Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

My business card, those of the Washington FIRST Robotics staff, the building known as the Fieldhouse and all the equipment in that building disagree with the fact that WFR does not use that name any more.

Washington FIRST Robotics is the official, legal, registered name of the non profit organization that is responsible for all 4 FIRST programs in the state of Washington and for running the PNW District of WA, OR and AK.

While we are the PNW District we are not using PNW FIRST any longer. It caused some confusion with donors and sponsors.

My thought is that the official FIRST TLA for the new Chesapeake district will be CPK.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect :)
That's VERY interesting to me, as VirginiaFIRST seems to be following the exact same process. Two things are striking:

1. The VirginiaFIRST administration has explained that FIRST has mandated the "FIRST + <local flavor>" naming scheme for all newly-forming districts. If you "are not using PNW FIRST any longer", then maybe you guys aren't being held to this same standard? Or you decided to reject the standard? Or maybe the naming scheme isn't really mandatory in the first place?
2. It seems to me that when an organization is attempting to represent the needs of 2 or more uniquely-named places, then the organization shouldn't be named for only 1 of those places. I don't think I would be comfortable with the arrangement, if (say) I were a MD or OR team. How does your organization make sure the Oregonians and Alaskans are appropriately represented in the decision-making processes?

I recently asked the FIRST Chesapeake admin team this question:


Is it the same story for WFR? The WFR board just didn't make a determination that an overarching PNW organization was necessary?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

The change in name of the non-profit can be as easy as changing the "also doing business as:" portion of there tax documentation.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

It is best explained by this excerpt from PWNFIRST.org.



Essentially WFR is caught in the political middle in respect to the name of the organization and at it is best to make the donor community happy and not confuse them since they provide the funds to make the PNW district happen.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

The formatting for these events on the FIRST webpage was 100% uniform last season. I can guarantee that.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I do like these a lot, but I agree with Nate. I fee like there needs to be an anchor and some smoke stacks in there somewhere ;)

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I somewhat agree.

The thing that stuck out to me in the responses to questions email that came out last week was that the individual entities must be maintained in order to keep continuity in the non-FRC programs. If that's the case, then the charters & by-laws of the individual programs may need to be re-written once a new entity is stood up, or if the predominant role of one of the entities no longer includes FRC. It all depends on how the charter/by-laws were written to begin with. Otherwise the non-profits are no longer performing their stated duty and would be subject to auditing, long questionnaires from state & federal entities, etc.

Seems to me like there is a lot of time in the year, but most of this year's time has been allocated to finding equipment rather than structuring the organization. This has pros & cons, and I really hope it doesn't wind up hamstringing things down the road.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Our new logo suggestions have been sent off to VAFIRST. Will, I suggest you send yours in too.

I also like some of the names you've come up with for the "districts", maybe send those in as event name suggestions.

Other Hampton Roads Event name ideas:
Ironclad District Event
Monitor Merrimack District Event
Shipyard District Event

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I feel like the best representation of the Hampton Roads area is an artist's depiction of the 'Nam-style flashbacks I get when driving east into the HRBT or driving west when goes I-64 from 4 lanes to 2 about 10 miles too early.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

A picture of Bridge Tunnels with corks on both ends?

Honestly, maybe the outline of any of the many ships that are built at the shipyard (Carrier specifically), or something having to do with shipbuilding would be appropriate.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Our original logo idea for the Rumble in the Roads was to have Dozer stuck in a pothole.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Once again, the "district" is the entire area going into the district format. New England is a district. Mid-Atlantic Robotics is a district. FIRST Chesapeake is a district.

The correct nomenclature for your suggestions would be:
"FIRST Chesapeake District Ironclad Event"
"FIRST Chesapeake District Monitor Merricmack Event"
"FIRST Chesapeake District Shipyard Event"

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Which is why I put district in quotes and called them events. Calm down Sean.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

"Correct" nomenclature is fun and all, Sean, but to be fair that standard has only been extant for 1 year.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

It's also still not a true standard because to my knowledge there is no official documentation on how to name events, but my apathy towards the discussion is at critical mass.

We can rag on the logo, name, nomenclature, and the road infrastructure that the VDOT gods abandoned, but the unique financial decisions the district is making in its infancy aren't exactly promising. There is a $41k operating cost per district that seems to imply that assets that could be valuable to own through a use of capital are instead being rented, like generators, tables and chairs, radios and A/V equipment. There is some confusion since the presentation slides said that there would be a $19k/event capital outlay for the first year but the $19k per/130-160k capital investment figure isn't in the Q&A. Also, since calculating the depreciation of folding chairs isn't in my wheelhouse, I honestly don't know whether or not rental or ownership is the more fiscally responsible move. I would like to know at least what exactly is being considered. If I remember, I'll ask this question or someone else can.

