Re: New York Districts?
 

My experience is that it's hard to travel into NYC. Once you're there, it's easy enough to get around, but unless you're taking the train you've got some serious logistical issues trying to find a place to put a team bus, and it'll be expensive no matter how you do it.

Staying overnight in NYC is a heck of a lot more expensive than any of the other suggested locations. That puts it on the harder end of the scale when you consider fundraising.

I don't see why the number of parents with cars is relevant. They're not going to be the ones asked to provide transportation, are they?

Again, I don't understand the relevance. Unless you're trying to imply that the parents do not comprehend what the team does, in which case it shouldn't be hard to tell them. One would expect that the students can talk to their parents.

Can this be true? I have a hard time imagining that high school students would not be permitted to go on the equivalent of a school field trip. It's not like the world outside NYC is some crowded, dirty, crime-ridden environment. (Okay, that's not fair of me to obliquely accuse NYC of being such an environment itself. I'm just trying to understand the reasoning.)

I'm getting the impression that you're focusing on trying to travel using privately-formed carpools. What's wrong with a school bus? And I thought the reason Albany was suggested was because there's rail transportation available from NYC.

Whether or not someone is accustomed to traveling shouldn't have any bearing on someone else's planning a trip for them.

Re: New York Districts?
 

And these are the main reasons that two smaller district regions is emerging as the best option in my mind.

This year, Indiana proved that the district system could be successful with 50 teams. So we split NYC+LI into one district, and everything north of Westchester-ish into another. Each would require maybe 4 events + DCMP, and having them stay "local" would really minimize travel costs.

Plus, if inter-district play gets sorted out, then teams could still intermingle if they want, NYC+LI teams can compete in MAR, and upstate teams can go to New England events. That seems like the "everybody wins" scenario, even though it bring a new host of problems surrounding inter-district play.

Re: New York Districts?
 

For all non-selfish reasons, I have to agree that this becomes the better option for most teams in NY.
The other similar option that benefits the international teams is to have upstate NY become a district and leave NY as is. Maybe even add another regional event to NYC or LI.

Re: New York Districts?
 

If you based it off of this Which you shouldn't, 3 of the top 5 are upstate teams and I believe 26 out of top 60 teams are Also from up north.(could be wrong just going based on numbers I remember being from the upstate area.)

Also if you were to look at all New York regionals they had high scores and $@#$@#$@# the weeks went on they got higher when people gained more skills. (Going from tech valley to flr in one week 6 teams had a final score of over 100 rather than the previous 3.) Also the averages were overall much higher scores than Long Island which was the same week.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Upstate New York/Western Pennsylvania seems to make alot of sense.

Re: New York Districts?
 

How is this different compared to what teams in Districts already experience?

I know New York is split geographically a little more compared to most regions but minus a few teams who travel for the sake of traveling teams in districts for the most part attend events closest to them. We rarely play with teams from Rhode Island or Connecticut until we go to the District Championship which is a 4+ hour drive for some teams to attend. I know many teams in Michigan and Washington/Oregon who drive further to get to their District Championship.

Teams will intermingle if the schedule works better, availability for a third or fourth play, or some teams really like to travel like we have up here.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I guess I was going off of the assumption the most other regions distribution is a little more continuous than New York. So teams from New Hampshire night not play with teams from Rhode Island, but teams from New Hampshire might play with some teams from Massachusetts, who play with some teams from Connecticut, who play with some teams from Rhode Island. There's no clear line, and the distribution is a little more continuous.

For New York, there is an extremely clear line, and it would probably become even more clear for districts.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The fee is $5000 for a veteran team in the PNW. Well actually it is $8000 for veteran teams but at least $3000 of that is offset by PNW FIRST grants. You must have received one of the other grants if the net on your initial registration bill was $4000.

In the traditional regional system the $5000 doesn't cover the venue. The RD is charged with raising the funds to cover those costs. FIRST does cover the transportation of the field to and from the event location and the cost of the fields ect.

Now PNW FIRST, and all districts, gets to keep $1000 (or in other districts gets $1000 per team from FIRST) of the initial registration fee to offset some of the costs of running the district.

Yes the district events cost less, but there are more of them. There is usually not a rental fee for the venue but there are other venue costs that are passed along to PNW FIRST. For example there is usually a janitorial fee to cover the school staff that unlocks and secures the building and for them to take care of the garbage (they may empty a given can 4 or 5 times per day) and to hopefully insure that the bathrooms are stocked with paper products.

