Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Thread title pretty much says it all.

Are there any new districts confirmed for the 2015 season?

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I am really curious about CA...... I have heard to many rumors.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The prevalent rumor in this area seems to be pushed back a year, can't find venues. Needless to say, I'd love for this rumor to be wrong.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Jim Beck explicitly said at SVR that regionals would continue for 2015.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Yup. As said before me, Jim Beck stated that there would be a 7th regional added for next year (new one in Santa Barbara) and that CA would go to a "qualifier" system in 2016. We don't know the details yet though, but CA is confirmed to NOT be a district in 2015.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I've heard that a major issue is finding volunteers as well. And the area of the state. And that we'd need to probably double the number of events in the state to take on the extra events teams will be getting.

I'm almost wondering if we need to jump over the whole CA district system straight to NorCal SoCal districts like we all know needs to happen eventually. Might be more manageable to switch in smaller chunks. But it's really too bD this keeps getting pushed back, I'm looking forward to district play.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps this petty pace from year to year...

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I heard this from Jim, but at CMP I heard also that FIRST did not wanna add another regional but again all down the grape vine. Though it does seem likely we got another year with regionals.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I think there are more issues than what is being communicated at this point.
I know one issue is whether or not they allow other neighboring states to join such as New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, etc.

And not directly related, but having some impact are the increase no. of teams in the Pan Pacific doing FIRST.
Australia is supposed to have a regional in 2015 and talks about a "super-regional" in Hawaii.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

CA is too large for them to include neighboring states in the CA district and at this time FIRST really, really wants to draw district lines along state lines to make things easier. (They wouldn't allow N ID teams join the PNW district despite for some of those teams having to travel farther to the nearest Regional than for some of the farthest PNW District event) Yes MAR doesn't follow state lines. However the long term plan is to have the vast majority of the country in the District system and to allow inter-district play.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Allowing certain neighboring states is the direct message talked about at CMPS. I was asked my opinion on the matter both there and previously at other events.
On the flip side, because CA is too large of an area to have a district, it adds to the difficulty in trying to implement as well, which was also discussed.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Everyone keeps saying that Cali/Texas are too large to run districts, but I don't understand this claim.

The whole reason why districts work better is because (besides giving teams double the guaranteed playing time for the same cost) they make the competitions more local. (In the case of MI) Instead of having 4-5 regional locations to choose from in the state (era 2008), now we have 15 district! More events = less drive distance. For my team specifically, our drive distances were 15 minutes away and 1.25 hours away. Not bad at all.

Yes, the State Championship could possibly pose the travel problem. So just locate it in the center of the state?? Like Oregon/Washington did. Plus, nobody's forcing you to go to the State Championship if you specifically can't afford it. If your team budget allows for one event, well now you get two for the same price.

I guess I can understand the whole lack-of-volunteers problem; not every region is blessed with enough volunteer peeps to cover the need.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Of course, you can require teams to provide X volunteers.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

VA, DC, and MD will not be going to the district model next year. Hopefully 2016 though.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

When MAR went districts, I thought that would be the case of our team. Two districts and that's it, regardless of our performance and an invitation to MAR cmp. The MAR grant system has been a godsend though. I'm not sure of how it works internally, but their goal is to get every team that qualifies for MAR CMP to MAR CMP through the "MAR wallet" (it even has a twitter account) and it works. I couldn't be more thankful.

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could be wrong.

My point here is there are ways around this issue if the district leaders look into it enough.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Can students be volunteers? Just as a general question--I remember doing field reset somewhere (it may have been offseason) as an unofficial job, because they were short on people.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I've heard rumblings that an Indiana-Illinois district system was confirmed, which was why so many Indiana teams flew out to distant regionals this year. I'm about 80% certain of this, but could someone with more knowledge confirm?

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

There are positions students can do, such as field reset, safety glasses handing out etc. However, positions like MC, GA, Judging, Ref, Inspectors, they cannot.

