Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Since the announcement of Georgia switching to the districts format, my team's electrical captain and I have been trying to figure out how this thing works, but we are wondering where the 4 district events will be located. Any Ideas? :confused:

We think that there will be 1 in Macon, 1 in Atlanta, 1 near Columbus, and 1 either in Savannah or in North GA.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

From what I heard the district events are going to be held at KSU, Mercer, Albany Tech, and possibly Northwest Georgia Technical College and Georgia Tech, with the District Championship at UGA.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

I wouldn't have thought for all of them to be at colleges/universities but that sounds good to me.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

I'm not a huge fan of this. District events should be centered around team population areas. It makes sense for there to be multiple in the metro atlanta area. I'm not sure there are any teams near Northwest Georgia Technical College or Mercer. I think an event in Columbus, KSU, a larger high school near Suwanee, GT, and maybe in Macon makes sense. District Champs at UGA seems fine, but I'd definitely prefer it to be held at an engineering school ;)

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

I think that there is one team in Rome where Northwest Georgia Technical College is, and my team (4941) is in Macon and Mercer is just downtown so if this is so that'd be very convenient for us.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

District Champs will reportedly be at UGA (Athens Ga) which now offers engineering degrees. No word on rather or not they are going to remove the column from the center of their arch. :ahh:

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

I'd love to see a district event held at GT, although I highly doubt that it will happen considering we don't really have anywhere to host it. As for the district champs being held at u[sic]ga, my understanding is that it is being hosted by the college of engineering.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

GT does not need to showcase themselves as they get the cream of the crop of students and UGA needs to showcase themselves to get students in their Engineering program.

I bet KSU, Albany Coliseum (X-bots venue) and Mercer for districts and UGA for State.

If this happens a majority of teams will need to greatly increase their travel expenses.

State will make 99% of the teams travel. If the prediction for locations above happens many more teams will have to travel to go to two district events.

Still waiting to see more out of GAFIRST on details. They must still be in the planning/negotiation stages.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Not necessarily. With districts spread out all over the state, most teams will probably have a "home" event and an "away" event meaning they will really only have to travel to one additional event. Most "successful" teams in Georgia already do this when they go to a second regional, so if anything, it will probably be cheaper for many teams.

As for traveling to the state event, I agree that it is not an ideal location (I go to GT so trust me that I wasn't thrilled when I heard the news), but they did step up and are willing to host the district champs, and I think that most people would prefer to travel a little bit farther then compete at GWCC again.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

As long as they host the events around concentrated areas of teams. I'm not sure there are more than a couple of teams in Albany. I feel that having 2 of the 4 district events in the Metro Atlanta area would be better just because of the team density. In the early stages of the Michigan system, most of the district events were around the Metro Detroit area.


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I'd rather compete at the GWCC again. It was a great venue in 2014. In 2015 they kind of screwed it up, but with less teams it should be great. I also don't see why we can't go back to the Gwinnett Center, now that states is going to have less teams. The Gwinnett Center was a great venue for less than 50 teams and many teams were able to commute there.

I'm also wondering why we have to be special about our events and can't just host them at the larger high schools (e.g. Walton, Kell). Everywhere else in districts hosts at high schools or community centers. I'd imagine renting out a university facility costs a lot more.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

I know that many of the "larger high schools" are not as supportive of robotics as you may think which is why so many "high school teams" are not actually affiliated with their schools. Also, most schools use their gyms during the school week and you can't ask schools to let several hundred students from around the state take over part of their school during the school day. Even if the event is only on the weekends, there is a large amount of setup and load in required which would would most likely cause a disruption to the school day.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

FiM does it - about 16 venues at HS last year, 2 at colleges.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

and 9/11 of the PNW District Events, 3/4 of the Indiana District Events (one of which is their District Championship), 7/8 of the MAR District Events, and 4/11 of the NEFIRST District Events are hosted at High Schools.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

That depends on how you define "travel". If we speculate that the State Championship (GACMP) is at GWCC, how is that different from attending Peachtree?
Oh, sure you can! They might say no, but asking is free.

MOST district events are Friday load-in/inspection/practice (starting at 4 pm), Saturday & Sunday competition. School boards love this, no missed school time. Mentors love this, no vacation days needed. Students have fun anyway. And those who attend church on Sunday can still do so - just early.

Georgia Teams, if you run an off-season event, you can run a District competition. And even if you don't (why not?) you can still do this. And, if you work the concession stand right, it can even be a major fund-raiser for you: 1000 people for breakfast & lunch - twice - means how much $$? Just raise your hand to the committee.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Well, there is some missed school time for the gym(s) and maybe cafeteria of the host school on Friday, the field and pits have to be set up sometime.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Actually, as noted, in the PNW most of our events are in High Schools. At the school's option we do have Sat/Sun events with Fri drop off and set up. We do not interrupt the regular school day at all on those Sat/Sun events the truck shows up after or at the end of the school day depending on where the truck can park to unload. We typically are out of the venue by 9ish at the latest and usually well before then. For some of the schools that have Fri/Sat events it has coincided with a Fri they did not have school often due to spring break. Others have specifically asked for the event to be Fri/Sat so that other students at the school could watch the event.

So holding an event at a HS does not have to cause any disruption to the regular school day. Also it is important to note that the events we hold at universities have usually been during their spring break to prevent interruptions in their activities.

So no difference in interrupting regular school activities between a HS and a University.

Nope not even a second, at least for the Sat/Sun events in the PNW. We schedule the truck to arrive at the time school gets out or sometimes after the last bus is scheduled to leave because we have to unload the truck in the bus lanes. The first event of the season sometimes takes a little longer for set up but the following weeks we manage to start set up at 3pm have the pits ready for teams to start load in at 5pm, kick the teams out at 9pm (with 75-90% of them fully inspected) and we leave by 10pm.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Tentative dates and locations of the district events and state championships were announced today at the MAC meeting:

March 10-12, 2016 at the Columbus Convention Center

March 17-19 2016 at the Dalton Convention Center
March 17-19, 2016 at the Albany Convention Center

April 8-10, 2016 at Kennesaw State University

April 14-16, 2016 State Championships at University of Georgia

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Shoot!!! I was really hoping for one in Macon since we have Mercer and the Centreplex. I will still be looking forward to competing at whichever ones we (4941) go to.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Columbus is listed as tentative until the contract is signed. Highly likely though. The date is firm.

Mercer was in the running, but the AD would not sign off on the venue. It being basketball season and all.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

O yeah, i forgot about basketball, but I figured since most of March is after regular season, but it is what it is.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Georgia district events are on First's web site. No changes to the previously announced, but being on the event list makes it official.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Glad to hear that these are locked down.. now to decide where to go! Does anyone know if we are required to make one of our event selections our "home" event? I've heard rumors, but haven't heard anything definitive.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Not sure if home event has any meaning. In terms of points, you are scored/present at the first two you attend. If you participate in a third, it just for the experience. I suspect the first district selected will be one of the book ends & picking one of the double weekend one as the second selection.

Re: Georgia District Location Speculation
 

Okay. I was hearing rumors that GeorgiaFIRST might assign us a "home" event (i.e. the one that is closest to you). Really that wouldn't make sense, as all the Metro Atlanta teams would create a disproportionate number of teams with the Kennesaw event as their "home" event.