Note the PNW district is unique in its billing system where PNW FIRST bills the teams for the total cost of participating including registration, rather than US FIRST billing for initial registration. PNW FIRST then provides a team grant to bring that cost to teams back down to the $5000 level (or $6000 for rookie teams). This is done because many donors are happy to donate to teams but aren't interested in paying the janitorial fee, forklift rental trucking ect.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The cost of the venue doesn't factor into your registration fees.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Very interesting.

Along with RD's the local planning committees are tasked with raising the funds for the Regional's. Currently none of the registration fees go towards the cost of the event. Regional's are tasked with raising the funds for the entirety of their event.

Re: New York Districts?
 

That is all true I guess you could call it "Trickle Down Coopertition"? ;)

New England teams are pretty good at intermingling together but there is a reality that we just don't see certain teams minus 1-2 who decide to travel. At our past four district events we've only seen 3 teams from Rhode Island/Connecticut (events 2x MA, and 2x NH).

Re: New York Districts?
 

A point is a point no matter where it was earned. Either way the distribution of points is pretty much equivalent to the relative performance of the teams at a given event. Yes some events are more competitive than others but it does average out a bit because teams attend two events and there is a different mix of teams. Yes because of geography you will find a number of teams that attend the same two district events but there are also unique teams at those two events. For some teams different weeks work out better and for others they do want to travel and provide that experience to the students that may not get it otherwise. All told the points system does a good job of sending the best teams to the DCMP. Having a larger district does a better job of this.

If you want to talk about the distances being restrictive see the PNW district and my post near the beginning of this thread showing how much greater of an area we cover out here. I know that many parents in NYC may not have cars but how do other teams travel to their state championships? Does a football/basketball/baseball ect team decline their invitation to their respective state championships because parents do not have cars or does the team take a school bus?

For the fun of it I looked up the NYSPHSAA's championships.

For basketball it was located in Glen Falls this year. According to Google maps it is a 3:30 drive from NYC or a 4:30 by public transportation. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/New+...7837!1m0?hl=en Yes I know that there are problems with google maps and their times but for someone outside of the area they are the best available info.

For Football it was in Syracuse https://www.google.com/maps/dir/New+...3.036187?hl=en even further away in both distance and time from NYC yet still with a public transportation option, though it seems to me a school bus would be how a football team would get there.

See above for how the billing works in PNW FIRST it is unique among the current Districts though the net is the same in that the initial registration fee for veteran teams is still $5000 and for rookie teams it is still $6000.

I don't know that the dust has settled enough to say that the IN district was successful in all aspects of the reasons for the move to the District system.

As far as the running of the events and the fact that many teams got to play more matches and travel less then yes by all indications it certainly was a success.

The other reason for the switch to the District system is financial, running Regionals is very expensive and unsustainable as growth continues. So the question is was the IN district able to lower the total cost of the events vs what it was for the Regional it replaced. How does in-kind donations from AndyMark play into the total costs. For example I know that in the past AndyMark has stored and shipped fields for off-season events. So is AndyMark providing the receiving, storage and shipping functions for the IN district? Will a NYC district be able to find a company willing to do the same for them? Will they need to rent a warehouse like PNW does or use a company like Pods to handle the storage like MAR does. Do not get me wrong I'm not knocking anything that AndyMark may have done to make the IN district happen, just questioning if another mini-district could be financially successful without a company like AndyMark stepping up. There are economies of scale.

I know that the unified district points system was designed to allow the portability of district points for the long term. I suspect that in a few years teams will be able to travel to another district and bring the points earned there back home with them, assuming that it is not the 3rd play chronologically.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I just wanted to clear up a bit of a misconception here, it seems you have a total of 6 district events in this scenario. Assuming a typical district size of 40 teams, this would limit New York to 120 teams. A quick search tells me that 171 teams competed from New York this season, which would require nine 40 team events to give everyone two plays. My guess would be two of those go in the NYC/LI area and the other goes upstate somewhere.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Technically correct. I'd argue that it SHOULDN'T be correct but certain policies based on political correctness force it to be correct.

A point earned at a crappy event shouldn't equal a point earned at an event where you're competing with 67/254 caliber teams. By having heavily modal distribution of teams attending events (read as very little intermingling of the teams) you are actually hurting teams in the more competitive grouping. Simple example:

I'm going to assign each team a triple, it consists of number, points earned, overall skill relative to district. (blah blah, teams are just who I pulled as teams from the region at a quick glance, numbers are random)

Group A (call it upstate NY):
(20 146 1)
(2971 110 3)
(1507 109 2)
(340 109 9)
(1126 98 7)

Group B (downstate):
(263 130 4)
(334 120 6)
(694 108 5)


So, if I take my top 5 (mostly because I got tired of coming up with teams, this expands to top 24/40/60/N) by points I get:

20, 263, 334, 2971, 1507

But if I were to take them based on actual skill (how they SHOULD rank approximately)
20, 1507, 2971, 263, 694

Notice that there's very different teams? That's because the two groups scores aren't linked in any way. This is what happens when you have low intermingling, because a top group actually hurts itself by competing against themselves.