California regionals already suffer from not having enough volunteers. I am extremely worried about even more burn out if California goes districts.

Michigan's CMP is free for teams I hear, but it could wrong.

Not free. Absolutely not free.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The story I heard is that the MSC people wanted to make it free, as it would be supported by sponsors, etc, but FIRST makes them charge the registration fee.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Every MI team is "required" to provide 2 volunteers per year (not much of a requirement / more like a strong suggestion, but many provide more than two anyway, and alot of people are repeat offenders).

Word on the street is that the MSC could have been free (and FiM wanted it to be free), but Headquarters in NH required the the additional event fee to participate at the State Championship. FiM also wanted outside teams to be able to participate in disctrict events, but again Headquarters said no.

There's some paper posted here on CD about how districts came into fruition and why they work the way they do, but I'm much too lazy to go looking for it.

Absolutely! There are MANY jobs that students can do at each event.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Under none of those positions can I find an age requirement.

http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...es-%28emcee%29

http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...game-announcer

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/judge

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/referee

http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...obot-inspector

Now in practice most of these roles are filled by adults, but that's not always the case*.


*source, I'm a referee.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Oh huhhh.... there was a page/document a while ago that said MC's are not allowed to be students (graduate students included).... now I have no clue where that page went ><

My bad then!

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

When we did our offseason competition, we had our school's Key Club partner with us because they are a huge community service organization. We offered community service hours (which are a graduation requirement at our school) for those who volunteered at the event, and just like that we had an army of student volunteers, leaving all of the adults to do the more complex jobs. Some teams that attended had extra students that weren't doing anything, so they volunteered as well, allowing us to create shifts.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I haven't heard anything about them but I'm ready for them.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Yes FiM wanted to make their DCMP free because the funds to run the event are derived from sponsors, just like all Regionals. However the current funding system for FIRST depends on those "second" play registration fees, which all goes to FIRST, to keep them in the black. Now they could do like MAR has done and provide grants to teams that qualify for DCMP but don't have the funding to attend. That is something that some of us in the PNW District have discussed working toward in the future.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I'm ready for Texas to make the switch. We currently can't afford two regionals, and a switch to the district system will make a lot of rings more convenient for us.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

There's a saying that every time you bring up switching systems in Virginia it gets pushed back a year. ;)

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Honestly, the MD area isn't ready at all for the switch (well, outside of Baltimore, at least - I've got no idea how ready the teams over there are). We need a lot more networking between the teams here if we're going to handle the logistics of going to districts cleanly. I think even 2016 is a bit optimistic, tbh.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Don't worry; between all of the mentions in this thread I think we've pushed it back to 2019.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

You sure? I was offered a position as MC a state where I was considering going to college because I knew the people out there (exact place will not be named publicly since I've decided not to go there).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Here's the whitepaper: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2804

You might be getting confused with the grant provided by the state government this year that started this year. More information about that can be read in this document.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as I know, this has been pushed back to 2016. I'd still wait for an announcement from IndianaFIRST to be sure though.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

MC's can definitely be graduate students, just very active and energetic ones. Ask Zach from the Enginerds 2009-2013. He was a old student then graduated, went to a local engineering college and comes back every now and then and MC's at some events. He is one of the better ones along with his cohorts.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I was speaking to the FIRST Regional Director of Indiana at CMP who said he was in the middle of talks to make Indiana a district system for 2015. I do believe he said it was looking bleak for this upcoming season, but he would push for it in years to come nonetheless.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Thanks for clearing that up

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The volunteer age requirement is 13 for regionals / district events, 16 for Championship. Regionals and DEs can choose to raise this age if they want.

VC'd!

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

This is disappointing news if true......

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Do you know something us common folks do not??? ;)

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Of course he does.

What Chris knows about IRI, he can tell us (or not) any time he wants.