The district also seems to prioritize spending money on hiring A/V crews and even DJs for all district events instead of turning these positions over to volunteers. Choosing to continue to fund all 3 RD positions while not buying field borders is not something I'm a huge fan of, but my opinion carries as much weight in the offices in the SMV basement as a Glad bag of antimatter. Field borders can actually be a source of income for a district instead of making them a recurring expense, but whatever.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

You just had to link to that event... :rolleyes:

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Has anyone heard any news about where and which week the districts will be?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

They don't know that because they don't have the sites figured out yet.

And IMHO not the best nomenclature that should be applied either.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I think the sentiment here is pretty common over the last few pages of the forum discussion. The identity of the region and districts is very important. Generally speaking the logo and identity presented at the town hall meeting was disappointing to the greater community. It isn't that the name FIRST Chesapeake is bad, but it needs to be presented in a way that remains professional while celebrating the unique history of our region. There has been some discussion of suggested graphics. While this may not be the place, I would support a small committee for branding the region. While I have been on hiatus as a mentor for ILITE over the last two years, I would gladly bring together those interested and a professional graphics background to put together a more organized proposal for the identity of the region and district events.

As I prefer not to work in isolation and would like this to best represent as large a community of the region as possible, I am open to all interested in aiding in the discussion. Message me, if this kind of meeting is of interest.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Maybe they are trying to get a District Event scheduled and approved to take place during 'Week 0.5', so the Palmetto Regional will not be all alone during that competition week.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I think that would be a mistake. It also doesn't go with what FIRST said when announcing the Palmetto event. Palmetto would be the exception and not the rule.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

No in the original webcast about the district, they stated that one competition would be week 1 and two competitions on week 2-4. Probably 1 in VA and 1 in MD/DC each week, with Week 1 being a VA district. I'd bet that one is probably the northern VA one; it allows the most teams to access it within a reasonable time, making week 1 possible for many more teams.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

You both are taking this all way too serious. PNW has posted their event schedule, but they are the only current district region to do so. FIRST Chesapeake is doing just as good as the other remaining district regions (MAR-NE-FiM-IN-NC) so far, nothing officially posted.

There are 9-1/2 weeks until 1st District/Regional Event Registration Opens at Noon on 24 Sept.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I wonder...

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

What are you even talking about? Venues and dates get announced when they get announced. That had nothing to do with what they were talking about.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

FIRST Chesapeake August Town Hall
Tonight at 7pm eastern time (26 minutes from now)
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/first-c...ts-18096981559
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c...er6tv7psu6l3r8

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

5 minutes and counting:ahh:

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

2 minutes and counting:ahh:

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

7:05 and nothing anybody getting anything yet:eek:

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Warning, may contain errors

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Made some edits to the schedule.

NOTE: Woodrow Wilson High School is an option for Week 2, 3/11-13, if confirmation for Walt Whitman is not made as conversations are on going.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

what did people miss?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmneE_KUYf0

My takeaways:
1. Logo feed back has been given to the company that made the logo, but in general the crappy logo is staying the crappy logo.
2. "Host Team" = sells concessions.
3. Most of this info could have been done in an email.
4. The teams in our district have no idea how districts work.
5. Pipe and drape.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Par for the course; it all checks out.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

This was how it worked in New England too... until districts came. Even then it takes a season or so for people to really get it.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'll go look at the numbers, but I would hazard a guess that there is a higher % of teams in NE who went to two events pre-district system than there is in the DMV area.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'm making an assumption that the people planning this have met with the NE, MI and MAR leadership to get lots of pointers on this process. I can't imagine there is lots of "reinvent the wheel" going on.

