California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Hello FIRST Community,

As promised, here is Revision 2 of the California District Proposal.

Some highlights of Revision 2 of the CA District Proposal include:

• A preface on the topic of Change
• Revision of Goals and Objectives to align with FIRST’s stated Strategic Pillars
• Team Growth, Retention and Performance Data comparing Regional to District structures
• Addition of Unofficial CA Key Volunteer Database
• Revised budget estimates based on an assumed District transition in 2018, $1,000 kickback from FIRST per FRC team registered, and doubled staffing budget to $400,000

All sections with major changes have a comment “Rev 2” next to the title of that section.

Last month, we released the first revision of this proposal. See this thread for Rev 1 and the discussion that followed.

Thank you everyone for your feedback and discussion so far. I’ve personally been overwhelmed by the community support.

A special thank you to all the Key FRC Contributors listed in the proposal, you’ve been incredibly helpful through this process, I cannot thank each of you enough.

Best,

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Anyone interested in an over/under style pool for 199.9 replies on this thread?

All kidding aside... To my dear friends in California- I'm rooting for ya.

Awesome job! Especially like the new preface.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Updated Key Volunteer pool for the Sisk family

Must say, this is a very well put together proposal.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I updated my info as well. I'm so glad someone has taken the time to put this together. It is an amazing proposal, and coming from districts myself I'm excited to see it come in more places.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Updated for myself, and fixed a couple of slots I know the answer to.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

A Volunteer column to add: Machine Shop.

The volunteers who do this work are greatly overlooked as we view the spectacle on the playing floor and in the pits, but it takes a lot of years to become an expert, a lot of expensive gear, and the willingness and expense to haul it across the country side.

Not every venue can get one of course, but for those that do, the people with the expertise put machines back onto the playing field when there may have been no alternative but to pack up and go home.

Joe
Machinist

PS- The whole topic seems to most to be a sideshow of a sideshow, but having more mobile machine shops at venues helps out the "janitor closet" teams. Hmmm… sounds like another thread….

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

FIRST has posted a position for a part-time RD in Northern CA.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Jenny,

Thank you for the heads up!

I believe this position opened up after Ken Mitchell recently stepped down from his position as a Northern California RD.

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I too believe this is an important issue to address.

I'm curious how machine shops work in a district environment. As the only regional I attended this year was SVR, the only machine shop I know of is the NASA trailer kind. I'm assuming that they don't drive a trailer out to every district event, although I may be wrong. Could somebody who has experience post a quick overview? Thanks in advance.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

In the PNW, we own 2 (I'm pretty sure. I know we own at least 1) machine shop trailers that travel to every event. I'm fairly certain these trailers are easier to work with and incorporate logistics for then finding a machine shop in each school or venue we go to. Even the district championship uses the trailers for the machine shop.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Depends on the area, even for regionals.

Ventura (and I'd highly recommend trying to keep that venue available for districts) has an on-site shop, with golf-cart transport (it's not quite at the gym end of campus). L.A. and San Diego(?) used the Holy Cows' mobile shop (a trailer). I'm not entirely sure about O.C., but I think the school shop was open there. Can't say when the last time I've seen the NASA shop down here was.

Short version: Local shop if possible, trailer shop if not possible or for other reasons (consistency, etc.). I'd be reasonably certain that something along those lines would be the case for districts as well, with the caveat that if there was a team at the high school they'd probably be expected to either completely shut down their shop or make it the event shop. (Example, if an event was hosted at 1197's school, which there are other factors against, it'd most likely be a hike across campus to the team shop, which would probably be opened for use as the event shop if staff were available.)

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I cannot speak for all districts. At our district competition in St. Joe, we use the shop our school provides -- which is also my team's build space. During the event it is staffed by machinists from some of the companies that sponsor teams in our area, with a couple of our mentors to help people find tools and materials. It stays pretty busy, generally with five or six tasks in progress. Sort of like our team on a typical build night. :)

(But the extra machinists are only for the event.)

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

In NE:

Like pretty much every other question about districts, it depends. At a lot of events there is a machine shop area in the corner of the gym with tools lent by teams. There is usually at a minimum a drill press and a bandsaw, but it varies a lot. In these situations, if there is a tool you want and you have room for it in your trailer, bring it and lend it to the machine shop. You will have the tool you need, it won't have to fit in your pit, and everyone will like you. At Granite State this year, the machine shop used Windham's shop. At RIDE this year, there was no machine shop at all. Since we had a drill press and bandsaw in our pit, we were REALLY popular. At DCMPs this year, we had the NASA trailer. Basically, most tools are lent by teams (host or not), so the quality of the machine shop lies on the teams.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

We hosted at a school who has a robotics team so their shop became the machine shop, which I think is JUST as great! :)

California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Thanks everyone for the great responses! I'm happy to see most districts represented in the answers!