What he knows about Indiana FIRST, may have to wait a little longer. Indiana has some of the best volunteers and planners in the FRC community. Whatever they are cooking up will be served when it is ready.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Travel distance in Texas will always be an issue. Districts will provide more events that are probably closer when more events are added but we have teams from all over the state and many will always have to travel a great distance to get to at least one event.

I live in Central Texas (Austin) and it is a 3 hour drive to two of the current locations (Houston and Dallas and 5 hours (Lubbock) for another. Teams in far West Texas will have at least 5-6 hours to get to the closest location that could be a district tournament. I know that more locations will be holding tournaments but teams in the Lubbock, El Paso and the Valley areas will have large distances to travel for second events.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I know I am not the norm, I live in South West Texas, 150 miles from any other FRC team. We are 150 miles from San Antonio, 180 from Laredo, 230 from Austin, 350 from Houston, 350 from Lubbock and 430 from Dallas. The actual registration cost of the regional is not at large as the travel and hotel costs. I appreciate the grants we have receive, as they cover almost all of our registration fees. If Texas goes to the district model, maybe they will consider travel costs for those teams that travel longer distances, which require hotel, meals, etc. that local teams do not have.

Mr. B

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

There was a couple year period in which students were not allowed as MCs. This rule has since been lifted.

With regards to volunteers, having teams commit volunteers helps with a lot of positions (field reset, queue, etc), but it's the judges and trained positions that usually present the shortages. Avoiding overworking the finite supply of qualified FTAs, scorekeepers (yes, that's already an existing position), field supervisors, etc. is diffult during the first couple years of a district system. You often see the same field crew at many MAR districts, even if their positions have been shuffled around a bit.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Looks like IndianaFIRST teams just got this email:

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Through the OSPI grants (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) Washington FIRST Robotics was able to add travel stipends to the usual grant funds for those teams that would need to travel more than about an hour or so to one or both of the nearest district events. Hopefully your state can do something similar.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

That is better news (for us) than the rumored Indiana-Illinois district. Hopefully 71 will still attend Midwest, though.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

If Indiana can make it work with 52 teams and less than 2% of the FRC populus, then anywhere can make it work. Israel is the same size, Florida isn't much bigger.

I thought we'd see California, Ontario, Minnesota or Texas go before a small state, but I'm eager to see how districts work in smaller regions.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I agree. Seeing Indiana move forward with this does give great help in setting the tone for similar size and team density states. I still see Florida waiting for the extra 40 teams to get to 150 before we go to districts.

I too thought we would see the other "FIRST Power States" go to districts before some of us smaller ones.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Isn't it easier to work districts with less teams? Less teams means less events means less volunteers needed.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I hope so. We'll find out ;)

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

There were actually only 62 teams in Florida this year so that extra 40 would only get us to around a 100.

Based on conversations I've had with people in the know districts in Florida is nowhere close to happening, even though I think it could work within a year or two.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

My understanding is that FIRST wants a minimum of 100 teams for a district. At 1 district event for every 20 teams, that makes a minimum of 5 district events (and realistically 6, since 101 teams would force that). With Indiana at a little over half that number, this would be a unique kind of district model for areas with lower team density/smaller populations.

That being said, it seems that after 4 pages of discussion, there aren't any confirmed new districts for 2015 yet.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Just for people reading the thread, California is confirmed regionals for 2015.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

At this point in 2011, MAR wasn't confirmed as going to districts in 2012 yet. Things can happen much more quickly than many anticipate. On the other hand, in some regions it only takes a couple well positioned opponents of districts to prevent them from happening.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

We don't have any set details on what the district would be when it happens. I think you might have read the post wrong, we are confirmed that we are staying on the regional model for 2015, not districts.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

You've got me trigger happy :(

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I just hope NY doesn't get any more districts surrounding it before it goes district. Since MAR and NE went district, our event choices have become very limited.

