Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

With all of the discussion about areas moving to districts I thought it would be a good idea to start a poll and thread for those who have just made the transition to post their satisfaction with the switch and relate their experiences. For the best info it would be helpful to know a little background on the person responding. So I believe it would be helpful to include that, so if possible please include the following.

# events per year your team attended in the Regional system.

Time to drive to the Regional(s) you had attended and if your team had to arrange for lodging because of the drive.

Time to drive to both of your District events and if that included lodging for one or both of those events.

Did your team qualify for the DCMP. If they did, the travel time and if lodging was needed.

Finally please tell us the specific things that you like or dislike about the District or Regional system.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

We attended 2 regionals last year- one was an hour away(no lodging), and the other was 3 hours away(required lodging).

This year, we attended 2 district events and one regional. Our first district was one hour away and our second district was 3 hours away, so with the exception of the regional we didn't experience any change in driving/lodging.

We did not qualify for DCMP, but if we had it would have been about a 1.5 hour drive, and lodging would have been preferable but not required.

Overall, I was fairly pleased with the district system. The 6 hours out of bag time instead of a practice day allowed us to make more efficient use of the time and iterate on our design. The additional matches(our robot played about 40 this year) definitely took a toll on the robot; major breakages during matches were a large part of the reason we didn't qualify for DCMP. I think this season was a learning experience for our team- we will definitely build a more robust robot next year.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

We attended 2 events each year under the regional system, with the district model we attended 3

Regional drive times: 3hrs, 1 hr, we arranged lodging for one event

District drive times 2 hrs, 45 min, 1 hr(district champs) We arranged lodging for one event

we did qualify for the district champs, it was a 1 hr drive, we did not arrange lodging

I enjoyed the district system more than the regional system. The increased play time, and decreased cost are clear benefits. There are also some more subtle ones, the judging seemed more in depth, we received multiple visits from different judging teams, each one wanting to talk about different aspects of our team for different awards. I also think that a huge benefit of the district system is rewarding mid level teams. My team has often been in the middle of the pack at regionals, just missing out on eliminations, and there was no reward for us. At a regional event, if you don't win, you loose, there is no reward for second place. However at the district system, strong and consistent performers are rewarded by qualifying for district champs. District champs provides a great opportunity for mid level teams to get to experience a higher level of competition, and it provides an intermediate step between the local level and the world championships.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

In 2014 and in 2015 we attended two regionals each year, all of which required lodging.

In 2016, we attended all four of the NC District events and the NC DCMP. The four district events ranged from 2-3 and a half hours and lodging was required.

The DCMP was in Charlotte, was about 30 mins away, and required no lodging.


When reading everything below, keep in mind I have never attended a Regional event.

In the district model, we played a total of 80 matches. I believe that's more than 2014 and 2015 combined. Playing 80 matches is rough on our robot, but we managed to keep it together. We suffered three issues on our robot, one of which was resolved before our first event. The second issue was our arm, which allows us to do the Cheval and Portcullis. With very limited time to do repairs on it, we unfortunately had to play about one match each event without it (except at Campbell, where larger issues caused us to not play with it in Eliminations at all). Some of these matches we won, some we lost. You don't have a lot of time to fix anything, but it never developed into too large of an issue for us. The third issue was our rhino track coming off, which only occurred once throughout the season... in our 80th match. But, playing all of these matches was very fun.

The first two NC events, Guilford and Wake County, were held at high schools. The field was set in a gym, which was packed with teams. This made these two events very loud, especially Wake County. In my opinion, that only contributes to the experience though. The pits were still located close, and the events functioned well. The second two NC events, Asheville and Campbell, and DCMP, UNC Charlotte, were held at Universities. These events featured larger arenas, but the pits were still located close to the field. All five district events were either ahead or on-time for the majority of the event.