Bummed that there are not any "Eastern Shore" events, but I can see with the size of the district on why.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

There are only five teams in the eastern shore (2 VA, 3MD). Hard to justify an event there currently. Fortunately, it's not as isolated as the Upper Peninsula was when Michigan went to districts.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Based on Ocean City, MD, (which seems most remote), it's only about 5 hours either way to get to the opposite side of the Chesapeake (with DC and several events within that trip). If you're trying to get to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, it's over 5 hours just to get to the Mackinac Bridge from the far west end.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

The sad thing for us down in Southside VA ( The map created shows only one team, but there are are 6 within a ~50 mile radius ) is that we could travel to all events in NC easier than we can get to ANY event in our own district. I have expressed my concern with FIRST. NC wants us also -- just sayin

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Would have been swell to bring NC teams into the fold with teams in the DMV area. Why that didn't happen is above my clearance.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Not sure if NC wanted to. I think they wanted to go with SC. We should have been carved out to go with NC as has been done other places. Would REALLY miss the GREAT VA Teams though. Just looking from it as a $$$ thing.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

That really sucks. Raleigh is especially close to you guys too. Inter-district play will hopefully be more relevant down the line.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'm looking forward to the Inter-district play along with an 8th district event being added to FCPK. Having a home event on week 3 sucks right now, your choices are to compete back to back or fight for the limited spots at the week 1 event. I wish they had scheduled the single event week to be either week 2 or week 3 to alleviate some of these scheduling issues. I also wish I had seen this problem earlier so I could have brought it up in an early meeting. Who knows, maybe next year they will adjust the schedule to make up for this.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I sorta see the approach of having 1 week 1 event as trying to put out any fires that show up inherently with a week one event, but I'm someone who has learned to love the bomb. I'd appreciate 1 week 2 or 3 event, but that's above my clearance.

With the current competition season of 6-7 weeks, there are pros and cons to any of the schedule setups. Run the districts without a week gap before champs and you can put late qualifiers in a real bind. Run the whole system through week 7 and you put late qualifiers to the world champs in a bind. Compact the district schedule to finish the district season in 6 weeks AND give teams a week break between the districts and their championship, and you choke out flexibility for teams.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I agree with both statements. I can understand why they did it the way they did it, but I do hope it is something that is thought about in future years. When an 8th event is eventually added we won't have the issue anymore and the same is true when inter-district play is introduced.

I appreciate that they are trying to cram the events in the first 4 weeks to provide some time between the District Championship and the World Championship. There are pros and cons of each way of doing it.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Greensboro is closer -- just 45 miles

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Yeah, I feel for all the eastern VA teams. It's not a great draw. However, most of the teams competing for that week 1 event will be the teams that attend the week 3 events. So at pure randomness each team has ~35-40% chance of getting that event (because there are some teams that are local to Haymarket and will choose this one during 1st event registration), and it's higher if you're on the ball.

I imagine most teams that want a week 1/3 event list and don't dawdle with registration will be able to get what they want.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

It's the problem of the 2 week 3 events trying to get into the 1 week 1 event. You'll have the home teams from the 2 week 3 events along with the home teams from the week 1 event all trying to get into the same 40 slots. It might not be an issue, but I hope the committee keeps this in mind when handing out the set of reserved registration slots for that week 1 event.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Will be interesting to see how our friends in western Maryland fare with this. Great news, though!

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

glad I didn't clear my schedule for the "meetings." I watched it on delay. I am not impressed.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Uhh, just dropping a line on here tonight before I forget.

I have not heard any news of Chesapeake blocking off hotel rooms for any event and a cursory look through the email blasts via Ctrl+F search didn't yield this nugget of news, but if you are attending the SWVA district, might want to book your rooms last week. If that's not possible, I'd try to do it NOW.

The Blacksburg/Christiansburg area does hold a couple significant events year round. The notorious ones (VT Football and Men's BBall) will not impact our competition in terms of any logistics. However, my job involves working with Virginia Swimming and various other swim agencies to host their events and I know that the Age Group Championships for the state will be at the Christiansburg Aquatic Center the same weekend. As is the case for our event, a vast majority of participants will be doing team travel into the area as there are very few (read: 1) major local swim clubs. However, most VA swim clubs are what I would call monolithic in nature and very sophisticated operations. They probably have entire hotel floors booked up and meals already tightly planned out.

If you are going to this event and you don't want to bus your kids in from Salem or something crazy, there is no time like the present to take care of this.