I hope FIRST creates a federal system where they define the districts within a given timeframe, so everyone is on the same page, and no areas get left out.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

With 147 teams in NY, you have more than Ontario and Texas. You are bigger than MAR and just about on par with the PNW as far as team count. Density might be a little iffy, but it can't be worse than some of area's everyone keeps pointing to.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The FIRST website has Florida listed at 112 teams; that's why I said 40 or so more to get us around 150. I dont see Florida ever going districts till we get around that number of teams. And Florida couldnt be a part of a region like MAR and PNW because of the distance that teams would have to travel.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

On another note, I wonder when teams will have the option to "join" a district not in their area?
We are running out of places to go and fast.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

As cool as new districts are, I'm personally looking forward to how the interdistrict play works out. I wonder how many teams will actually venture outside the region to go play in other districts. For example, I don't think it's really worth the investment for teams to travel far just to play in a high school gym.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I would play in a high school gym anyday in a remote area if it gave our team more chances to play at a fraction of the 20k I put up every season to compete.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

This is true. I was mainly talking about teams already part of their own district system. (For example, a team from Maine going to play in NJ)

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

While most regions experience issues with team density being consentrated in particular areas, New York is by far the worst example of this. The incredibly uneven distribution of teams in the NYC area compared to the rest of the state presents a unique challenge.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Florida's actually significantly smaller than the PNW. Florida has an area of ~66,000 sq mi, while the PNW has an area of ~160,000 sq mi (New England has an area of 71,000 sq mi, as a sidenote). The PNW also has larger length x width dimensions than FL, so straight-line distances aren't as bad either. As long as the DCMP is centrally located (i.e. Orlando or Tampa), travel should be better than what the PNW (or especially Upper Peninsula MI!) has. The districts can follow the team density so that few team will have more than 4 hours of travel for their two district events.

FIRST is sufficiently dense in a fair number of regions to enable a transition on that count... but there are other factors at play, most notably motivation to transition to districts. That motivation can overcome many other factors (i.e. younger region, fewer current volunteers, large geographic region)... just look at the PNW for that.

I have heard incredibly few complaints from district-regions saying they wish they could go back to regionals...

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Perhaps you misread my post. Florida couldnt be a part of a region, i.e. Southeast Region (SER): Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina.

When the team density in Florida reaches the correct amount, Florida will be more than capable of becoming its own district system. Just the distance that would be had from having to make a region in the southeast with the correct team density would be very difficult for many of the southeastern states.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I can see it happening. Right now a lot of teams in CT (and parts of MA) can easily venture down into MAR to compete at some of the events. For teams like us it isn't impossible (5 hours to get to NJ from southern NH) but isn't the most ideal. Troy, NY is a little further than CT in terms of distance so if New York goes to districts it wouldn't be that difficult for teams in our area to drive out to Troy.

For other teams it does get harder to see teams traveling across the country to compete but again I don't see it as impossible for a two day event in a high school. Many teams develop great relationships across the country every few years some teams travel far distances to compete to expand their horizons. For a few years, 1519's second "home" event was the North Carolina Regional competing in 2010, 2012, and 2013. That's not to say if North Carolina goes to Districts 1519 will sign up again but if its during school vacation instead of competing for a third day you can sight see or do something fun.

Time will tell but I see the most benefit for areas bordering districts who used to call other events "home". The Tech Valley Regional in New York was created to give teams in that area a close event once they got shut out of events in New England like GSR and WPI.

Who knows maybe the decreased cost of an additional event helps teams put that money towards traveling.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

There's a lot more to the quality of an event than the shape of the building. Don't forget that IRI is held in a high school gym.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

If you go through all of the pages there are teams listed that would have been rookies this year and never got numbers as well as defunct teams. No idea why they're there but its been like that all season.