Basically, a point is a point but it shouldn't be that way.

Button for red dots is in the top corner.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Yeah, that's what I was going by. I'm not knowledgeable enough with their specifics to comment any more deeply on the situation.

Re: New York Districts?
 

To build on this maybe after an event do a multiplier to the district points they earn based on the overall opr divided by the number of teams or something like that. Some regionals when the top 2 teams banned together, the winner is already know at this point. Where other regionals have the upsets come from a lower alliance like FLR had the 7th seed win.

Re: New York Districts?
 

It seems to me that they are not very different teams. In the two lists I see 4 of the same teams on both lists and 1 unique team per list.

With the way the district points system is set up the points earned at DCMP are multiplied by 3 to determine who moves on to CMP. That means that the effects of the relative competitiveness of the district events are lessened to a degree.

I believe a greater number of smaller district events should lessen the difference in competitiveness between the district events. It certainly won't eliminate it though.

Combined with the way DCMP points work it should still result in the top teams moving on, but not eliminate the variability caused near the cutoff points line for the mid range teams.

No it certainly isn't a perfect system but I believe that it is pretty good based on my experiences in the PNW district. In our district we have one highly dense area, two minor areas and the rest of the teams spread pretty wide.

For reference here is a map of the distribution of teams. http://batchgeo.com/map/70d940e318d9...b583b66cde4d5c

Re: New York Districts?
 

So, seeing 20% difference between lists is fine? So, in NE that'd be 12 teams that probably deserve to be at DCMP that wouldn't make it because other teams competed at weaker events and earned more points.

Re: New York Districts?
 

So Andrew, I see your point that having two isolated groups within a district has an effect on whether the best teams make it to the DCMP. My question is, if you were in charge of a New York District involving the whole state, how would you propose accounting for this?

Re: New York Districts?
 

Hadn't thought of how to fix it. NE is less of an issue, there seems to be a fair bit of intermingling and I know FIM has similar intermingling. Fairly certain MAR is decent too. PNW/IN I haven't looked at in enough detail.

The obvious would be apply a correction fact to points earned at a district. How to compute that? Idk, I've been poking around with the Simple Rating System that's fairly popular in the NFL. That might be a solution. The other option would be give an incentive to attend events with more diversity. However, both of these are nonstarters for various reasons. (SRS is more difficult than a numeric sort, and incentivizing other events is nonstarter for political reasons)

Re: New York Districts?
 

For those of you wondering if New York's two isolated groups have an appreciable performance gap, I did some rudimentary calculations. All OPR values were the maximum OPR values for this year, taken from Ed Law's spreadsheet.

Upstate Mean Max OPR: 25.1
Downstate Mean Max OPR: 15.9

Attached is a plot of the OPR distributions for each region. The distributions are shaped similarly, but upstate appears to have a +10 OPR advantage vs downstate.

Edit: Sorry for the huge photo. Here's a link to the image itself: http://i.imgur.com/jka78Nv.png

Being 120ish of the 170ish are in rhe nyc li area there has to be 6 local events and 3 upstate.

Queens
Suffolk county
Nassau county
Brooklyn
Manhattan
Bronx
Chapequa (no one has mentioned all the lower state teams that are closer to nyc then upstate)



So one Albany one Rochester and one Syracuse?

Re: New York Districts?
 

They are only 147 new york teams base on this http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...highlight=5030.
With about 50 of them being from upstate at least. If you look at all the teams attending just one regional, yes a lot are from NYC or Long Island because this year became harder to attend second regionals with the influx of out of state teams. So holding districts would help lots of teams but we can not just ignore that up past the city has a lot of teams that do pretty well each year.
Also basing upon upstate has stronger teams but that may be since most compete at 2 regionals so they have time to improve. We don't need to argue which area is better but agree upon that the district model would help out a lot of teams, if not all to show off how much they can do. As well as provide a team with well deserved awards.

My question now is how big of a gym is needed for an average sized district? Does anyone know how much seating and floor space is recommended?

Re: New York Districts?
 

According to the FRC District Planning Guide, page 21...

