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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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...
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Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
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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. |
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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 Quote:
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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We attended 2 regionals in the traditional system. We walked (yes) to one of them every year. We traveled anywhere between 2 hours by car to 5 hours by plane to go to our second regional. The travel event always featured lodging. The travel event had a wide range of costs from under $100 per student including meals and lodging in DC to "I'm way too embarrassed to release that number, holy hell, we paid that much for a regional and no one fired me?" for Alamo. The BBQ was pretty great though.
We attended 3 district events. Week 2 and Week 3 were travel events while Week 4 was a local event. Both events cost a little over $100 per student. Week 2 was within our system and a 3 hour drive and the Week 3 was outside of our system and carried with it a 6 hour drive. Also I stopped for Fuddruckers, so it was closer to 7. Apparently I was not supposed to stop at Fuddruckers but I was very hungry. Our Week 4 event required a 1 hour drive so we didn't do lodging. I don't know if it stopped smelling like horse manure on the second day or if I just got used to it. Our DCMP was about 2.5ish hours away without traffic, through the bustling construction project known as the DC Beltway. We stayed at a hotel there, obviously. I think the cost there was around $175 because of geography and extra nights we stayed there compared to other events. According to The Blue Alliance, 422 competed in 93 matches and walked home with 5 trophies in my time as a student (2009-2012). In the 2016 season, 422 has played in 70 matches --so far-- and has walked away with... 5 trophies. "Bbut Wil, it's not about the trophies or the matches!" It's a measuring stick I can use that is indicative of multiple things. We put in a rookie driver and human player this year with ZERO offseason experience. For a variety of reasons, I would have found pushing bamboo into my nailbeds to be a better use of time and energy than competing in an offseason in the 2015 season. We decided to flip our offseason budget into and OOD event pretty easily and boy did it pay off. The kids loved that event more than Championships! We were able to develop our drive team over the entire season. That leads into the two big things for me. The ability to actually have a comprehensive season helps me as a coach both chart the development of our program and use milestones that parallel that of traditional sports to leverage additional support of my program. The district system format also axes the dreadful "win or die" mentality that comes with the traditional regional format. We would have NEVER had an opportunity to have the students who grinded out that robot design win an Industrial Design Award at a regional. The talent pool is too thick at the top for technical awards. In the regional system, we would be staying at home after finishing as semifinalists at 2 events and finalists at the other 2; instead we finished 5th in our district system and are advancing to championships. The coverage and support from the school has started to blossom again for the first time in years, and I have the pleasure of watching the kids come back and retool the team after every event to help get the results they want. I really do worry about how the extended cost and support requirements are going to affect teams and volunteers long term. Stan and the VirginiaFIRST team are turning into fundraising machines and I hope that means that FIRST Chesapeake will use that to transfer the region into the PNW model. I know we can afford the fees but we know that is both a rare position to be in and a difficult one to stay in. Volunteering long term presents both threats and opportunities. I saw a lot of the same faces at events and those same faces tended to look a tad more beaten as the season progressed. VirginiaFIRST has an opportunity to engage with the larger teams near the district sites to identify and train up volunteers of all ages, talents, skills, and importance if the lines are open so the same people aren't stuck doing events 12 weeks a year until they are ready to turn to dust. |
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As far as the costs are concerned, I am hoping the PNW's model is successful and becomes a model for things to come. If the districts can fundraise enough to drop costs for teams down to 5k for the district events and district championship (at least on the registration side) that is a huge win. Also, as more folks see what we are looking for on an event side hopefully it means closer events for a majority of teams. |
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In its final two years, the Virginia regional was the only event Team 619 attended. We would drive an hour down I-64, stick around for 8-9 matches, then go home until next season. As a low resource team, we really couldn't build a high performing robot in six weeks.
The district system (along with some AMAZING students, parents, and mentors) just gave us the best season in the history of our team. The district system gave us TWENTY-FOUR qualification matches, which is three times more than we played in 2015. We purposefully spread out our competitions this year, attending a week 1 and a week 4 event. Using this spacing and the unbag time before the events gave our team the opportunity to do something we hadn't been able to do in the regional system: iterate. Through iteration we bulletproofed our drive train, locked in our vision tracking and high goal shooting, reinvented our defense manipulation, and prototyped several climbers. Through this iteration, and the smaller tournament sizes, we created a robot that competed in more elimination matches than every other 619 robot combined. Do I miss competing alongside 60+ other FRC teams in an impressive arena in the coolest city on earth? Absolutely--but my students are much more inspired by a system that gives us more competition and more design time. |
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While I'm not from the CHS, NC, not PCH districts I can tell you about the IN district.