I don't know if this is information the entirety of FC is aware of or has published but at the very least an extra reminder to whoever sees this won't hurt.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

If others aren't already, they are now.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Yeah, thanks. I'm concerned about the teams who aren't super plugged in to stuff like this. Some of the larger FRC teams traveling (and definitely the swim teams) have the infrastructure to handle working from a hotel further away than the ideal, but the <10 student, <3 adult teams are ones I worry about.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Thanks for the heads-up, Will. We have secured our block of rooms. I wonder why this information had to come from you instead on VAFIRST.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Wilson I dunno why there is so much silence from VA FIRST. I was told they wanted to take the lead on NCRA this year but we're almost half way through Fall semester and haven't heard anything, and NCRA is meant to be a place for teams to be able to have 1-on-1 talks with each other when they want them. Makes me want to send something anyways (though that'd be against the wishes of my team...). VA FIRST would probably say 'there's a newsletter', but some of the news breaks on CD or FIRST (emails) weeks before the newsletter - so the newsletter is 50% time late and often contains nothing of actionable value.

I will say that the planning committee meeting minutes are pretty detailed and show they're putting forethought into plenty of things. However, room blocking is not one of the things in the minutes. So it's worth it to send an email directly to FIRST.

Hopefully VA FIRST has their stakeholders outlined and in that outline 'teams' isn't represented by some nebulous insignificant block in a corner of the page. Teams have gone to plenty of events before, and have lots of experience in what makes a great experience versus mediocre experience. We also understand what sponsors we're most likely to engage with post-event and which ones we say 'hello' to and move on. I hope they engage more teams as part of this process moving forward.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Got an email today asking to display gracious professionalism by shifting our registration to Hampton Roads or a Maryland event. Is this happening for anyone else for other events or in other districts?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

whaa?? why?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

"Presently, there are more teams on the waitlist than spots available and there is still the possibility of late registering rookie teams."

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

for what event? So, someone messed up and they want you to bail them out. nice.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Oh, it's for the Doswell event, that should have been more clear.

I was curious if other veterans had gotten the email besides me, I'm the alt for 422.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Nope. We haven't received anything. Was it your 1st or 2nd event?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

First event. I'd be surprised if we were not the first or second team to register.

Not really keen on trying to get pushed out of our home event. We already are increasing travel this year.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed on both counts.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'm very surprised to see that, especially because it is your "home" event. If it were your second/farther event, it would be more understandable and acceptable. But as is it seems unfair at best.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

shouldn't the teams coming from NOVA have been asked/urged to attend one of the 4 events in their area?

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I know 1793 (Norview in Norfolk) is one of the wait listed teams for Doswell.
They signed up for Hampton Roads as their home event (as it should be). There are several more that still only list one event (1908 in Eastville, Northhampton High on the Eastern shore, 2107 in Portsmouth, 3168 in Suffolk and 3359 in Portsmouth (who is hosting Hampton roads) I don't know if this is because they haven't registered for a second one or they are wait listed. 388 way out in Grundy hasn't even registered for anything yet. From what i saw at the meeting last season during the VCU regional they weren't too happy about the whole district thing to begin with.

Oddly 1885 is coming to Hampton Roads and the DC event but not Northern Va. which they are hosting at their own school.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I know if I was hosting an event, the last thing I would want to do is attempt to host the event while competing at said event.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Yeah i can see the point of 1885 maybe doing that for that reason....but 1885 is one of the bigger teams. Then again 3359 is hosting and competing at Hampton Roads....BTW there isn't much in the way of food or lodging near Churchland High until you get a few miles from the school so be prepared.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

that's the same for Doswell, too.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

When I was scouting out all the events I think the northern Maryland event was around a half hour to the closest hotel group. EDIT: That's for a district in North Carolina, all CHS Events have hotels around 15 minutes away.

I'm pretty sure 388 will not be competing this year, but I have not heard an up-or-down on that yet.


I've sorta spent tonight trying to guess who is on the waitlist for the event. As much as people may think I enjoy coming off as a knob, I gotta say that even reasonable and kind people would think this is not great.


A team should not be expected/asked to drop out of their home event and therefore be forced into traveling to 2 districts and potentially 2 championship events, just so someone else who didn't make registration a priority only has to travel to 1 or even zero districts. While the term "sacrifice" has been held over my head re: the district system before, this is not exactly what was advertised. It feels even worse knowing that other teams at the same event did not get the same email 422 got, and "gracious professionalism" was used in an effort to coerce us to fix a mistake we cannot afford to fix, be it directly in financing another additional trip or indirectly in damaging the relationships with parents, alumni, school, and sponsors.