Re: New York Districts?
 

If all of New York were to move to the district model (rather than 2 separate districts), the location of the district championship should alternate locations each year between the 3 major clusters of teams. This would allow the majority of teams to have the DCMP in their hometown area once every 3 years, and only having to make the long travel (6-8 hours) one of those 3 years. This might be a solution to the issue of some teams potentially having to travel 6-8+ hours each year to compete at the DCMP.

Aside from the speculation in this thread, has there been any official announcement or suggestion that New York will be moving to the district model soon?

Re: New York Districts?
 

Yes for the 2015 season there were 147 teams in NY, for some reason a number of the public information pages on the FIRST site include teams that either dropped out in the past or are rookies that did not complete registration.

For the PNW the guidelines are that the school has a gym with a standard sized HS basketball court which is 84 x 50 with seating for about 40 people per team.

The school also needs an auxiliary gym or a commons/lunch room that has aprox 150 sq ft per team plus space for pit admin and preferably inspection which is just a few hundred more sq ft. That 150 sq ft number is to account for isle space. Additional space may be needed based on the layout of the area, for example if there are lots of doors or other areas that can not be blocked or will be needed to store the mats, tables ect more space will be needed for the pits. In at least one instance the inspection station was in a wide area in the hall.

There also needs to be space for a practice field which is roughly another 1200 sq ft. In the PNW district we have had the practice field in the pits in a couple of instances. In others where the main gym is large enough the practice field was behind the pipe and drape that is behind the FTA desk.

Most schools do not have enough circuits in the area for the pits so there needs to be an area where a rental generator can be placed relatively closely.

For the events at HS in WA most of the schools that were used have ~1500 students but one of the events was in a school with ~900 students. In general the seating in the gym is relative to the student population.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Thank you, we were wondering for the possibility of holding an off season or if New York went districts but I am not sure if we have enough space to run it.

Re: New York Districts?
 

For an off-season event you can usually get by with less space. Of course you'll still need the space for the field but the seating space can usually be less as can the pits since you don't really need full pit admin, inspection ect. You also do not need to have as many teams. The off-season events we have had in the PNW have been about 24 teams.

Re: New York Districts?
 

So I was playing around with some numbers and ideas for a New York State District.
~150 teams with 2 events per team and 40 teams per event translates into about 8 district events for NY.
5 would need to be downstate while 3 would reasonably be upstate.

Upstate districts could be something like:
Finger Lakes District @RIT
Cornell/Ithaca District
Tech Valley District at RPI, or a local high school

Downstate I'm less knowledgeable about, but I feel like they should be spread out from the border between upstate and Downstate to further down Long Island.
Maybe something like:
White Plains District
Manhattan District
Brooklyn District
Freeport District
Hauppauge District

All of these locations are purely speculation, and I'm kind of just rambling, but I'd be excited for a New York district. I feel like districts is just the push NY needs to get back onto the main stage of FRC, like some of our teams used to be.

If there isn't a real conversation happening between upstate and Downstate regional planning committees, there definitely should be. One filled with understanding and compromise and a vision for what FIRST in New York could be.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I'm actually convinced by some of the arguments in this thread.

Hold 9 district events.

3 in Rochester/Buffalo area.
1 in Capital region area.
5 in NYC / LI area (Bronx, Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester)

Championships put in Binghamton. Even if a team can't make it to Championships, they have played in 2 events which is more than most get now. Most teams would be able to figure it out in the event they do get into Championships. Some NYC could travel together and split the cost of a bus.

I retract any objections I had. I think this would be a good thing for my team at least.

Re: New York Districts?
 

This set of district/DCMP event locations looks pretty realistic to me. With these locations, the majority of teams would only need to stay overnight for a maximum of 1 event (unless they choose to travel).

For upstate teams, I could see district events located in the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany areas. This way, each team has at least 2 districts within a reasonable distance to commute to and from each day.

I'm looking forward to seeing the district model come to New York, and with some strategic planning we should be able to make it work.

Re: New York Districts?
 

If New York doesn't make its own move to districts by 2017 I imagine HQ will do it for them, in that a solution will come to pass that will allow them to supplement existing districts that will likely surround the state (MAR, NE, FIM, Ontario/Quebec, NCR, SE).

I know people would like there to be one district system in NY but there are existing examples of non-school sports existing in two independent systems (The Adirondack/Metro split in USA Swimming comes to mind). PA will also have two separate systems. Is there some practical hang up to this, or is it quasi-philosophical?

Re: New York Districts?
 

