Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

To be fair, I'm not sure they expected MI to have scores of new teams in 2014. They announce the spots before registration is closed, don't they? If they base the 2015 allocation off of 2014 figures, FiM's numbers should go up.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

So would you want to be competing (Alliance Partner) with a team that was not playing to win, not playing to qualify for the CHP?

There is no perfect solution, so their will be some pain in the transitions.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Doesn't this happen now in districts when teams get a 3rd event. Only the first two count towards district ranking points. Has it been a problem thus far?

PS. What was the biggest factor in getting FIRST to approve districts for such a small FRC population base?

My guess would be the dedication of the volunteers that run the offseason events as well as the two regionals.

Good luck, we're rooting for you to make this a success.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

There could be some incentive for District teams competing at Regionals. Maybe a dumbed down point system for winning only. Where, even if they've done their 2 district events, they could still gain (for example) 20-30 district points by winning a regional. There would still be problems, because some teams have a lot of money, and teams that don't have an extra $5k lying around would not benefit from a chance at winning a regional.

There are no simple solutions, as every solution has its own problems.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

We already do and it's not so bad. The past two years we've had a couple dozen third district teams that aren't playing for any sort of points or qualifying. I think each year the past two years we've had a district that's more than half third event teams not playing for anything, as well as multiple events with a handful of third event teams.

Additionally, I imagine that any district team that's shelling out for a regional is playing to win even if they don't stand to qualify.

You are correct though in that it'll never be perfect :)

Edited to add: Oops. A bunch of others beat me to it. Didn't mean to pile on.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

I just ran the same numbers for Texas. Assuming the rumors of Texas going to the District Model in 2016, and assuming the number of ACTIVE teams in Texas remains flat at 245, you're looking at:

FiM has .005662 teams per Sq Mile
MAR has .003164 teams per Sq Mile
PNW has 0.001237 teams per Sq. Mile
NE has 0.003302 teams per Sq Mile
Indiana has 0.01758 teams per Sq Mile
Texas will have 0.00091139 teams per Sq Mile

Go Texas.

-Danny

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Alaska has 0.00000150761 teams per Sq Mile.

Go Alaska :P

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

this is indeed a great move im a huge fan of the district model after my first season in districts but, I do have a concern about the number of team that will be apart of this district, 63 team I believe are in Indiana and i would assume there will be close to about 40 teams at a competition and possibly 60 at championships the numbers just don't seem like enough, depending on the amount of events being held you could easily see an event with 25 teams in attendance. I really thing they should combine some states to increase the number maybe Illinois Ohio and Kentucky that would bring the total to about 120ish which is a good strong number

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Indiana had 52 teams last year: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/IN-USA

For simplicity's sake, assume net growth of zero teams. 52 teams each need 2 plays, meaning the district needs to generate 104 plays. 3 events at 35 gives you 105 plays. Then have 36 teams advance to a state championship and you're set. Yes the events are smaller than normal, but it's definitely a workable model, which is easily scaled for growth.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Danny, where is that number coming from? That's way higher then any number I have ever seen.

Wasn't it only 132 this year. Which would be only 0.00049103489 teams per square mile. In other words over 2,000 square miles per team.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

This is they key point lost on some people.

Rather than have teams continue to pay high registration fees, they pay low fees for more plays in the district model.

Rather than the local organization continuing to run high cost regionals, they are running more cost effective districts.

It certainly seems like it'd be FAR easier to increase the number of teams under this model, and far more cost effective to reach some end goal (X number of teams under the district model).

Also, the cost of switching to districts (fields, etc...) is distributed over the years as the area is currently small. I'm sure this is attractive.

One a certain critical mass is hit (cough, California), it's MUCH harder to sustain teams and much harder to switch to districts.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

I'm only seeing 132 as well: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/tx-usa

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Doesn't it make sense to compare teams per capita instead?

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

?

Texas had 132 teams in 2014, and I struggle to see that doubling in two years.

This puts Texas (268,820 square miles) at 0.0005 teams/mi² (5 x 10^-4).

PNW has twice this much, NE and MAR about 6x, FiM about 10x, and Indiana has about 35x as much density (scientific notation is your friend here). So Indiana is certainly suited to the model when speaking in terms of density.

MN, for comparison, at 186 teams is at 0.002 teams/mi² (2 x 10^-3), so 4x Texas, but still trailing behind most other districts. More importantly, we're trailing behind in volunteers and infrastructure, so we'll be a bit late to the party...

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

This confusion is coming from FIRST's website's inability to consistently and accurately report data.

If you use the frclinks.com approach, you get the correct number for Indiana and Texas. If you use the "What teams are in my area?" links, it lists inactive and unregistered teams with absolutely no distinction as to which are which for those states.