I have a follow up question. For those who have used both a trailer-based shop (NASA, team provided, etc.) and another kind of shop (a team's build space, a "bring your own equipment" shop, etc.), do you ever have problems with not having a certain tool, the tools not being maintained, or any issues along those lines? Just curious.

Edit: Related to the discussions we're having about machine shops, I think it would be good to add something about them to the potential venue criteria. My quick read through that section turned up nothing about an event needing to have a machine shop.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Many of the IN events are in team schools, so the "host team" effectively provides a space. For the Perry Event, we recruited a few former team members to run the machine shop. Our build space is located near the playing field and pit gym, so it was easy access.

This does bring up something that FIRST may need to be sure is clearly defined. We considered our build space to be "off limits" during the event, and any work we needed done we did through the machine shop, like all other teams.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The Duluth regionals have used trailer-based machine shops, from a couple of different sponsors.

Minneapolis uses an off-site machine shop at the U.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Washington FIRST Robotics owns one machine shop trailer that was purchased when we were still in the regional system. That of course is the one with the wrap. The plain black trailer is owned by an uber volunteer. They are for the most part equally equipped. They are towed to the events by volunteers.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The only real issues I've had with event machine shops were no tungstens and filler rods for the TIG welder, and lack of a large enough arbor press.

And for the record, Octavio, the machining instructor at Ventura college is a great guy. Very friendly and helpful.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I saw a NASA-hosted shop at Maderia CA a couple of years ago-very basic.

The best example I know of is Holy Cows of San Diego-getting their mobile shop organized and funded and staffed so as to haul around to events was a major point for them in winning the national Chairmen's Award--Two? years ago.

Another sideshow: There is so much hardware and gear hanging around because the old guys with the expertise who have/had stuff in their garage are dying off. Estate sales, the digital auction, word-of-mouth will get you more gear that you can possibly use.

There's some money involved to get it up and operational, space requirements, etc., but the bigger picture is reconstituting a skill set on the national level that we are losing to attrition. And you don't need to get into debt with a university degree to do this work and be successful.

Joe
Windmill Climber

PS- We're losing the focus of this thread. Lets go back to the Districts topic and somebody put up another on a move for more mobile machine shops. Post the link here so we can find it. Have a great summer!

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

While we are talking about machine shops and getting back to the topic of moving to Districts. There needs to be a requirement for review of the 'site requirements' document. This would apply for a school or other venue that would host a district event.

I know that FIRST has such a document and when we were looking at moving the PNW OSU/Philomath event, that document was used quite extensively during the selection. It includes requirements for such things as space, power, access and seating capacity.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The FRC district planning guide and venue site selection guide are on this page.
http://www.firstinspires.org/resourc...lanning-guides

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I'd say it largely contains suggestions, which should be heeded to varying extents.

First of all, sorry for dragging the thread off topic with my questions :).

Allen Gregory created such a thread that you can find here: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=149665

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I think that it contains both requirements and suggestions. The hard part is knowing which is which!

For example, I would think it possible for an event to have pits and field on different levels--the catch is that said event would need a device to safely move the robots between levels (commonly known as either a ramp or an elevator, depending on vertical distance, and preferably a freight elevator with some speed to transport lots of robots at once).

On the other hand, the field space can't be compromised much without compromising safety and access. So that's more of a requirement. Pit space in total can't be compromised much either--but having it all together can be, to an extent. Power can be supplemented. Seating probably can't be fudged much without somebody complaining (loudly) about not being able to see their team compete--or the situation we had in IE '14, where the reminders to not sit in the aisles in the stands were constant but there wasn't much of anywhere else to sit!

Short version, you're right, but you have to know what the actual requirements are before you can fudge the given numbers.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

FIM St. Joseph had (and probably still does?) have the pits a few feet lower than the field and uses a ramp.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The ramp works pretty well, but was actually dangerous for many due to transport configuration. We eventually let teams with tall bots do their best to stay safe through that area.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I was informed by Janet that California will not ever get districts because when FIRST looked at it, they deemed that they would need something like 25-35 district events to cover the state, which they deemed was unfeasible.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Probably should read the proposal above.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I would encourage you and anyone else to question bold numbers like that!
In this proposal we made it a point to break down how we got the numbers we did, I would encourage you to ask for the same explanation when people throw around numbers like 25-35 events.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Ever is a strong world. Depending on how the whole brexit things shake out California is somewhere between the the 4th and 7th biggest economies.... Pretty sure we have the resources.

We also have somewhere around 500% of michigans population, 80% as many teams and currently 0% as many districts.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

This is what you can expect at most district events: local team's shop if you are at a high school or some tools in a corner staffed by volunteers. 125 has been a big resource in keeping NE events stocked with tools for a machine shop and some transportation issues left RIDE uncovered but teams worked together and everyone shared what they had. It also prompted us to start bringing a larger vice, bandsaw, and belt sander to Boston the next weekend and our pit became a machine shop outpost with volunteers using our tools more than we did. ;)

The machine shops aren't as nice as what teams see in reigonals but you have to keep in mind with teams getting six hours of unbag time in their shops a lot of the machining work teams need to do gets done at their shops. The machine shops still get plenty of use for the times we need it however we use it less than we did during a regional.