When we do go to districts I believe that Florida would be a region all to itself, Georgia team density is to far from the border to make it feasible.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I'm only seeing 63 teams from Florida in 2014.

http://frclinks.com/t/FL-USA

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Interdistrict play could be interesting for us - Duluth, MN (out of district assuming no border changes) is closer than all but one Michigan event.

We travel far 'just to play in a high school gym' anyway.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

This map may be of some use to folks discussing this (https://www.google.com/fusiontables/...l=G EOCODABLE)

It is coded such that you can tell both the density and longevity of a region. Red markers are 1992-1996 rookies. Green markers are 1997-2001. Blue is 2002 - 2005. Yellow is 2006 - 2013. And Blue dots are 2014 rookies.

I apologize that it's a little ugly, my styling options are limited on Google Maps and Fusion Tables refuses to let me get the geocoded data out which means I'm stuck redoing all the encoding before I can produce a new visualization.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

What was proposed for the VA, DC, and MD district lines?

I was talking with my former coach and thought VA is sort of a pain to draw district lines for.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Not sure if it's my computer or not, but the link wouldn't open for me. I'd be very interested in seeing a map like that though!

Edit: Never mind, it works now

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Try a different browser. Opened up fine for me in Chrome on my mobile.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal. Hold two or three district events in New York City, hold one on Long Island, then one in Rochester, Troy, and maybe Syracuse or Clarkson.
It becomes significantly easier if New York becomes a district the same year they start to allow cross-district play, since then teams near Troy could elect to go to an NE event instead, and perhaps some Canadian teams could go to the possible Clarkson event.

Then hold NY State Champs in either Albany or Syracuse, with some significant sponsors helping for travel fees for some teams in NYC and Long Island that make it.

It's not easy, sure, but I'm not sure its incredibly difficult either.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

How do you figure? The DMV area has 5 very well defined population centers of teams and an operative 6th geographic center of Roanoke in the western part of the Commonwealth.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I don't if there is a bug, but I think a number of team in the UP of MI should be yellow markers (teams from 2011-2013) instead of blue dots.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Oops, my bad. That was a typo in the range bands on my end. Should be resolved now. The team number is also now a link to TBA.

Hoping I can find a quick way to redo all the geocoding tonight so I can redo this and actually style it in a less ugly way.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Thanks, looks correct now.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Quote from Jim Zondag's Paper on the District System.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

That's definitely an opinion you're stating and not one that everyone shares...there are some districts I've been to/seen on webcasts that definitely look like they would not be worth the travel for...

I find that the "smaller atmosphere factor" while isn't necessarily harmful, is something that often gets overestimated when discussing districts;I personally don't mind it/don't see much of a difference, but I've heard just as much of the opposite.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Agreed. I apologize for making blanket statements about high school events, as my experience only concerns MAR and my opinions are based soley on my experiences at these events.

And again, I'm specifically talking about 2015, and therefore I'm only discussing the four district areas we have now. I'm aware that some district teams are closer to other regionals than their own districts and would benefit in that way if that area went to districts and allowed for interdistrict play. The closest thing we have to that now is New England and MAR, which for some is a reasonable distance, for others, not so much.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I don't think the other places, states (except maybe california?) Have a travel time of 7-8 hours from one end of the state to the other. That's the issue with NYS. Majority are teams in the NYC area, with Rochester (FLR) next biggest with about 30 teams. ( 6 hour drive to NYC)

I think the FLR regional at RIT would be an excellent spot for state champs.

Also, there have been talks about districts going on...

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Before Escanaba got a district this year, most teams in the UP had a 6 or 7 hour drive just to get to their nearest event in Traverse City. Then if I'm remembering correctly many of these teams used the Western Michigan district (in the Grand Rapids area) as their second event, which is an 8 or 9 hour drive. If they wanted to do a Detroit area event we're talking upwards of 10 hours. So while it isn't fun, it is possible.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Texas travel time is far longer than most other states.

El Paso to Houston is 10+ hours. If Houston hosted the state championship some teams would need to make that drive. Even if it was some place more central like Austin it would be 8+ hrs for them.

