! It's exciting that FIRST realizes the need to give the fringe teams a place to compete. We will miss competing with the friends we've made over the decades, but we are looking forward to the opportunity to grow FRC closer to our real home and meet other teams we hadn't had the opportunity to compete with before. And hey, maybe even some NEFIRST teams could make their way to Albany next year!

The district system is a mixed bag for us. I was ecstatic at the possibility of being included in an NE district model; the sooner I can get more matches and better competition for the same amount of money, the better. However since it appears as though we may not be included in the NEFIRST system, it does have its setbacks for our team.

That being said, I for one am pleased and impressed that FIRST has recognized the need to host events for us fringe teams to give us an avenue to compete. Rest be assured: they are not forgetting teams that have reasons to dislike the district system. They are simply transitioning to a newer system that should, on the whole, serve the organization, its members, and its teams better.

Re: The District System
 

Do you know where and what week? I hope there are veteran NASA grants available to the new regional.

Re: The District System
 

For all those teams that are in regions looking at adopting the district model this is not something that just happens, First does not do it for you. Who is MAR? MAR is a non-profit corporation that produces the events. We are MAR. All teams in the MAR territory collectively produce these events. We pay for them, we volunteer and run them. It is allot of work to make it happen and it only works if all teams come together and make it happen. One more time - First does not do it for you, First does not fund it, You collectively have to do it. You collectively through the District non-profit sign a contract with First to produce these events. It is a tremendous volume of work to do this and it only works if you all come together and support it. It will become your family. If teams do not come together and make it work, it will be a failure. Are you willing to take one more weekend off and volunteer at a district? Are you willing to become a ref, an inspector, a field reseter? Will you attend District meetings and help on committees? If you don't like this and enough members of other teams feel the same then the risk of failure is high. Teams need to discuss their part and the demands of become a district model team.

Re: The District System
 

Thanks, that was really good advice. I never really thought about districts in this way, although my team does want to get more involved in NEFIRST (New England Districts).

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One thing that I have not really heard much about is how the robot unbagging period compares to the Thursday of a regional. Is it bad that you have less time with the robot, or is it better because you are in your shop and free to do it whenever?

Re: The District System
 

Can I get more information about this? How much difference and how/when did you know?

Re: The District System
 

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. When I mention slightly different pyramid heights, I'm simply talking about the FIRST-standard allowed tolerances(ie. it wasn't like one pyramid was 2 inches off). Knowing the heights of the pyramid came from the allowed time to measure field elements, as mentioned in the manual this year.

Re: The District System
 

All of the pyramids for every field were at slightly different heights. That's why most events had a period where you could measure the field. Because MAR used the same field for nearly every event, you could know the pyramid's height before you went to the event. Furthermore, it was always consistent so climbers didn't need to change their mechanisms for the small variations.


I hate Thursday. Its the biggest waste of time. Nothing significant ever gets done. I hated ever second of Thursday at MAR Champs. The unbagging periods are infinitely more useful.

Re: The District System
 

The reference was made that it was known for 2 out of 3 events, the pyramids would be the same. I am just asking what the difference was and how you knew it before the event?

Re: The District System
 

It depends on what you have, what you have to do, and what you usually leave behind. In our team's case, we should be doing driver practice, just like would happen in the practice matches. In reality, we're fabbing and mounting the items we developed on our practice bot (can't mount anything not developed during the 6 hours). We do take a little time making sure the competition bot runs similarly to the practice bot.

Without the unbagging time, we wouldn't have ever figured out why our potentiometers have been wonky for several years (300 degrees of turn, 60 degrees of response).

Re: The District System
 

2 out of 3 events my team attended, (Bridgewater-Raritan and MAR Championships) were the only MAR events running that weekend, so it was certain that we had the MAR field, whereas TCNJ was the same weekend as Chestnut Hill, so without inside knowledge, there was no way to be sure that that was the MAR field.

Re: The District System
 

Thanks

Re: The District System
 

If you were wondering, the MAR field was at Chestnut Hill that weekend. The field at TCNJ was a FIRST field. One quick way to tell is if there is a giant CRT monitor at the scoring table. The MAR field does not have one so we either make do without one or have a standard computer monitor hooked up like we did at Monty Madness this weekend. This monitor shows the "audience screen" feed from FMS for the scorekeepers/field staff, which is traditionally directly overhead/behind them at regional events.

Re: The District System
 

Can you cite the rules supplement or wherever this is stated? It seems strange to me since I thought the intent of the 6 hour window was to replace Thursday at regionals, where teams can bring in prefabricated items.

