Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

Only for the EEDCMP and the CMP--many teams won't need to deal with the CMP even if they make the EEDCMP. (This does depend on relative size of the two events, mind you.) And many, many teams probably won't make the EEDCMP (unfortunately).


Something like "suddenly needing to travel again to attend the World Championship" can be dealt with. It won't necessarily be pretty. But it is doable.


And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the LAST time the NY teams didn't need to fly to a Championship was in the early 90s when Nationals was in Manchester, NH. The CA teams have never had a Championship within driving distance--and would love to see some of the Midwest and East Coast teams have to fly out here for once.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

The Alaska test case will definitely be very interesting. I hope that at some point at the end of the year, the Nerds of the North will post something on this forum about their experiences in the PNW this year.

About the Everywhere Else District: The point made in the quote above about many teams in isolated areas having to travel overnight is important. By adding a required DCMP, it saves them no money (probably makes them spend more) and does little to guarantee of making it to Champs.

What might instead be a better alternate solution is for teams to "Opt into" a district region with sufficient notice (something a reasonably large amount of time, so that the planning committee for the district can accommodate them) or to simply allocate extra CMP spots to isolated regionals.

Overall, I think the travel problems for isolated teams make this idea a tough sell.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

This will never happen. HQ isn't going to take the revenue hit of giving everyone that's currently in the regional system two events for the price they currently pay for one.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

This has a better chance of happening than California Districts.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

Heh.

Unfortunately, from what I've heard, this is a true statement--for a wide variety of reasons.



I think TDav is right, though: An "Opt-In" provision in FIRST's standard policy that would allow teams to request inclusion in an adjacent district area would probably have some very interesting results. (No "Opt-Out", though.) The Albany-area teams (NY) would probably ask to be included in New England. NYC/Long Island would be pretty evenly split between NE and MAR. I could see South Carolina and/or Florida teams making a request to adjoining district areas.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

So some of the EE would get 2 events, others would only get 1, based on what the local implementation is? And some would get 12 matches per event, others would get 6 or 8?

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

There's substance to this idea. I think it needs work, but I like the core of it.

When we reach a point where the majority of FRC is in districts by the current method of establishment, this should be considered. There will be areas that won't have enough mass to form their own districts, and don't have any neighboring districts that make sense to join. This idea allows those areas and teams to be integrated to the same qualification methods everyone else uses.

With that said, I don't think this is an idea to be implemented as early as 2017. We're going to have a hybrid system of the District Model and Regional Model for a little longer. There's just too much of FRC not in districts this point in time to make the OP's idea feasible.

So overall, great rough idea that could serve as the icing on the cake to converting all of FRC to districts. We just need to bake a couple more layers to the cake first.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

Yes.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

The Everywhere Districts:

At first sign up you Pick your District Champ location, there will be appropriate number per region

Not one size fits all - in denser areas there will be larger districts sending proportionally more representatives to Champs.
This can be tricky - but some district champs may be smaller - and have fewer advance to Championships - so Hawaii may only get 4 slots into champs and NE get 24 (My numbers are hypothetical - it would be based on relative population between districts, I have not done the math)
Small remote areas will have to team up at least enough to send 1, hopefully more, representatives to Champs - the diversity of these dense and low population teams will be nice at Champs.


Next 2 event signups any district event - in the world - Collect points per the District Point System. Yes you could worry about teams gaming to get easy district points - but that also helps even out the competitive balance over time - and the district champs will sift out those who do not belong.
As now in district system a 3rd event may be registered for - but will not carry district points


For the cost concern - legitimate concern for a 1 event team.
From my experience being a 1 event team was hard to sustain full inspirational energy, it was - is that all there is?
At least in districts for same cost as 1 regional you get 2 events. And you may find that that improves your competitiveness and that that improves your fundraising -
In order to go to the next level?

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

I think this idea has a lot of merit. I have a couple of changes, mainly terminology and qualification steps.

I propose you continue to call them Regionals and then you qualify to go to the Regional Championship. Then you qualify from the Regional Championship to go to the World Championship.

The qualification process for the Regional Championship is identical to the current steps to qualify for the World Championship at a Regional event (winning, awards, or wildcard). Each regional would send 6 teams to the Regional Championship as they do today.

To qualify for the World Championship you would then earn points at the Regional Championship similar to the district points. The number of teams to qualify is identical to the way districts are calculated, % of all FRC teams that are Regional teams.

Regional Event (1+) > Regional Championship > World Championship
District Events(2) > District Championship > World Championship

The increase in registration costs to move to this system would be identical to the increase in costs when switching a region to districts. The only difference being the likely more expensive cost of traveling to Houston for the Regional Championship.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

Most New York teams (and their Ontario friends to the north, and their NE friends to the east) drive to St. Louis.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

To be fair, districts that are actually in existence have already had to do the hard sell on isolated teams.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

The district model is based on a minimum team density. The EED, by definition, consists of those areas that either don't meet this density, or lack the desire to go to districts.

While I am not familiar with every district and its boundaries, it seems to me that every team that competed in a district in 2015 except 568 (Nerds of the North of Anchorage, AK) could reasonably drive POVs (personnaly owned vehicles) to their DCMP; no need to rent an intercity bus or buy airline tickets. For a Dallas DCMP in EED, this would be a very small fraction of the teams, and those who won there would then have to turn around and get another plane/bus to Detroit two weeks later.

I just don't see an upside that comes anywhere close to balancing the problems this would create, except for travel agents.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

So nobody has addressed this yet. So... each district is only suppose to be like 30-40 teams. So since most regionals are 60 teams, what if they had 3 times the district events. Then they go to a regional championships and you send 1/3 of the teams from the regional championship to worlds. This would strengthen the quality of worlds but it would make teams in rural areas non existent. 2 regionals, 1 regional champs, 1 worlds. That would be like 8 flights and 12 days of hotels for someone in south Dakota for instance. They would probably rather quit than go on.

Re: The Everywhere Else District
 

In both the model I suggested and the one Nate suggested most Regional events would be identical to the way they are now. Noone is suggesting that you require every team go to more than one regional event.