I really want to know if other teams at the event got the same message or if a message of this nature has been sent out to other teams in other district systems before this.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I don't know for sure, as I am no expert by any means, but I don't think many other FIRST in Michigan people will be perusing this thread so I'll toss in my experience. But in my 7 years in a district system I have never heard of a situation like this arising. Especially at a home district, as those are guaranteed spots.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I've heard of it in regionals. Specifically, I've heard that a team that had attended a particular regional as their home regional since it (regional, not team--team predated regional) started was asked to go elsewhere to make room for an out-of-area rookie. I believe space was eventually found, but not at that team's expense. Bear in mind that this information is at minimum second-hand, and not from this year's registration. (I'm also going to note, briefly, that the CLOSEST ROOKIE team to the event, bar nobody, had to register for the second-closest event, a "hotel" event for them, and ended up not competing to my knowledge. That I know from looking at the team lists and being at both events! I don't know why, however.)

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

I've heard Gracious Professionalism used in so many inappropriate scenarios. The usage of it in this situation is neither Gracious or Professional...

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Agreed completely, this is pretty messed up. It makes so much more sense to ask a team that is already travelling to the event to just travel the extra 2 hours to HR than it does to ask a home team to travel the two hours.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Keep asking. I don't see why FIRST would not let some small percent of teams to opt out of their district to compete in another district. If FIRST agrees to this, they may require your team to attend the district championship in that selected district.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I can confirm that this is the reason. As an added bonus we love the teams down in Hampton Roads!

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

You should ask them (whoever sent the email) to do the GP thing and vsponsor your registration fee for the alternate event.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

All,

Just to clarify, all teams registered for the Doswell event were sent the same email. The request was meant to find out if there were any teams currently registered at the event who were willing to move. No one is being forced to move.

As for the Northern Maryland events, there are over 10 hotels within a 15 minute drive of the venue and more within about a 20 minute drive. We are working with Experient to get reduced cost rooms. Hope to have them posted shortly.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

There's another team in here registered for the Doswell event that says they didn't get the email, but they might have and it's hearsay, so whatever.

Not once have I ever suggested we were being forced out of the event. My understanding is that being forced from an event would result in me checking TIMS and seeing that the RD de-registered us from the event, if that even is something within the realm of possibility (which I doubt). Do I feel like the message I received attempted to guilt my team out of the event? Yes, I do, and I'm not the only person on my team who thinks that. Do I think that the invocation of "gracious professionalism" was at best poorly placed and in and of itself, counter to the ethos of gracious professionalism and at worst, totally unnecessary? Yes, I do, and I'm not the only person to think that either.

Once again, let me preface what I am about to say by assuring everyone I'm not trying to sound like a jerk here (probably doesn't help the case, but I'm rolling with it): if Chesapeake FIRST wants teams to make a large consideration to drop existing plans to go to an event, taking some bear minimum considerations themselves doesn't seem like a huge ask in return. Asking teams who are not close enough for it to be there "home event" first, then if possible and necessary, asking teams who registered for the event on a second go-round after that. I don't think this information is hard to acquire; if it isn't available through the RD end of TIMS to find out who is closest to the event, Google Maps would also work (at least, that's what I have used). If the organization came out in December and said "listen, we have a rookie team coming out of Richmond that would need a spot in Doswell to compete this season" that's an accommodation most teams would be willing to make. Asking to bail out another veteran team in October is different; for me at least.

On the whole, the situation seems pretty poorly communicated to me, but whatever.

On the hotel availability front with Experient, that's great! I don't recall this nugget of information being brought up in a newsletter or email blast, but I may be mistaken. Looking at all of my information, it looks like every location has hotels within 15 minutes; 20 with traffic. I was scouting for OOD registration at one point and noticed the 30 minute travel was associated with another event there, and incorrectly matched two bits of info.

We have already made hotel reservations for all events we plan to attend through a parent who works as a travel agent so it is not of much use to us. I hope that information is disseminated soon; as discussed earlier, there is a large travel swim meet in the same area the same weekend as the Blacksburg district. I am unaware if there are any other minor event conflicts at other locations.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

We received an email to that effect, I'm told
I feel the same way regarding “home” events. If the Doswell event is oversubscribed perhaps the future should include another event in the area.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

The problem from having have a lot of teams from both HR and SWVA feeding into that one central event along with all of the Richmond teams that use it as their home event. Putting a second event between Richmond and HR or Richmond and SWVA could be a solution in the future. I have a feeling we'll have an 8th event next year with as close as we are pushing the limits this year.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Yea ... we host a week 1 and then attending a week 2 & 3. Not ideal from a robot performance perspective, but it helps in that it sets expectations about robot design and functionality at the different milestones. Also gives us room to breathe before District Champs.