I want to go to districts as fast as possible but we would definitely have to do something to lessen the burden of travel for some of these teams.

Another issue is funding since Texas basically has regions with in it self and sponsors may want to keep their money closer to home instead of giving it to the entire state.

The last and probably biggest problem is our lack of team growth.
Until we can start growing teams it's going to be hard to sustain districts, no matter how much work we put in. Districts may help by providing a true State Championship and having more play per team but it still won't be easy.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

The problem with that is RIT has traditionally donated the space, which is why the timing of FLR fluctuates. It used to always be week 1, now it's week 5. The venue is so good it might be worth paying for, though.

I know Code Red has thrown around the idea of hosting a district, if NY were to go District - we have the proper facilities (either in the High School, at Cornell, or Ithaca College) and a nice central location between Rochester, Albany, Buffalo and NYC. The thing is, we're not connected to the powers that be in organizing such a thing. Just some food for thought, I have no idea if the current team leadership/school district would be up for it.

Personally, I would love for NY to go district, or allow NY teams to join other districts. For us, both events require hotel stays (Rochester is a 2 hour drive, our second regional is usually a 6 hour one). I imagine capital region teams feel the same way about NE events. So why not allow a team to "check into" a district for a full season. They would pay the district registration fee, and go to say, MAR events for the entire season, and if they qualify, they get to go to MAR CMP, just like a MAR team would.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I will note that the 6-7 hours really only applies to the western UP (857, 2153, 2586) - Escanaba, the Soo, Marquette are closer to TC. Before districts, a popular choice for us was Milwaukee (~6 hr). Now, Duluth is ~4 hr.

Anyway, 857 has used as events in MI: TC+Troy, TC+GVSU (x2), TC+St. Joe, Esky+TC. Fun fact: we went to St. Joseph via MI->WI->IL->IN->MI.

And, MSC is 10+ hours (GMaps tells me it's less, but it's wrong especially if you ever have to stop).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

RIT is way too far for NYC teams and Long Island teams to travel. My suggestion would be the Syracuse Carrier Dome or the Times Union Center in Albany.
Much more centrally located than Rochester is.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

So time to throw my hat in to the Florida Debate:

Combining this:
And this:

If Florida were to go districts as Florida only 3 teams who have only ever competed in Florida would have to find new homes (3998 in Georgia, and 4707 and 4091 from the Dominican Republic) but not the main point

If we were to host 4 districts and we would stick them in population dense areas they would be:
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
and The Merrit Island/Melbourne area.
And Orlando would most likely host championship

So teams such as 2556 would have to travel 5 hours to it's closest district(s).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

California's L.A. to Sacramento time is a good solid 6 hours, depending on how much traffic you hit going through the L.A. area. I've had that one several times. San Diego is another 2-3 hours south of L.A. For anybody north of Sacramento, toss in another couple hours--not that there are all that many teams up there.

For all practical purposes, 8-9 hours end-to-end, in good traffic. Hit downtown L.A. at rush hour, or central Orange County at about the same time, or worse, Valencia (northern L.A. county, but rather busy in terms of slow traffic) at a bad time, and you may as well stop and eat for an hour or more because you'll spend at least that long in the traffic. In other words, anywhere between 8 and 10 hours depending on how skilled you are at avoiding rush hour traffic.



Now, consider this: I've traveled bit around the Midwest, though more in the northern Plains region, and to/from there from California. To get from one major city to another major city is typically about a long day (10-12 hours total); from regional hub to regional hub tends to be about 4-6 hours (depending on size of regional hub--smaller tends to be closer, larger tends to be farther). Someone from the Northeast, where all the states are smaller (I believe that the entire New England area could fit into Texas with room to spare!) wouldn't necessarily find that part easy to grasp. So, for those of you thinking that the other states don't have an end-to-end drive that is that long, imagine going from New York City to somewhere in central Maine, by way of Boston (bonus points for going through in rush hour). That's probably pretty typical for an end-to-end west of the Mississippi.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I always thought like a good way to do it(In a perfect world) in the first year of Florida districts would be one a week: Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Melbourne, Tampa, Jacksonville. Then Week 6 would be a bye week before champs at UCF.