Re: The District System
 

Materials can be fabricated outside of the 6 hour window. However, they count in your 30 lbs withholding allowance. Items fabricated inside of the 6 hour window do not count. So as long as your withholding allowance stays below 30 pounds, your fine. Anything after 30 and it has to be during the 6 hour window.

Re: The District System
 

This unbagged period may have just made me a VERY happy coach. 8 hours to work on the robot at our build space? We get one of these before every district event? :yikes: :yikes: :yikes:

Re: The District System
 

Ah, I see. That makes a lot of sense.

Re: The District System
 

6 hours, but yes, in the district system you get 6 hours to use at your build space within 1 week of your upcoming district event (but not regional championship). You can split this 6 hours up into different intervals too, but the minimum interval is 2 hours out of the bag, at least in MAR (i.e. don't open the bag for just 5 minutes of work, because that will count as 2 hours).

Re: The District System
 

The first year in Michigan it was 8 hours. No limit on minimum. It just had to occur within 1 week of the district event.

Re: The District System
 

At MSC, qualification matches start on Thursday afternoon - similar to CMP, except the 64 teams each get 12 qual matches.

As for the district events, I have never regretted not having practice day on Thursday. The 6/8 hour unbag time in our own shop is much more useful. At MI disricts, pits open Thursday evening and they try to get the robots through inspection. They run unscheduled practice matches early Friday morning and try to get every robot on the field at least once to make sure their radios communicate with the field. In other words, between Thursday evening and Friday early morning, we are able to accomplish most of what happens on Thursday at a traditional regional. Since the districts are limited to 40 robots, we still get in 12 qual matches in by noon Saturday.

Re: The District System
 

Ah, yes, now I get your point. The current Regional system, with less than half the play time for the same price, isn't as fair as the District system.

Re: The District System
 

Wow, really? Can I ask what the MSC schedule was? (i.e. Do we know why this is now different between district regions?)

Re: The District System
 

My parents always told me the fair was at the Union Fairground in August.

Re: The District System
 

It was a pilot that year. Lots of little differences. Not really sure why the Delta happened but it happened year 2.

Re: The District System
 

I can't find the information confirming it, but I believe the Day 0 schedules were lengthened after the first year. Most likely a lesson learned from the pilot year to lengthen Day 0 for load in, inspection, and connecting to the field so that teams can hit the ground running the morning of Day 1 and not miss any practice or qualification matches.

Re: The District System
 

The first year of MSC was run as a traditional regional. FIRST truck, Showready, etc... It followed the traditional regional schedule. So we had practice matches all day Thursday. Teams only got 9-10 qual matches that year since we started matches on Friday.

Re: The District System
 

That's been a mixed bag for 1712. In 2013, we definitely need the unbag time in our own shop much more than practice time. We still had plenty of work left to do on our machine, and having access to it in our shop was tremendously beneficial (even after our first event).

In 2012, however, we were essentially done with our machine a few days prior to bagging it. Having access to a full field would have been tremendously beneficial for testing/tuning our autonomous, getting additional driver practice, and would have revealed to us that our bridge manipulator was going to have issues with a competion bridge (as opposed to our team drawings bridge, which it could tip just fine). It could have helped us prevent the most significant issue we battled with through both of our 2012 districts (eventually solved at MAR championship).

Re: The District System
 

I understand your point here, but I want to counter your point with this:

Teams get to attend two district events for the price of one regional, but they have *no way of qualifying for the World Championship Event* at these districts.

So, the price of two districts potentially earns you a chance to compete at the State Championship level.

And the price of one Regional potentially earns you a chance to compete at the World Championship level.

Re: The District System
 

That makes a lot of sense; but I do believe that if you asked most robotics kids if they wanted 20-24 guaranteed matches w/ possibly more in eliminations and have a chance at a state championship berth(adding in 10-12 more guaranteed matches w/ possibly more in eliminations) and then possibly a world championship berth vs. 9 matches with a chance at a world championship berth, I would bet 9/10 times they would pick the 1st choice. And that 1 time would be the kid who are in their 4th year and hasn't been to the World Championship yet.

Re: The District System
 

I'm not sure what you are trying to say with this hypothetical prediction.

I definitely prefer the opportunity of two district events over one Regional, but I'm not sure what that's saying about it being "fair."

Should Districts be just as expensive as Regionals just to make it "fair?" That seems like backwards logic to me.