More smaller events is good from my perspective, that allows more teams to travel less and opens up more venues as suitable so yes 9 events would be good for the inaugural season. Have only 1 event week 1 to work out any issues then 2 events weeks 2-5. Have the DCMP week 6 to give the teams that do make it to CMP the extra time to prepare for that. Fact is it is easier to make the preparations for an in state trip that can probably be done in a school bus than to make the preparations for an out of state trip that would include either a charter bus or a plane ride.

Based on my conversations with the teams in the PNW that had traditionally only attended one event they mostly feel that the District system has had a positive effect on their team. Most feel that the students learn more and get more satisfaction from the increased playing time even if they do not qualify for DCMP.

Re: New York Districts?
 

For those concerned about financial implications, here is my team's accounting with FIRST - simply copied from my TIMS account. Again, I can only show you the numbers, I can't tell you why they are the way they are.

Notes: Only the PNW Champs and St. Louis were over-night stays....Sorry about rotten formatting.


Invoice
FIRST
200 Bedford Street, Manchester, NH 03101-1103
(603)666-3906 (800)871-8326 Fax:603-206-2079
http://www.usfirst.org/

Printable Page
Team 948
Mr. Matt Johnston
Newport High School
4333 Factoria Blvd SE
Bellevue, WA 98006
USA

Signup Date Description Cost Registration Status Payments Balance
09/25/2014 PNW District - Glacier Peak Event
being held on March 06 - 08, $5,000.00 registered $5,000.00 $0.00

03/29/2015 Pacific Northwest District Championship
being held on April 01 - 04, $4,000.00 registered $4,000.00 $0.00

10/09/2014 PNW District - Auburn Event
being held on March 26 - 28, $0.00 registered $0.00 $0.00

04/05/2015 FIRST Championship
being held on April 22 - 25, $5,000.00 registered $5,000.00 $0.00

Total Due: $0.00 US funds
Make check payable to: FIRST
Attn: Finance
200 Bedford Street
Manchester, NH 03101 Send Purchase Order to Finance
Fax # is 603-206-2079
FIRST is a 501(c)3 organization.
Taxpayer Identification Number 22-2990908

Re: New York Districts?
 

No. I think it's inevitable that it happen at some point though so it is a good discussion to have here. Even though this is whole thread is speculation, it contains a good amount of data that could be useful in an actual decision.

I believe the decision to district has to be made X years in advance. Which means it is X years away from implementation.

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.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Thank you Mark, I appreciate the feedback. I will update the information in the document and upload to make sure accurate information is contained.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The event was usual hosted each year out in Deer Park until the team retired before the 2013 season.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The NYC area has many qualified volunteers for some of the key positions but due to them also being key mentors on teams competing in the NYC Regional (often the only mentor and/or the drive coach) they are not available for the NYC Regional but when we go to districts many have said they would be willing to volunteer to do an event (or three).

Re: New York Districts?
 

It is indeed a 4 1/2 hour drive to LI from Binghamton. Having done it many times.

Re: New York Districts?
 

This is something that my team has been struggling with this issue for 2 years now. We are a 3rd year team out of New Rochelle (3 miles north of the Bronx), and have been trying to expand to more events than the NYC Regional. Long Island is by far the best option for us because Hofstra is 45 minutes away, as opposed to Troy which is 3.5hr with no traffic, and is most commonly closer to 5 because downstate NY traffic is terrible always. To underscore how expensive it would be to go to Troy, which we registered and eventually dropped from last year, it is still not financially worth while to compete in the event and there is a NASA Regional challenge grant that we would most likely qualify for. Travel expense are just way to high, almost to the point of doubling the cost of registration.

Looking realistically at the geography of NYS teams, there are 3 or 4 teams in Westchester County sitting on top of the Long Island and City teams. There is then at least a 2.5 hour drive from the northern most Westchester team, to the next group of teams in the capital region. It would make no sense to build a district that tries to incorporate all NYS teams, our major population centers are just too spread out to the boarders. As previously suggested, a better idea is to forget the state boundaries and think regionally. Adding Northern New Jersey to a Long Island/NYC/Westchester district, and the Capital Region to Western Mass, would make far more sense than trying to shoe horn them together. And frankly, I can not speak to Western/Lake Region NY because in the 30 years I have lived in the state of NY I have never been west of the Catskills, and that is not an uncommon statement for those of us who live in the Metro region.

Anyway, we really need to move to the district model, or I fear teams will start dropping out of FRC based solely on economics. $9000 in registration fees to compete twice (or really $5000 to compete once) is difficult to sustain.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Having driven from long island to central NY, and having to pass Troy on the way, it doesn't take more then 2-3 hours to get there.