# events per year your team attended in the Regional system. 2 regionals (2 in state while a college mentor) Time to drive to the Regional(s) you had attended and if your team had to arrange for lodging because of the drive. 5 mins and 2 hours. Hotels for the out of town events event Time to drive to both of your District events and if that included lodging for one or both of those events. 15 mins for event 1 and 1 hour for event 2. Slept at home for event 1 and had a hotel for event 2. Did your team qualify for the DCMP. If they did, the travel time and if lodging was needed. Qualified for DCMP and it was an hour drive. We're staying overnight. Finally please tell us the specific things that you like or dislike about the District or Regional system. Likes: lots of matches, short drive to events, more likely to advance to worlds Dislikes: Playing the same teams every event (we're playing against the no 1 ranked team in Indiana this weekend 3x and last year we played against the no 1 seed 3 times at the same event as well), having to win major awards 2x to qualify for worlds, small/cramped events with limited air conditioning |
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Take a look at my custom user title.
The only thing I disliked was having very little pit time at DCMP before matches started. we had a very rough first day and a half and we're still trying to get all of our robot functional again. |
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We are hoping some mentors will be willing to be trained as Inspectors on their own robot before the season starts so they know what the LRI is training inspectors to be on the look out for and how to teach their students how to build a better robot. Hopefully this is successful and is a win/win for both our teams and the events. |
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# events per year your team attended in the Regional system.
2 Time to drive to the Regional(s) you had attended and if your team had to arrange for lodging because of the drive. 1.5 hours and 3-7 hours depending on the second event. WE arranged for lodging at both events. Time to drive to both of your District events and if that included lodging for one or both of those events. 30 mins and 3 hours. We arranged for lodging for one event. Did your team qualify for the DCMP. If they did, the travel time and if lodging was needed. Yes, 3 hours, and lodging was arranged. Finally please tell us the specific things that you like or dislike about the District or Regional system. I have been a supporter of VA switching to districts for many many years. There is nothing worse than a team spending $5k to attend an event after spending 6 weeks building a robot to play 8 times and then go home just to repeat the next year. Even if a team elects to only sign up for a single district event they are getting a 50% play increase for the same cost. The system allows for several stages of iteration on the robot. We went into our season planning on having a low goal breaching robot that can climb for week 1. We succeeded with the low goal breaching bot but the climber did not work as well as we would have liked. For week 3 we got the climber tweaked and working. Then for the DCMP we added a high goal shooter at the event. This system is only going to grow teams and make the areas more competitive. The system will also open communication lines between teams as you see the other teams more and more. By opening communication resources and lessons learned can be shared. The downsides are more time and more money. But as I said, this can be alleviated by only signing up for a single event (however I really hope this is not the route people choose). The volunteer base will grow, this is a growing pain that every single area will go through with the switch and will get better as the years go on. But if you can't tell by my post, I LOVE DISTRICTS. This is what this sport should be. High school sports are not played in convention centers and college arenas, they are played in high school gymnasiums. This gives more exposure to the community and will help grow and support the teams. I am very happy to see that the overwhelming majority of teams are voting for districts over regionals. Quote:
Franks response said that this has been brought up to the district leaders and was voted down. If this is something that you may be interested in doing please talk to your own districts and try to convince them that this is something the teams in your district could benefit from. I will be talking to Stan about it in detail. Frank said the topic would be brought up again to be discussed. |
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I was 100% against districts coming into it. I started competing in New England, and loved the regionals there. The production value was incredible, and Dean, Woodie and company were always around. I knew there was no way you could recreate that in a High School Gym, and I thought that would hurt the experience.