Since districts are smaller, you tend to know teams better (especially if you attend every competition). It's really great to see teams improve throughout the season (5854 and 900 being great examples). Teams you align with in eliminations at one event you may be playing against them in the next event (3336 and 5160 for us). It seems the personal relationships between teams is very high at district events.

District points provide a way to reward consistent medium to high strength teams. You don't have to win anything to move on, but doing so rewards you in district points. Teams that were consistent in their first two events, but not too strong at States, still moved on (2655 and 2642). And earning a lot of district points at states, but not winning can still push you to St.Louis (5518 and 4561) With 4935, we performed well at our first four events (our lowest seed was 11th, and we were an alliance captain or first pick at every event), but because of our somewhat-lacking performance at States, we did not qualify based on district points. Earning District points at States is critical.

tl;dr Districts provide a unique, personal experience with other teams and allows consistent teams to move on to St.Louis.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Though it was a bit tricky dealing with repairs with the quick turn around time, partially a problem simply due to the aggressive nature of stronghold, i really liked the district system. More matches, closer events, and a higher level event to compete at was great. And though there was less teams that we interacted with, i found myself actually getting to know a lot more teams a lot better. Though in the end 1719 was fairly bad at chmps due to voltage issues, it was so much fun. cant wait till the district events next year, possibly on another team that hasn't been competing in a while...

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

I spent 12 years in the Los Angeles area doing Regionals at Silicon Valley, Sacramento, San Diego, Arizona, and Los Angeles. Some of these were smaller regionals in the beginning, such as Sacramento, but most were larger numbers of teams.

I spent this year in the WA state area doing Districts where my team, but not the robot, advanced to the District Championships as a Rookie All-Star winner at a District event.

I personally am torn between the two, so I made a Pros/Cons list, as I see things.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Thanks for putting together a list! I have a similar list in a spreadsheet on my Google Drive and this made me think of a few items I missed.

One thing I would like to note - there is no price difference between two district events and a regional. They will either cost you $6000 for rookie teams or $5000 for veteran teams, this is why your registration fee was more expensive this year! http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...ng-and-payment

*Edit: rtfgnow corrected me below

So whatever the total cost for FRC teams in PNW was, included everything for the year (KoP, 2 district events and DCMP, provided they qualified).

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

PNW does costs a bit differently. PNW website talks about it here. The FIRST website touches on it on this page.

I thought the practice fields were the same. The practice fields at the AZ Regionals looked to be about 1/4 field with a wooden tower, a wooden hanging bar and a single defense platform with ramps and the third set of defenses. I haven't been to a district this year, but can someone provide some information.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Our first district had no practice field. I know our second district had at least the tower and scaling bar; I'm not sure if they had the defenses as we never made it to the practice field.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

I was going off of previous years at Regionals since I didn't attend them this year. Thank you for the correction.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Both district events had some team made towers and defenses, but the DCMP had an actual field with FMS and everything (check out the photo that Darren posted here)

A little over $6000. I can confirm many smaller teams (especially in Eastern WA) did not like this at all. Im not expecting this to stay honestly. (In case you are wondering, though we didnt qualify we still liked it.)

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Thanks for the great list with your perspective.


Your team did a great job this season and showed some excellent improvement for your second event.

Which brings up the point that under the Regional system very few rookie teams are able to come up with the additional $4000 for a second event. In this case the next nearest event would have been either 2+ hrs and over the pass to Ellensburg or 3 1/2 hrs to Portland.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

I would love an option of, "The jury is still out on Districts."

So far so good. I'm concerned about volunteer burnout. The extra layer of competitions to get to World's, more directly the added cost, is annoying as all get out.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Actually the person who posted about the second full field is a different Darren, he is the Lead Mentor Bear Metal 2046. The Darrin that is the MC with the most energy and style in the PNW is with Hi Tekkers #3574.

I wasn't sure about taking the complete second field, I'm glad that it was done and I hope that we can do it again next year.

Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
 

Sorry I didn't think about that particular option.