Hotel costs really depend on where you stay and how big the team is, as for travel you can do a bus, or if enough parents are going you could always carpool. For us going to Troy and Rochester the parents drove their kids and we had parents in charge of the kids who carpooled.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Troy is just about 2.5 hours from New Rochelle, not 3.5. It's closer to you than any of the 2nd regionals teams in the Albany region attend.

Hotel costs in the Albany region are pretty ordinary. You can easily find a cheap place to stay by the airport, roughly 15 minutes from the venue.

Really I think the best solution to all of this is to eliminate district borders altogether with a unified point system nationwide. Attend whatever districts you want. Pick a Championship to attend (or have it assigned based on location, whatever). Top X point earning teams assigned to each Championshp compete at that event, and worlds qualification arises from there. But that's not going to happen for reasons I'm not clear on, so we have to work around the existing district boundaries.

Re: New York Districts?
 

+1 on last post
and once NY goes districts - 1, 2 or 3(with or without OH PA WV etc)
The flexible district model, outlined by Chris, could be initiated with districts up and down the east coast.

Personally I would see NYC metro/ LI district, some move to NE, and Western with others - but teams on edges able to choose within constraints.

Re: New York Districts?
 

From what I understand, learning from MAR, I don't think it is a good idea to "cut" states when creating District borders. If the District does not encompass the whole state it makes getting state and board of education funding next to impossible.

In all serious, instead of arguing on here as to where the best location for the District Champs should be, please contact your local RD and let them know that not only does your team want to move to Districts but that you are willing to help with the initial planning stages. Moving to districts is a lot more complicated from the behind the scenes side of things than this thread has made it out to be.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I've driven 87 a lot, and whether it is 2.5 or 3.5 hrs, it realistically doesn't make a difference in terms of the feasibility of participation. The issue isn't the drive, it is the overnights. Unless our budget changes in a dramatic way, I just can't see the rationale of spending so much money on hotels. My greater point is that it wouldn't make sense to deny the realities of the concentration of teams in the NY Metro area and try to force them into events way upstate. Looking down the list of events, there are close to 5 events closer to Troy than the city, that are part of either the NE District or Western NY, and 4 District events in Northern Jersey and Connecticut that are closer to NYC than Albany. Make a Tri-State District that includes New Jersey from New Brunswick and north and east of Parsippany, Long Island, NYC, Westcherster/ Rockland/Putnam, and CT south of Danbury and west of New Haven.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Emphasis on this. It takes a lot of work, but at the same time anyone with FIRST experience can be a part of making it happen.

Re: New York Districts?
 

The proposal being discussed doesn't have downstate teams coming upstate unless they really want to for some reason.

A NY district would have a whole bunch of district events on Long Island and only 3-4 events upstate.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Much of the contention in the thread has been in regards to the location of the DCMP (and whether its viable to have a DCMP outside of the NYC area or not).

Re: New York Districts?
 

I have a question which is related to the NY Tech Valley Regional event and not the conversation about districts. NASA for 2016 is offering the Regional Challenge Grant for that Regional competition. I was looking into the grant requirements and found two conflicting pieces of information. I emailed the NASA grant contact last week, and the regional director of FRC asking for clarification on the matter and have not heard back from either. With the deadline quickly approaching, I thought I'd reach out to the community to find out if anyone else had any additional information or advice. Here's what I observed:

When following the link to the NASA Grants from the FRC Blast sent out to FRC Teams on Sept 11th, 2015, the following is read:



---------------------------
http://frc-grants.arc.nasa.gov/rcs/directions.php
Definitions:
[...]
Veteran - A Veteran Team is any team registered with FIRST that had their rookie year during the 2014 FRC competition season (the 2014 competition season refers to the season that began in January 2014) or earlier OR was a Rookie Team in 2015 and not funded by NASA.
[...]
For the competition season, Regional Challenge Grants will be available to veteran teams for the following events:

NY Tech Valley Regional (Troy, NY) up to 10 veteran grants
[...]
-------------------------------

Our team has created a NASA login (to see the page I think you need to also) and began looking at the grant application, and the grant application reads the following:

-------------------------------
https://frc-grants.arc.nasa.gov/rcs/app/application.php
Types Of Sponsorship:
[...]
Regional Challenge Grants:
Regional Challenge Grants will be available to Rookie Teams and Second-Year Teams for the following events: up to 10 veteran grants
NY Tech Valley Regional (Troy, NY)
[...]
--------------------------------


These pieces of information are not clear to me. Who may apply for a Regional Challenge Grant? A Rookie Team, a Second-Year Team, or a Veteran team?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

Re: New York Districts?
 