Back in reality, though, this is why Florida is a ways off from districts. As there are enough North Florida teams to care about, but not enough team density to warrant a district.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I may be able to get Trumansburg to help out if this actually happened. We probably wouldn't be a huge help but its something. However unlikely this is it would be cool if it happened.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

From what I've heard the issue isn't necessarily DMV but what is going to happen to NC if SC goes into a district with parts (or most?) GA (as I suspect will happen).

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I was going to post something along these lines in the Florida Rankings thread, but since the debate has started again here goes.

So, here's a proposal. Instead of sitting and waiting for Florida to be ready for districts, why don't we set up a committee of people to try and prepare the state for the transition. Regardless of whether or not it speeds up the process, it will make the transition smoother if planning begins a few years before the switch happens. Districts are going to happen. Period. The question is will Florida be ready?

The committee could address problems such as:
-team density (specifically in north florida)
-scouting venue locations
-securing funds for a field
-is there a good solution to accommodate our out of state friends? Perhaps discussions with them
-team retention!!!
-key volunteer recruitment and training (this is especially important to have done early. In NE this year I knew quite a few people who volunteered every week because of the need for key volunteers)
-etc.

Do we know of anyone in Florida FIRST that would head something like this up? I would certainly be willing to help as much as I can from Boston... Thinking I might send this proposal to the RD's. Thoughts?

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Also, Andrew. Do you know of a way to show when there are multiple teams in a city? For example, 108 and 744 are both from Ft. Lauderdale so it covers up one of them and I know there's a handful of teams in Miami, but only shows 1. I think I ran into this problem when trying to do something similar a few years ago, but never figured it out.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

Google maps only has one location for a city, so it's a baked in limitation. More precise data (high schools maybe? But that would be a good deal of manual work) would separate the points.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I'm actually halfway through implementing a fix for this using leaflet.js. The geocoding tool I initially used decided it didn't like... well anything outside the continental US (somehow 383 is from Portugal...) So I'm redoing that. If you don't care about the fact that non US teams are just blatantly wrong shoot me a PM and I'll send you a link.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

I speak a too soon!

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

This a thousands times this and not just for Florida but everywhere.

It is a lot of work to make the transition to the district. For PNW FIRST originally told us they wanted us to move to the District system for the 2013 season in mid 2012. We put it off for a year and used off season events, with an official field, between the 2012 and 2013 season to start to train FTAs and other volunteers. About this time in 2013 people started to tour potential tons of sites.

One thing that could potentially lessen the cost of moving to the District system is the new field that AndyMark developed. It has yet to be approved for official use by FIRST but will be used for IRI and some other off-season events and FIRST personnel will observe how it performs and if it is similar enough with the current field. FIRST wants to be able to make a single design of game specific elements that will work properly with both versions. The AM field is set to retail for $20,000 including the 3 road cases that it fits in. This is much less than the current field purchased from the fabricator that FIRST uses and that doesn't include the road cases which is another significant cost.

Andy had fliers about the field that he was handing out at CMP.

Re: Confirmed New Districts for 2015?
 

How did they manage that? I've packed a few offseason fields, and the field barriers alone probably take up two cases. Even if you really skimp on the safety stuff (thinner field barriers, different driver station construction), I doubt your be able to fit that stuff into three road cases.

That said, if this really does work as well as a regular field, it would be really nice in terms of transportation. Few people realize how logistically difficult it is just to transport this stuff. If we could fit a field in the back of a large van or two rather than a moving truck, it would make events a lot easier and cheaper to plan.