Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

For travel to multiple events to be feasible for a large number of teams, we'd like to have a decent number of them in a certain area. You could have a team at every high school, but if each high school is 200 miles apart, districts might not work so well.

But the teams per square mile number can be skewed as well. Michigan's number is fairly high, but it would be even higher if you took into account the fact that the majority of the teams are from the southern part of the LP. Something similar could be said about Ontario.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

If the FIRST website cannot report accurate numbers, then it should not be reporting numbers at all.

I will go back tonight and redo my calculations using frclinks

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Per Capita Numbers

Texas: 132 teams/ 26,448,193 people= 4.99088 * 10^-6 teams per capita
Indiana: 52 teams/ 6,570,902 people= 7.91367 * 10^-6 teams per capita
Michigan: 277 teams/ 9,895,622 people= 2.799217 * 10^-5 teams per capita

Data from 2013 US Census Bureau population estimates.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Which begs the question, why can't we ALL run more cost effective events? If we accept the premise that the decrease in pizzaz at districts is an acceptable loss given the increase in availability why do traditional regionals have to cost so much money?

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

I understand and agree that downsizing at the event will increase play time for teams, and also leaves room to grow, I find it hard to grasp that only 52 plus new team will be in this district, knowing that you still have 60 teams competing at a single events, personally 52 teams would be nice as there will be many more qualifying matches to play if there are less teams at a curtain event, which is always nice.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

What Karthik is saying, and what will (more than likely) be the case is that there WON'T be events with 50+ teams and around 35 teams per event. And then the state championship will be around 32 teams.


For reference, the current Indiana State Championship has 24 teams competing.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

I could be wrong, but I believe the AV and a few other things essentially have a mandated cost floor due to what FIRST requires for regionals. Someone please correct this if not.

California is doing their best to run cheap events, with half of our events essentially run as close to a district as they can be under the regional model.

The bummer of all this though is even that it's great for the events to save money, since none of our fees go to the events, teams don't save any money.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

That jives with what I've been hearing. I question if all of those things actually have some value or if they are simply wasted money.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

The post-season "Indiana State Championship" this year was designed as a single-day event with only elimination rounds and no qualifying matches. It wasn't intended to be anything like a competition for World Championship slots.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

BTW, the teams/mi^2 calculation has a 0 missing from it for Indiana. The previous calculations show 0.01758, which it should be 0.001758. Actually, I calculate 0.001428 for Indiana. (52 / 36418)

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

All these numbers would be a lot easier to deal with if they were teams per 1000 square miles. Alternatively, square miles per team might be a better measure, depending on what you're trying to show.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

I updated my spreadsheet with the frclinks data and added a teams/capita section, which is based off of 2010 census data.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

Not to mention the attitude/reception from their district friends about 'stealing' a St. Louis points spot away from those who attend the DCMP, and/or from the teams at the regional for 'stealing' one of their CMP spots.

(Saying this as a team occasionally guilty of that attitude - but it's out of jealousy, I promise. If we could afford to travel out of district in addition to our absolutely ridiculous in-district travel expenses, we would.)

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

we expect to run 3 events at 40 teams per event. This likely means some teams will have the opportunity to play 3 district events. We will probably adopt the lottery model used by other districts to allocate those slots. given the low cost for this 3rd event, and the ease of travel around the state, i think they will fill to 40.

our current "state championship" is run more like an off-season event. 24 teams, a few practice rounds, then a draft based on in-season points. we invite 24 teams so all can play - it is just a one day event.

Re: Indiana going to Districts for 2015
 

There were some discussions of the choices behind the new compact district model being piloted by IN for next season at the FIRST World Conference this week. There was not a single reason given as the main driving force. Some of the reasons quoted was that they have proven they have the volunteer base to pull it off partially based on their ability to run off-season events. Their Regionals were also ones that have struggled to come up with sufficient funding in the past. So a big part of the case they made was that they really needed to make the transition to districts to ensure the long term sustainability of FRC in the area. Since they will end up with only 3 district events they will have lower infrastructure capital spending that could lower the costs in the initial season and certainly over the long term. In the PNW the need for 2 fields worth of equipment meant that there was not any cost savings for the initial season though there certainly will be this upcoming and future seasons.

Part of it was desire on FIRST's part to try a different District model that if successful could open up the viability of more areas joining the District System sooner as well as making the transition easier. It can also potentially be the pilot of district events weeks 1-4 and DCMP week 6, if they can align the dates which is one of the things FIRST has thrown out as something for other districts to potentially try in future seasons.