That being said, I loved the CHS district model this year. For the record, we are a small (10 Students), low budget (approximately $10k raised through the district events.) Who qualified for both District Championships, and Worlds. We had to scramble twice for money (for District Champs and now for worls) but we have been successful in adding sponsors and nearly tripling our budget for the year. The atmosphere is different, but I like it better. Regionals were all or nothing. You could have the best robot in the world, but if your partner broke in the finals, you may find yourself missing out on a trip to championships. Now, two solid performances earn you a trip to DCMP, and a third puts you in the mix for St. Louis. This takes some sting out of tough losses. In Blacksburg we lost an encoder in the Quarter Finals (the first thing to go wrong for us all weekend) that cost us some points in the Semis and ended our chances of winning the competition. In Doswell everything came together for us, but 401, our opponent in the finals lost a tread, in a regional this would have been devastating to them, likely costing them a trip to St. Louis. However with Districts, they already had accumulated enough points to move on, and we knew we would see them again in College Park (where 401 and 122 got their revenge on us and 1086). We have a good robot this year, and a good drive team, we would have been competitive at a regional if we were still in that system, however winning a regional is a combination of having a good or great bot and a little bit of luck. If we had competed in a regional instead we would have played 10-15 matches, and had maybe a 1 in 5 shot of making it to St. Louis. In the district system, we have played 50 matches (35 for the same cost as that regional would have been) and we punched our ticket to St Louis for the first time in this teams history. |
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Here is the requested information for the teams I work with:
1895: 2014 – 1 regional, 11 matches, travel (1:45) 2015 – 2 regionals, 24 matches, travel (1:45), local (0:30) 2016 – 2 district events + DCMP, 45 matches, local (0:25), travel (2:30), local (1:20) 2068: 2014 – 2 regionals, 29 matches, travel (1:45), local (0:30) 2015 – 1 regional, 11 matches, local (0:30) 2016 – 2 district events + DCMP, 44 matches, local (0:25), travel (2:30), travel (1:20) 4472: 2014 – 1 regional, 9 matches, travel (1:45) 2015 – 1 regional, 11 matches, local (0:30) 2016 – 2 district events, 27 matches, local (0:25), travel (2:30) All teams are generally fans of the district model. We liked all the normally touted benefits of districts… more matches, more iteration, less time off work/school, competitive DCMP, more local teams rewarded and lots of interaction with teams we love playing with. Costs were approximately the same as prior years but we were able to attend more events. DCMP at UMD was excellent (VCU would have been as well). On the down side, seating/sight lines weren’t always the best at the smaller events and we missed seeing/playing with some of the out of area teams that would frequent the regionals. |
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Side note, the extra matches at the regionals are really hard on our robot and we are iterating designs for durability (and reparability). 56 matches and counting at three events... |
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I can also see why it could cause some logistical issues and why Districts may be hesitant to allow the points portability. The question becomes exactly how you do the registration. The District's top priority should be to ensure that teams within their boarder are able to play at an event in their boarder. The number of spaces/events they plan for are based on the number of teams in their area. So do you make teams that want to travel wait until 3rd event registration? Now it seems that they will still want to register for 2 events in their home district and then hope they find a spot later. Do some of those teams then drop one of their home events because they only wanted to play two? Is one district overwhelmed by teams that want to visit while another has trouble filling an event because the teams they expected to want to attend an event go outside the district? Points portability does eliminate the possibility of teams getting a practice event before or between their events that count. Currently teams can buy a practice event at an early event in another district. I feel that is counter to the spirit of the District system which I believe is partially intended to level the playing field between the well funded teams and those that are not well funded. However it is still better than the Regional system where the teams that can afford another $4000 entry fee and potentially travel costs get to buy a second chance at qualifying for CMP. So like anything there are pros and cons to either choice. I was an early supporter of points portability, but I do think there may need to be a little more discussion on exactly how it should work to ensure that it doesn't cause a lot of headaches for the district organizers. I also don't want to see a team pushed out of an event in their own District to accommodate a team from another District. So I'm still a supporter of points portability with the reservation that it needs to be carefully thought out to avoid the potential problems. |
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Another I see, kids missing more school (6 days in April). CHS should have more Sat. Sun. events. Agree with volunteer burnout, maybe not this year but when? |
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Also kids are at the Engineering & Science expo in DC this week. While I suggested the trip after a visit 2 years ago, it falls during a tough time robotics wise. |
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I would vote district again and again. The level of competitive robots in NC has skyrocketed as a result of the change. It used to be that most teams in NC would register for the regional, play their 8 games, and then that was it if they did poorly plus they had very little time to learn and adjust. With a significant number of newer teams in the state, the regional model was difficult at best at producing competitive teams year after year. Not only that, teams from outside the state were coming in and getting a lot of the awards in the regional model because they had far more experience and resources than the majority of the teams in NC.