Especially as FiM does not see most (any?) of the money that teams pay toward the FiM State Championship event. How "fair" is that? FiM teams are paying $5,000 towards an event and the money isn't even used to run that event?

If we want to talk "fair" in financial terms, then it would be interesting to see what Regionals are using money from outside teams' registration fees.

Re: The District System
 

I'm not arguing for "fair." My original comment was a Devil's Advocate post.

Re: The District System
 

Neither FiM nor MAR see any of this money, but I was under the impression that most events do not. (I'm still not sure that's "fair", but I really wish I understood better where all that money goes.)

Re: The District System
 

I will admit that I just walked into this discussion, but I feel you (all) should know that the money for a regional does NOT come from registration fees. All of the registration fees go to FIRST HQ. Any money needed for a regional is raised by the regional itself.

Re: The District System
 

That is correct.

In thinking about MSC and the costs, I'm no longer quite upset at FIRST as I was before. Consider that the Michigan District system supplanted something on the order of 7 regional events.

*Warning - Guesstimates Below*
In the standard regional event there was somewhere around 60 teams. 60 * 7 (old Michigan regionals) = 420 "teams" that played during those events.

At the time, Michigan had approximately 150 teams. Those teams still pay to play in Michigan. It's likely that many of the rest of those 420 teams were playing their second regional in Michigan. (420-150) * 5,000 = $1.35 million dollars.

I'm sure their loss due to the FiM system is much less than that in reality. Some of those 270 'teams' that used to play in Michigan play else where instead, so FIRST doesn't really lose that all that money. If someone would like to quantify this in a better manner, please do.

I'm guessing that it was the loss of revenue that caused FIRST to make Michigan teams pay for entry into State Championships. That's around $320,000. If I haven't overlooked something major, it appears that FIRST may have lost a very substantial amount of money letting Michigan go to a district system. Have I missed something major in my guesstimates?

Re: The District System
 

In general, as a student, I enjoy the district into state competition more than the prospect of going to a regional. The district system allows for teams to say, Well here we will just say what the heck. Lets just test lotsa stuff and see what happens and then the second one, just dominate the field and wreak havoc everywhere. I do understand that it cost more, but competitivly FiM and MAR show a high caliber of teams similar to St. Louis and even if our team does not compete, I will always enjoy its high class.
With regards to the South Western region -Silicon and L.A. I do believe they would benefit from begining a district system and I would enjoy the new hot spot Week 7.

Re: The District System
 

Oops, should have added this too.

Everything I have heard form the NE FIRST crew says that the $5k you pay for your district registration fee goes directly to FIRST as well. However, the money you pay for a 3rd + district goes directly to the district, and the fee is set by the district.

Re: The District System
 

It is not entirely correct to say that no registration money paid to FIRST is ever used to help pay for a regional. In fact there are occasionally situations where a planning committee is unable to raise the complete amount needed to pay for their regional (say when a major sponsor backs out last minute, or local economic circumstances result in difficulty raising enough funds to fully pay for all of the costs of an event). In these cases, FIRST has been known to help make up for the shortage. FIRST also returns some funds to Regional Directors by way of a few hardship grants used to lend a hand to some local teams coming up short on funds needed to make registration fees.

Re: The District System
 

To add to this. I know, as of at least December '12, and according to Jess and Mike over at NE FIRST, $1000 of the $5000 teams pay for their district registration comes back to the region (FiM, MAR, NE FIRST, etc.).

Re: The District System
 

MAR does receive $1,000 per team from their initial registration. I think the operating budget from 2012 was around $400,000, so the remaining $300,000 was sourced from corporate/individual grants and donations.

I believe that the money for 3rd event registration goes to FiM/MAR ($500 in FiM, $1000 in MAR).

For 2013, MAR teams paid around $760,000 in registration to FIRST (MAR events only), and should have received $109,000 back (+ 3rd event money?). Not sure what operating costs were for this year (added another district event, but Lehigh was likely cheaper than Temple).

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Michigan switched when it was around 120 teams with 3 regionals. The regionals had 36 (detroit) 45-54 (West Michigan) and 60 GLR. Typical regionals are actually proabably on average 50 teams. As registration typically covers first event, and most teams would only go to 1 event if they had to pay for a second event, in reality witht he current size of Michigan, we would only have about 5 total events in the state maybe 6 (see CA which is nearly identical number of teams). If you assume 6 events with an average of 50 teams, this is 300 slots. for 200 teams, the 300 slots would be 2 slots for 100 teams, and 1 slot for 100 teams. Thus 200 slots would come from initial registration, and 100 slots would be the $4K second event dollars. These 100 slots would now need to be contrasted to the current 64 slots that MSC has, thus in reality, FIRST is loosing 36 slots worth of registrations or about $4Kx36=$144K. While $144K is nothing to sneaze at, I think it is a more realistic value of FIRST's "loss" relative to FiM.

