Re: New York Districts?
 

Now would be the time to start the ball rolling to move to the District system for the 2017 season. It is a little too late for 2016 at this point. Next school year would be the time to scout locations so that the decision to move could be finalized early in 2016 with contracts for venues done or mostly negotiated before the end of the 2015-16 school year.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I just wonder what effect this would have, or if anyone has looked at other Districts to see how much this might affect how many teams the average team is able to see in the average competition season, primarily for the upstate teams since there are both fewer of them, and fewer locations to attend in your proposed model.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I'm not going to pretend to be intimately familiar with the geography of New York, but would it make sense for upstate to join with he New England region?
This does pose the question, then, would it make sense for lower NY to join with MAR?

I'm definitely not a fan of tiny districts confined in small geographic areas, but in also not a fan of strictly going by state lines, for these reasons. Maybe we need to stop thinking about state lines and more about where the teams are. Even districts that have multiple states still seem to follow state lines for the most part.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Kind of, and yes. Upstate usually refers to everything that's not the city or the island. The eastern part of upstate (capital region) would love to join new England. These are the teams that would play in new England regionals before districts started. For the Western upstate teams (Rochester region), we are far closer to Ontario, Western PA, and northeast Ohio than downstate or new England.

Re: New York Districts?
 

There was a time when local leaders in New England wanted to take the Capital Region of New York with us into districts. Due to a variety of reasons that didn't happen. However it is still a possible solution once New York makes the switch to districts.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The one problem might arise then, Eastern New York joins NE, Western joins Ohio, NYC/LI join MAR then where does that leave Central New York?

Re: New York Districts?
 

With either NE or Ohio I suppose.
This is one of the reasons I would prefer a unified NY district. I wish I knew who to talk to to make things happen, NY could benefit from districts so much. So many teams would get 2x the playing time they currently do, teams without practice robots would be at less of a disadvantage, every team would have better functioning robots and an easier time reaching higher levels of play.

Why is this so hard to understand for everyone?

Re: New York Districts?
 

Send an email to your RD if you have specific questions. Their contact info is on the first website. Glen, who is the FLR RD, has been very good about answering my questions over email and even visited our pit at cmp to talk in person.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I don't think its hard to understand, I think its hard for the volunteer based planning committees who are already doing so much to take on even more. Switching to districts shifts a lot of the event planning responsibilities from FIRST to the local committees and now you have a lot more events to plan. Not all potential district areas are able to take that on yet. Not to mention the added burden of unifying the fund raising from multiple areas and managing the funds. Another element is having enough key volunteers (LRI,FTA, FTAA,CSA,HF,FS,etc.) in a given district to cover all of your events. Many ducks to get in a row before making the switch.

Also, I received official word to not include Western NY in our district discussions with Ohio, Western PA, and WV.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Thanks, this is helpful to know. This is eerily similar to the pattern we saw with NEFIRST excluding New York Capitol Region teams: talk of inclusion in their district plans (mostly hearsay on CD, but some comments from reputable sources) followed by exclusion from their planning.

I guess this means that New York should not plan on any piggy-backing with other districts.

Re: New York Districts?
 

There's also a push towards recognition of robotics as a High School sport with state championships. I'd think that would be logistically easier if Districts are organized around state boundaries.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I've posted a white paper about research I did out of personal curiosity about implementing a district in New York. Posted here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3168?

I'm no longer in New York, but I am hoping the New York FIRST community may be able to make some use of the information here.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Carl,

Great job on this and you made some very strong well thought out points. We need NY to go to districts ASAP. The ROI staying in regionals makes it very hard to justify doing 2 regionals (esp. when they are back to back) when you compare it to districts.

NY also needs to do something to build up the number of teams located in that area just south of Albany and North of NYC proper (Westchester, etc.) having more teams in that location would make for a great district event that Capital Area teams and many LI and NYC teams could possibly attend.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Excellent analysis!

Re: New York Districts?
 

The LI offseason event (running since 2005) doesn't advertise on CD.
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...itational-2015
We had earlier 2004 and 2003 offseason events, but with homemade fields and field elements.
SBPLI is a strong veteran volunteer organization.

NYC has had more of a problem getting an offseason together with one at Francis Lewis HS for a few years, but it was hard to get the NYC teams out.
NYC has a broad volunteer group primarily due to supporting companies such as Bloomberg, but many of these are inexperienced volunteers and the area lacks veteran local volunteers for some key positions.