It took 2 years for a single NC team to win the NC Regional and that was 3506 during our rookie year as a last pick and we were aligned with two out of state teams....it was not by our own doing at all. That goes to say that it is now less competitive in the NC district model yet it is helping NC to be more competitive and I am curious to see what happens in years to come when this model produces some powerhouse teams and we flip the idea on its back that NC is not competitive. With more plays, these teams get some time in between events to soak in information, make adjustments that they never had the chance to do, and it put them on the same level as the teams who could afford multiple plays in other regionals previously. I saw teams turn bricks into winning robots and I could feel the change, the energy, and the results were clear in that these teams were collectively better than they ever were before in the regional model. We went to the NC&GA regionals last year and NC&OH regionals the year before that. 6 hour and 8 hour drives respectively outside of the NC state regional. In districts both of our first qualifying events were 1.5 hours away and our third competition that did not count for district points was 3 hours away. State Championships was in our home town. This was absurdly cheaper and easier for us and we got more than twice as many matches out of it than our 4 previous regionals and Championship plays combined. I think the change is immensely helpful and it will give NC an Einstein winning robot that it has not had since 2004. |
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I would love to hear from some of the people who voted I prefer the Regional System, and who have actually participated in the District system, why they prefer the Regional System or what they do not like about the District system.
That was my intention with the thread and poll, to create an open discussion for students and mentors to relate their experiences, give their preferences and reasons, whether it is Pro District or Pro Regional. |
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I have updated my attachment in post #6. I will continue to update as things come to me as a pro or con for Districts or Regionals.
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Inter-District play is quite the can of worms. You have to answer a lot of tough questions and depending on the responses, you have to execute annoying solutions. "How much does equity matter in swapping for OOD spots? Should we re-evaluate how we award the CCAs at district events?" I think the model would benefit from requiring that you a) play at least one event in your home system and b) any 2 events in your home system will be your points earning events, regardless of your OOD event. Teams should be able to indicate interest in playing outside of your district system upon registration. Teams should then rank whichever events (or maybe just systems) in a preference order. Then the district systems can come out and say something like "CHS will be swapping 5 spots with NC and MAR, 2 with NE, and 2 with IN" based on the MUTUAL interest of inter-district play or something like that. For CCAs, maybe consider awarding up to 2 EI and up to X DCAs per event, or whatever the district system allows for its final allocation? I don't know what to do. I don't feel like it should be as simple as tearing down the walls and having an open season because it might cause some weird things to happen in the points. For instance, I'm pretty sure 238 would have qualified for NC states with their sole event in Asheville... |
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The way it is now we already have some teams that pick their events based on the fact that they think a particular event will be easier and allowing inter-district play with points portability could only make that worse. The way it worked out this and previous seasons, in the PNW a team can earn enough points at one District event to qualify for DCMP. This year the cutoff was 58 pts with the declines and a #1 seed that goes all the way earned 68 pts w/o winning any awards. I do understand that in a larger District like FiM a single win may not earn enough points to move on. You do have to keep in mind that since the points are cumulative a team that earns enough at their first event will still want to attend their second event to better their chances at a CMP spot. |
Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
Since last year was our rookie year, we could only really attend one regional. Luckily though, it took us only 10-15 minutes to get to the competitions since we were based in Raleigh, too.
