Re: California Districts
 

Not to mention FiM teams have a lot less traveling distance.

Re: California Districts
 

Since I was curious about how it would look, I created a map with dots for all the FRC teams in California. Using the data from here, I used google fusion tables to create this map:
Attachment 18905
Each red dot represents a city with at least one team (I'm not sure how to force google not to stack dots), and each yellow arrow is a current regional location. You can see the map and data here: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/...OZ0v 9E73XKuU

Drawing a horizontal line slightly above Bakersfield (through Las Vegas or so) would split most teams fairly cleanly. In terms of current regionals, it would be Northern/Central California with CVR, Sacramento, and SVR and Southern California with Inland Empire, LA, Ventura, and San Diego.

In terms of location, having two separate districts seems to make more sense. It would mean that most, if not all teams would be able to drive to their district champs in a reasonable amount of time (my family has driven down to LA from the bay area in a day several times before, and although definitely doable, it's not much fun). It would, however, mean that the teams that you can see at district champs will be pretty much the same ones that you've seen at district events.

It would solve the issue of finding a place that could have a large event though. There are 238 teams in California, so each of the district champs would be about the size of a current regional, possibly smaller. There were 57 teams at SVR this year, and having two events that size would mean 47.9% qualify for district champs.

For the number of events, at 35 teams per events that would come out to 13-14 events. Putting 3 of the new ones in Northern California and 3-4 in Southern California seems to be the most logical solution. (Note: I couldn't find an easy way to figure out how many teams would be in each area so I guessed) I have no idea about venues that would be willing to hold events though.

I'd guess that the current setback would be finding the volunteer base followed by getting venues. I am hoping they find a way to solve this soon...

Re: California Districts
 

I might go the other way, but those are the top two, I think. It's hard to find a location in CA that fits for a district/small regional without having to deal with "larger" (read: non-school) venues. I can't think of more than about half a dozen "near" L.A. (read: within a couple of hours) that would work for that, though I could probably come up with a few more if we were talking "offseason". BTW, most of the ones I can think of have hosted an event in the past.

And then you get the volunteers...I worked 3 events this year; I know some of the other volunteers worked at least that many. And the only reason I did a third was because I knew that event was short-handed. Many of the volunteers have been doing this since I was competing...

It's not an easy problem to solve, though, particularly for some key positions.

Re: California Districts
 

Been there a couple times already, even the very first one.

I used to work at JBT FoodTech too, right down the street from the HS.

I was just saying that the Central Valley is right in the middle of California so fair traveling for both Northern and Southern teams. Might need a better location though, if only the Savemart center was available.

Re: California Districts
 

I don't know about that. The team from Houghton had to travel over 500 miles to get to MSC in Grand Rapids. That's longer than the distance from San Diego to San Jose, for example.

Re: California Districts
 

Comments from FIRST leadership during the town hall meeting definitely made it sound like Districts in CA are far from being finalized.

Re: California Districts
 

Between leadership changes, a growing number of teams, and less funds available to teams this year, I would imagine we're still quite a ways away.