It is saying that Veteran teams aka any team who has competed for this year and doesn't receive the Nasa Rookie Grant (which is a two year grant) can apply.
If you are a rookie you can apply for a separate Nasa grant that is intended for rookies and helps them out for two years.

Re: New York Districts?
 

So the idea of New York Districts was once again brought up, and if I recall when I left this thread last, it was a jumbled heap of people arguing over petty things that don't particularly matter when it comes to making NY transition to districts.

There are so many teams that would benefit enormously from the transition to district events. Some great Capital Region teams I can think of that can only afford one event are 5236 and 4203, who are both awesome year-on-year, but only ever attend one regional. These teams would benefit enormously from districts.

Additionally, the majority of the teams that attend the New York City Regional only get to attend one event. With districts, those teams would now get two events, and be more likely to qualify for higher levels of play.

Almost every team in New York would be positively affected, except for perhaps 229 and 2053, who would likely still have to travel quite a bit for both of their events, and they often go out-of-state as it is right now to attend events.

I'm willing to hear counterarguments either in this thread or even in person this weekend at the Finger Lakes Regional, but I really can't see any good reason not to make the switch as soon as possible.

We need to make this switch and there's no reason it can not happen for next year. Let's start being proactive maybe make a petition and reach out to the local governing body's. Down here we have SBPLI, and NYCFirst not too familiar with who runs the 2 Regionals upstate. Either way this needs to happen.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Spot on post! I think NY is going to run into a similar challenge that we here in West Virginia and teams in South Carolina is dealing with. You will soon be surrounded on all sides by districts, and your regional play options get further and further away. When Ontario and PA/OH/WV go into districts, where is your closest out of state regional? You are pushed pretty far away.

Re: New York Districts?
 

I have made a map of the locations of the teams that attended/will be attending New York's two "upstate" regionals, FLR and Tech Valley.
https://batchgeo.com/map/821f21483e1...d991dcdc725113

The map appears to show that most of the teams attending are located in the Albany and Rochester areas, suggesting that Syracuse would actually be a central location for DCMP if Upstate were its own district.

Of course, I know nothing about the challenges of regional/district organization. I merely wanted to lend some data to the discussion.

Let's try to stay off the dcmp topic that pretty much was the reason this thread derailed. Bottom line who knows who let's get this ball rolling.

Re: New York Districts?
 

This is one of those things that needs to start from the top. Start by emailing your RD and see if they're receptive/what they're doing on the issue.

Re: New York Districts?
 

There is a good deal of relevant information posted by FIRST. For those of us who are willing to work towards a solution, I'd start by reading through the District Planning Guide posted here.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Stop talking on Chief Delphi, and start working with your planning committees to figure out what challenges remain.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Re: New York Districts?
 

For those of you who don't know, contact information for Regional Directors and Senior Mentors can be found on this page.

Re: New York Districts?
 

229 wants districts as much as anybody. We have to travel no matter what and being guaranteed two events in state would be amazing.

Alright, so let's email some RD's. Just to not double email let's choose which ones each of us want to contact.

I have no problem emailing Mrs.Winter who is the RD for Long Island as long as no more experienced people want to do it.

There's also Mr.Pearson for FLR, Mrs.Daly for NYC and, Mrs.Martinez for TVR.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Ana Martinez is part of the driving force behind the proposed district system, so you may find your best shot with her. However, the options are still limitless for districts in New York. For example (and to include others from pages previous):
-Lake Ontario District for Ontario/Western NY, and create Hudson Valley District for Capital Region and NYC/Long Island
-Lake Ontario District for Ontario/Western NY/Capital Region, and fold rest of New York into MAR
-New York District with the DCMP wherever the hell it goes
-New York folded into MAR to form a superdistrict

But it's seriously becoming a problem when you realize as a New York team that the next southerly tournament you can compete in is Palmetto. As far as I've heard, districts are due for NY in 2019, in whatever shape or form it may come in.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Not to derail again, but I think it would be awesome for LI/NYC teams to get to play more MAR teams, either as two adjacent districts with possibility for interplay (where the earned points count for your team regardless of which district runs the event you attend), or as one super-district. This would bring back together a lot of teams that traditionally competed together at NYC, NJ, and SBPLI regionals, especially since these regions still often compete directly in the off-season together.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Disclaimer: Rookie Mentor / Rookie Team

One of the things I did really enjoy at the Tech Valley Regional was that we were able to have teams such as 48 (How many safety vests do you guys own?!) from Ohio, 4481 (is it a requirement that all team members be 6' 4" or taller?) from the Netherlands, 359 (Mahalo) from Hawaii, not to mention several others from outside our area.