This year, we attended two district events: Wake County and Campbell University/Johnston Community College. The first event only took us 20-25 minutes to drive to. However for the second event, some members of our team required lodging because it took them 1.5-2 hrs. to drive since they lived up far north in Wake County. As for me and others who lived near our workspace in Southern Wake County, we opted for the 45 min. daily commute. Our team, too, qualified for DCMP in Charlotte, NC. This was around 2.5 to 3 hours to get to and our entire team required lodging. Compared to last year, I would say I prefer the District system much better even though I only fully understood it after qualifying for DCMP. Our team was exposed to much more opportunities to fine tune our robot and get to know how to work with other teams. Cheering and lodging together additionally furthered our team's unity especially with 20+ new members this year. We lost in the semifinals at Wake Country and we won at Campbell most only because of the great generosity of Triple Strange (#1533) and The Flying Platypi (#2655) :) . Our robots for the 2015 & 2016 season performed pretty decently with all-around focus on the gameplay, but our team were very successful on our strategy for getting us through. However, we were all extremely surprised for qualifying World Championships in St. Louis. Like Dezion from T-Rex (#4935) mentioned earlier, we had accumulated enough ranking points especially from DCMP. I believe the District system is a great way to level out the playing field for all teams; more teams have an opportunity to qualify which greatly increases the competition even for teams that perform well from season to season. This system offers a dynamic experience and I think teams will benefit globally especially considering the current rate of new teams joining FIRST. We hope to have a great time at St. Louis and we appreciate all of the hard work and Gracious Professionalism all teams contributed to this awesome season! |
Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
I'm still avoiding voting because I haven't made up my mind. Here are some of my thoughts though:
Things I like:
Things I don't like as much:
Things that I really don't like at all:
Things that I feel should be fixed:
I'm sure I've got more but that's my list. At first glance it seems more negative than positive but truthfully, we enjoyed the move to districts. It was a great first year for it and I'm hoping for many more awesome years. |
Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
I guess I failed to see some of the cons with the District system, but I'd have to agree with all of the points Marshall listed above. I did have a chance to go to the Palmetto Regionals last year and I marveled at the diversity of teams from Columbus, OH and all over the east coast. After getting to DCMP, I felt like there wasn't much emphasis put on the importance on winning something over winning something at a district event. Nonetheless, I was still surprised by how many rookie teams there were this year and I hope it continues to grow.
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Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
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To answer the questions in by the OP, 1648 has attended two events for the past few years (2013-14, Palmetto and Peachtree; 2015, GSC and Peachtree). Peachtree was local, Palmetto was obviously not, and GSC was kinda in the middle. ALL of our events were not close this year (Columbus, Albany, DCMP), and all required lodging. We did this for the strategic value of it, not because we couldn't pick a local event; we wanted to avoid the KSU/DCMP turnaround of two days, which I think was a good call in hindsight. Travel was 2 hours, 3.5 hours, and 1.5 hours respectively. But after all of this, I definitely prefer the district system. I come from a team that always did one event in the regional system. So while the change hasn't been that significant for 1648 (though it is universally loved within the team), for me it's been dramatic. The extra plays, the small size of the competition, and the venues all made them feel like well run events. Did I have my gripes? Absolutely. The lack of practice fields at both of our districts was troubling and painfully annoying. The lack of metro-Atlanta events was disappointing. However, I think that as the state grows, having more events around the state will only make things better. I'm willing to chalk up the rest of the problems I saw to the first year of the system, and the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. In terms of what I would like to see next year, the three priorities for me are: 1. Reorganize the event schedule so there aren't poorly timed, unavoidable back-to-back events. 2. Find a practice field for an event. This needs to be a priority over a lot of other things. 3. Figure out the Dean's List/Woodie Flowers situation. It was frustrating and odd to see them mention some things at a few events and ignore them at others. For example, Albany didn't mention anything about Woodie Flowers, but Dean's List Semifinalists were announced. The reverse was true at KSU, IIRC. Quote:
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Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
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We ran 3 events in 3 weekends. I'm not even gonna ask how 125 is able to run 4 events in 4 weekends, including literally simultaneously running a district event in the middle. Thankfully for everyone, our last event led into Easter, which led into spring break. The kids just completed their first normal week of school since the first week in March; I can't believe I haven't gotten a call from the director at the school about it. It's a grind, yo. The worst part for me the whole season was paying for the stupid decision November me made, where I got home from Asheville at 1am Monday morning, then proceeded to shotgun unbag time in between work class and "sleep". That is a grind. What's crazy is that some kvs were pulling that as well, just replacing unbag time with field setup time. Now is the time for these emerging districts to embrace all of the great alumni I know we are producing. I am not much of a fan of the current state of the " R" in FIRST. I think the changes FIRST is implementing through Dean's List modifications are damaging an already somewhat controversial award. The WFA committee is trying to keep themselves from almost actually drowning in essays, but I don't know for sure if it's the right solution to the obvious problem. I have immense respect for all of the crazy men and women who take time out of their job, their mentoring, and the people they probably share houses with and identify as their family to judge the essays, but I wonder if they think it's tenable long term? I also wonder what they think about having Minnesota get 4 wffas a year while FiM, MAR, PNW, and NE get as many with over double the team count... I guess people can and will say that it's an honor for anyone to be nominated for these awards, but if that comes from someone who, you know, actually won the award already, my eyes will probably roll out of my head. Also, those floors are terrible. We had to unload our robot cart so it wouldn't sink in queue. |
Re: Calling all students and mentors from the CHS, NC, and PCH Districts
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