Originally Posted by ahartnet (Post 1591030)

Bluntly put - I think it's naive to think that it'd happen.

Originally Posted by Michael Blake (Post 1591034)

Wow, Andrew... "naive" is not usually a word associated with my thoughts... lol

Originally Posted by ahartnet (Post 1591030)

There's also nuances to consider in team sizes (how many rooms), and district rules regarding travel (for instance, any travel we use - bus or vans - have to be through a school approved vendor). If you were to attempt to do a financial stipend, I'd guess that the sponsors would also want to control what bus/van/hotel is used rather than just give the money to a team outright which could cause it's own set of problems. Granted though, if you could even get to this point I think most teams that have to deal with those sort of rules imposed by a district could find a way to make something work if it reduces costs...but I've learned never to doubt the ability for rules and regulations to force a decision that doesn't make any sense or to turn down "free money".

In addition to seeming unrealistic IMO, I think it treats the symptom rather than do anything to address an issue.

To be fair, I don't have a solution that I think is sufficient either. Do you allow teams to duplicate their score from attending 1 event if they justifiably can't attend 2? Do you reduce their registration fee to do only 1 district event? Do you allow west texas teams or border teams to compete out of state to count for district points? Do you only have districts for the parts of texas with a required team density (basically east texas)? Do you allow teams that aren't within XXX miles of a district event to decide on their own to opt-in or opt-out of districts? All of these come with their own set of obvious problems.

Originally Posted by Coach Norm (Post 1590983)

+1

Originally Posted by waialua359 (Post 1591049)

Lubbock or Alamo would be our priority since we havent done them before. We always planned to, just a matter of when.
Want to see your shop and visit your school also.:)

Originally Posted by Coach Norm (Post 1591069)

We could go check out some live music here in Austin.

Originally Posted by Coach Norm (Post 1591069)

Glenn,

It would be great to have you guys at either of those events.

Our shop is small currently. We are fortunate to be moving into some new space in about 3 weeks though. We would love to host you guys at WHS for a few days though. We could go check out some live music here in Austin.

Originally Posted by waialua359 (Post 1590950)

Running out of places to play.

Originally Posted by Michael Blake (Post 1591045)

Andrew... everything you raise here is legit and the opposite of naive < ;-) > but there needs to be something done, at least initially, for these West Texas and Southwest Texas teams that are going to get killed by that second competition requirement.

Some of your suggestions above are _really_ interesting...

--Michael

Originally Posted by ahartnet (Post 1590972)

Like you stated, the thing that will be interesting to me about Texas districts is there's a significant # of teams that don't have more than 1 event (currently) within 300 miles of them, and some of those don't have any event within 300 miles. If the normal district rules apply, forcing those teams to do two competitions in Texas could place a significant burden on them, or force something like Lubbock to host 2 district events back to back with many of the teams competing in both against a roster of teams that is mostly the same, or some other solution I have not heard of/thought of. There's a LOT of Texas that is not within a couple hours drive of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, or Houston.

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann (Post 1591219)

There is no requirement that a team actually compete at both district events that their entrance fee allows them to. Those teams who choose not to are still getting a better deal robot time per dollar compared to those in a regional.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis (Post 1591225)

This statement confuses me greatly. How is 2 days of competition greater than 3? Sure, we get fewer qualification matches, but more practice matches. Heck, there have been years when my team has played in a dozen practice matches at a single event!