From what I read it looks like when you go to a district format the only teams eligible to play in that district are from within the geographical area of the district.

Don't get me wrong, I think the ability to have 2 events without an egregious amount of travel (or cost) is a great thing, but being able to expand the teams we play does add a "flair" to the event. (If you were at NYTVR you'd know just how.. uh... "quiet" 4481 was. :) )

Re: New York Districts?
 

The Tech Valley Regional was the first regional I've ever attended. I had a great time, and it was really cool to be able to compete with the likes of 359, 48, 4481, etc.

That being said, I was a student for four years in the MAR district. My team here (2791) is paying $5000 for TVR and $4000 for FLR. My high school team is paying $5000 for TWO district events and $4000 for District Championship (if they qualify). Not only are they GUARANTEED two events, they get them for the same price as 2791's first. Additionally, the quality of play and competition at a District Championship is only rivaled by CMP and the most competitive of regionals.

Having a second event gives chances to iterate on design and strategy, allowing students to better experience the engineering process. Districts events are almost always smaller than regionals (30-40 teams vs 40-60), allowing each team more qualification matches (12 in districts vs 8-12 in regionals) and giving a greater percentage of teams a chance to compete in playoffs and win awards.

The district point system does a better job of qualifying consistently strong teams for CMP, even if those teams don't necessarily win an event. Rather than qualifying the best, second best, and 24th best team (and culture awards), it qualifies the District Championship winners (and culture awards), and the top however many teams in the district.

While the lack of travel teams is a drawback of districts, this has been improved by allowing inter-district play. It's only really an issue as long as FIRST lets it be an issue.

I enjoyed the Tech Valley Regional, but I really do believe the benefits of districts for teams are overwhelming compare to the regional model.

Re: New York Districts?
 

You've made some great points, most of which I agree with.
We came to this event for 3 main reasons: 1. Scheduling 2. NASA originally offered up to 10 veteran grants of which they gave none.:confused: 3. Because we may never ever be able to compete here again.

We have had the privilege to compete in many places around the US in the past, that we are no longer privy to. At some point, we'll have none other than the Hawaii event. When that eventually happens, based on the current rules, it would be time to retire our program and find something else. I cant see Hawaii ever following a District model because all of the teams are not on the same island. Having to fly to your own State's event presents the same challenges/expenses as if we were traveling to the U.S. mainland.
Team 1056 is an example of a Hilo team that is currently competiting in the Sacramento regional, and not even doing their own home event on another island.

Not to derail the conversation, but hopefully there will always be a decent quantity of regionals so that teams can form in other countries, and like Australia, can eventually have their own regional. I think FIRST will have to make a way so that if a team can fly, they can compete nearby. (or drive, but it doesn't rhyme) You might be allowed to compete at district events outside of your district. (as a district team, I am not sure this if this is currently allowed for regional teams, but as regionals expand, I am sure it will be allowed)

Re: New York Districts?
 

Sorry. I really just wanted an excuse to make a map.

Re: New York Districts?
 

Sean's point is key. You can't make this transition without the full support of the current leadership in the region. They have what the state needs to be successful in this endeavor: experience, volunteers, sponsors, etc.

Work along side them, not against them.

Good luck!

Re: New York Districts?
 

Start looking at Central NY - Utica area. I know SUNY IT is there and they are heavily involved with FTC. I would be surprised if some passionate individual couldn't get a FRC team going there. There are also plenty of potential corporate sponsors: Indium, Special Metals, SUNY IT NANO Tech facility etc. I grew up in this area and its disappointing to see that no FRC teams have popped up since.

In this area hotels are very cheap, it is also a good central location 3 hrs from Rochester, 4 hrs from NYC, 4 hrs to northern NY. 5 hrs from Buffalo.

Re: New York Districts?
 

We have a team at SUNY.It's a regional one.

Re: New York Districts?
 

If you want this to happen, then volunteer. Go to your RPC--contact Glen Pearson and Ana Martinez, respectively--and don't tell them that you want districts, ask them, "what can I do to help make districts a reality in New York next year?"

And then do those things, and recruit others to do those things.

My impression for several years now has been that lots of people say they want districts in New York, but very few of them are putting in any time or effort to make it happen.

Want it? Go get it.