Re: The District System
 

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?

Re: The District System
 

This is always a struggle for us. We qualified by winning from 16th draft pick in both years of MAR, so we literally had no clue if we'd be going until the final, final score came up. Other teams might have an idea bit earlier, like those a the top of the points ranking going into Region Champs, but I don't know if they make plans around it. Other than that, qualifiers don't know until they get their award or the final points come out. (HOF, Einstein 2012, waitlist, regional qualifiers, etc excluded.)

I believe Steele does reserve hotels for Week 7 teams, though I know they're not the most beloved contractor in the FIRST repertoire. Even at such a late date though, most of our families make their own arrangements (with unaccompanied kids joining different ones), and most of them got hotels in reasonable walking distance. I myself got one much cheaper than Steele only a few minutes out, but large groups are harder if you have to travel that way.

For flights, most of the MAR people I know fly, not the least because it's one less day off school/work. Our team's about half and half, but again those that fly (and drive, for that matter) make their own arrangements in small groups/families. It'd be really cool to get a sponsorship X Airline that reserves N seats on Wednesday morning (?) flights. Maybe free, but more realistically they offer them at, say, what the lowest Expedia price was in January. First dibs to qualifying teams, and then open to other FIRSTers (maybe to the district RASs? ;)) who'd like to go.

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There we go. I knew someone had more info than I did.

If you consider that every area will likely end up in some type of district format, it's clearer to me why they insisted we pay for State Champs, and why I expect other areas will do the same.

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This is the worst part of the district model, at least for regions that are 10+ hours from CMP in a car. Flying our "travel" team (~30-35 students and a couple of mentors) costs less than taking a bus and booking another night in a hotel.

We gambled a bit this year - we booked flights after our 2nd district event (week 3). At that point we were ranked 2nd in MAR, and there were only two more district events, so we had a good idea of where most teams would be sitting point-wise before MAR CMP. We modeled a couple worst-case scenarios and felt confident enough to book flights before it became impossible or prohibitively expensive.

As for forecasting the qualifiers - it's probably easier in Michigan since they have more point based slots (in absolute terms, and also as a percentage of all slots). MAR chooses to dedicate a larger percentage of slots to "culture" awards (CA, EI, RAS). That makes it hard to get a good idea unless you're in the top 2/3 heading into Region CMP.

The best team to miss CMP this year was ranked 8th before CMP, the lowest ranked team to qualify by points was ranked 18th. The 42nd ranked team missed the cut by 8 points and the 59th ranked team missed the cut by 5 points - so there is some chaos possible. Last year the 5th and 8th ranked teams missed the cutoff, and the lowest ranked team to qualify by points was ranked 22nd.

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Has anybody here been on/know a team that was unable to attend champs because they found out too late? Also, of the teams who qualify for champs, about how many end up not attending?

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I'm not sure on finding out too late, but every year one or two teams do not attend the MSC. I assume for different reasons, varying from time out of class and money.

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For FiM, a little bit of math can give you a good idea on where the points cut of might be and it's been pretty accurate over the 4 years of district play. For this year, if you were a alliance captain or first pick in both districts events and finished in the semi's once, you were pretty safe. Anything less than those results and you were on the bubble.

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I'm sorry, I was not very clear. When I said champs, I meant world championships, not district championships.

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The time frame looks like it's going to get tighter and tighter when it comes to making travel arrangements. If the district model is the way of the future, would it make sense to have a 6 week competition season before the "Championship" season. If we condense, it would allow for teams to prep for the trips in St. Louis.

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The same would apply. My team 326, did not attend the world championship in 2009 after qualifying via points as we did not have the money.

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I was wondering this too. If some districts could potentially condense their competition season down to 5 weeks to push their Championship sooner allowing more travel prep time.

This would mean other teams have an extra week of work/iteration time than mine but if it means more of my team can afford to attend the championship with more reasonable prices I'm all for it!

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FiM is already at two a weekend for 5 weekends... Not to many more volunteers to go around.. The week 6 event at Bedford was added late as well...