We're pretty excited to host the first VA district. Many of the region's best teams will be there, so it'll be great to watch with a front-row seat. My team is 30-35 minutes from my house, so no complaining about a 15 minute drive from the hotel ;)

Turns out that Doswell is during the tail end of the school's Spring Break, so limited access to the shop & robot in the week prior to the event would have been a killer. We did a team meeting about which 2nd event to attend, and the only absolute sway for a week 4 event came from the programmers (of course it would :D).

It'll be interesting to see how Kettering's back-to-back events work out. Since our districts are in high schools (afaik) I don't know if the same thing is plausible.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

That's an interesting option, I know smaller universities have some of the same issues that high schools have. CNU has been on our radar for a district event and the Rumble in the Roads for years, but getting them to give us their main gym has been difficult because they need it for practice. I can imagine trying to get it for multiple weekend would also be more difficult.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I can confirm we got a bulk email yesterday. I overlooked it. It is worded as Anne stated.
EDIT: I received this email later in the evening. I saw it in my mail box this morning.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I'm sure the shakedown from first year issues will include review of event location vs subscription, to drive the location selections in subsequent years.
I think the District should consider reaching out to schools without teams as hosts. Allows those schools to build excitement thus possibly a team and eliminates the host vs compete scenario.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Teams in MAR have been asked to switch events before.

With the information I've seen in this thread, I don't see anything that the CHP planning committee did out of line.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Rookie numbers to date - 9.

Rookie plays(not including wait list):
NV - 0
DC - 2
HR - 5
SW - 3
NM - 3
CM - 4
CV - 1

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I think the main issue people have is them using Gracious Professionalism as a way to guilt a team into switching. They could have also targeted non home event teams instead of a blanket request.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

In MAR, as far as I know, the host team has always competed at the event they run. In a couple cases, it has involved running a skeleton crew for their competition team. Generally, the hosts teams are among the larger teams and are capable of drawing in help from outside volunteers/other teams to staff positions so that their competition crew is still well staffed as well.

I see 1111 isn't registered to compete in their host event, either. I'm curious if CHP advised these teams to stay away form their own events, or each of these teams decided to be cautious on their own.

Without knowing the exact wording, I think that's hard to say.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

from Sally Sylvester:

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Perhaps "graciousness" would be better substituted for GP there, but I see nothing unprofessional about that email. Certainly nothing to suggest anyone is being guilted into changing events.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

I don't know about what we were 'advised', but the majority of our team didn't think we'd be effective competitors if we were also volunteering/running the event. It could literally take two different team infrastructures to do both given the planning & execution involved.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

interesting perspective, but you aren't being asked to move are you? I can see were someone could read into this that you are not showing GP by not moving.

The issue I have is that this is exactly what I feared would happen. Folks in VA are scrambling to minimize travel expenses. The demand for the central event should have been anticipated. This is why I suggested moving one of the NOVA/DC events farther south to Fredricksburg or New Kent/Williamsburg.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

How much are you involved in this? I was under the impression that CHP would be doing all the planning and execution, "hosts" would only provide manpower.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Don't underestimate what it takes to pull off an event that teams enjoy. Some spots in volunteering cannot be filled by students, so even with a big team we're still going to find volunteers. Other spots shouldn't be filled by students who can't handle egos. Then there are little things like

• Parking estimation (especially on a SAT weekend)
• Signage
• Communication between volunteers
• Load-in/out flow
• Providing power to the room (understanding the outlet situation, etc),
• Internet availability (streaming the event, FMS tweets/HQ comms, etc)
• Understanding/testing available infrastructure (speakers, etc)
• Where specifically volunteers should be in order to manage their portion of the event, etc.
• Team social
• Event coordinators need X, where do they go to get it? (liason, e.g.)

Competitively, certain adult roles are key to success in keeping students engaged throughout an event, so we really don't want anyone in those roles 'dual-hatted'. There are also some roles only fillable by adults at a typical event, though there are sometimes exceptions to this rule (buying/assembling team lunch, mediation of various decisions/conflicts/ambitions, encouraging kids to go beyond their comfort zones, coaching kids through pressure points, running to the store for a needed material/tool).

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Sorry, I worded the question poorly. It was not my intent to underestimate the work you and your team is doing. Thank you for the information.

Re: FIRST Chesapeake Districts
 

Sorry, it wasn't meant as "DON'T" and more like 'there is more to it'.

By the way, who's not stressing out that he got back 3 minutes late from lunch on the day of 2nd registration?
<---- this guy