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Please, please, please, please, PLEASE have a week off between the end of district play and the beginning of regional championship play. MAR was inviting teams to fill the last couple spots at the MAR championship the morning of load-in. Having a week 6 district and a week 7 championship is way too demanding on teams.

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Would you prefer to have MAR champs a week later and have one week less to prepare for the World Championship?

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From what I understand, MAR is pushing back the districts back so that the last one is week 5 rather than week 6 to avoid this problem. I believe Bridgewater will be a week earlier and Mt. Olive will move to week 1 next year

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I'd rather us not skip weeks 2 and 5. FiM had two in Week 5 and none in Week 6, and we had a Week 5 (and no 6) in 2012.

To be fair, I suspect HQ knew it was coming, but they didn't want to land on Easter. Not sure why MAR avoided this when no one else did, though.

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Another thing to keep in mind is that MAR has tried to avoid having events conflicting with Easter weekend, and next year's Easter weekend is much later than the last two years(ie. past the 7 week competition season).

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To be honest, I'm not even sure that week 2 should be an off week just because of HSPA testing. I believe it's typically administered Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The district events are Friday night setup and then Saturday and Sunday competitions. Not much of an overlap

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Completely agreed on this point and Sean's point about leaving a breather week.

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As a member of the original NJ planning committee and now a MAR board member, I can tell you the no week two events is more of a venue specific problem than an always no week 2. It would be better to host a PA based event for many reasons. 1) We have to set up earlier than Friday evening, so we are inconveniencing schools. Schools are giving the HSPA and do not want any other chaos on their school on that day. If there is bad weather, HSPA moves to Friday. Also, whether you agree our not, many school districts have a NO fieldtrip policy the week of those exams. A huge problem happened before districts when FIRST signed a week 2 contract with Sovereign Bank Arena and we had to alter the Thursday schedule to start at noon and end at ten. My team had to go to the board of ed and plead their case too even attend. We were told that we could go after the test, but if there was bad weather that week and HSPA moved to Friday, we could not take a single junior whatsoever. They could ride the fan bus on Saturday. You cannot create a scenario that handicaps teams. There may be a week two this year; it is all about scheduling.

I personally looked into holding rooms at champs for MAR. Steele meetings position was they were never in a position where they could not house a team from a week six or seven event so we couldn't hold an entire block of 150 rooms just for MAR. Also, I personally looked into holding 90 tickets out of philli and 90 out of Newark. The cost is prohibitive. We have to pay upfront which tires up assets we don't have yet in MAR, and what if no-one uses them, MAR is out a lot of money. I am looking into it again this year.
I struggle with the idea of a week 6 or week 7 championship they both have pros and cons. week 6 means the 12 teams qualify have more time to plan for St Louis at the inconvenience of the other 40 teams that are attending the MAR championship.week 7 means that all of those teams have an extra week of planning for the marching p.m. ship however the cost associated with those 12 teams going to World Championship a week later is significant.airfare has gone up at least 100 to 200 dollars a seat and it's difficult to get more than 20 seats on the same plane at that point. it was rather a nightmare having people know two days in advance if they qualify for March championship but most of the teams were well prepared to just jump in run holding hotel rooms already in having busing already scheduled only one or two teams that I know we're unable to make a transition and that was because of various factors one being poor planning on the mentors parts on that team. there is a logical point cutoff as to where you could really determine whether or not you were going to even be invited and most teams could mathematically at least figure out that they were probably going to be invited to the March amp in shipping had plenty of time to prepare.I am personally torn is which I think is the best option inconvenience for tea to help 12 save money to championship or inconvenience 12 to help the 40 and also it's a volunteer issue to make sure we have enough volunteers going back to back those weekends.someone suggested going to a 5 week schedule which Iunfortunately think would never happen because we are then asking all of our volunteers to probably volunteer two weeks in a row maybe 3 weeks in a row and some of them would volunteer 5 weeks in a row the amazing one to come and help set up the field breakdown the field and behind the scenes stuff that none of you see.

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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.

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Since no one has said this yet, I feel like there is a serious problem that I have not yet seen. What if all of FIRST became districts? Regardless of which events teams went to, the team could be from NY go to a district in CA and then another one in TX, the first two events count for points. Then whatever your home "region" is is the district championship that you could qualify for based on points. From there it would follow normal district CMP rules to determine who goes on to World Championships.

This would help with the overall positives of a district system while still seeing the great and fun competition of 233 or 846 going up to Boston, or 125 in Orlando.

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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.

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