It does get beefed up for the District Championships. Connecticut had one of the NASA mobile machine shops this year and I believe WPI uses the shop on campus.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

For the discussion on venue machine shops, see this thread:

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/n...reply&t=149665

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

In 2016, California had 258 teams. Michigan had just a hair over 400 teams. So in actuality, that number is ~65%.

But beyond that, the logic of having 35% less FRC teams than Michigan, yet needing 25-75% more events than Michigan, is crazy. I've heard other great people in CA share similar figures, but after a brief explanation of district numbers/team count, they better understand that the 25-35 event number is pretty exaggerated. It comes down to an awareness issue, which I'm hoping the proposal helps with!

For those too lazy to read the whole proposal, we project needing 17 district events, plus two championships, in 2018. This estimate is assuming 10% FRC team growth year over year for the next two seasons.

Happy to answer any additional questions.

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

In case no one reading this knows, If you plan on having 40 team district events, and each team playing at least 2, then the math works out to:

Number of District events = Number of teams expected/20 rounded up to whole integer.

IE 258*1.1=284 expected teams 284/20 = 14.2 thus a minimum of 15 district events plus a championship for a count of 16. The 15 district events would leave 32 open slots for teams to get 3rd plays our out of towners. By doing 16 events, California would increase the convenience factor as well as then have potentially 72 open slots for 3rd plays, though in reality, some venues might be more comfortable at say 36 to 38 which will decrease the available extra slots.

Several years Michigan has had 1 whole events worth of extra slots. This typically helps low resource teams have another option (think both proximity and/or timing) and it helps higher resource teams as they are often the ones signing up for another event to get additional practice/out of bag time.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I have read the proposal, all I'm saying is that is what I was told by the NorCal director.

If I talk to her again I will, all I'm saying is that was what I was told. I'm not providing any argument or analysis of that statement.

Yes, she did not say "ever", her tone was just that FIRST was not considering districts for California, as they already looked at it, found that it required too many resources, and then closed the case on it. Again, I'm not against the idea of districts, I'm just relaying what I have been told.

For anyone wondering, I was told this information at the San Mateo Maker Faire offseason event.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

First, thank you for taking the time to read the proposal! :)

Second, I appreciate you sharing your experience with FIRST staff in CA. Any data point helps understand the current situation in our state.

Best,

-Mike

Yep, no problem. As I said before, I'm all for California districts, and was saddened when I heard that they FIRST decided that they weren't coming anytime soon.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

That is unfortunate. I have not heard that FIRST HQ made any decisions regarding District model adoption in CA, but thank you for relaying that information.

As far as I knew, going to Districts in a region involved the region and FIRST coming to a mutual agreement regarding pricing, contracts, fiscal liability, staffing, etc. I did not know that FIRST was barring certain regions from making the switch. That could complicate this whole effort :rolleyes:

Overall, FRC is moving towards Districts, which means FRC is moving to a similar organization model that FTC, FLL and Jr. FLL currently operate under. From FIRST's perspective, there are definitely fiscal pros and cons for a region moving from Regionals to Districts. Lots of liability and expenses change hands, so it can be a bit tricky to keep it all straight and determine whether it ends up being a net positive or negative for FIRST HQ.

Best,

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Thanks for everyone's contributions and thoughts on this. I believe that Districts would be a benefit to my teams and the teams I help sponsor in the so cal area. I also very much appreciate the volunteer community getting our act together so when a FIRST conversation does happen, we will be ready and not railroaded into actions that are not in our bests interests. Now for the rambling thoughts that have been collecting.

1) Has FIRST made any comment in an official/non capacity to these 2 proposal threads? Rick Sick is the only FIRST person that has contributed. But, as a Senior Mentor he is still on the volunteer side.

2) Is it a "California" proposal for a particular reason? East to define? Political? Easy for the legal aspects?

I appreciate the willingness to treat Nor Cal and So Cal as needing their own considerations. Do we NEED to carry the 2 areas forward together? Is it better to discuss the areas actions separately? For timing? Workload? Necessity? Personally I think that the combined discussion is best and I would love action to be taken together but I would not want the best solutions to fail because of any artificial requirements imposed but not needed.

3) We need to strengthen the section regarding requests to and discussion from CA FIRST staff. At some point we actually have to deal with FIRST; expanding the discussion outside of the volunteer community. FIRST depends VERY heavily on its volunteer base. This discussion is an opportunity to help FIRST support our community better. And in turn, we can support the students better.

4) I am actually a BIT uncomfortable using the FIRST logo on the proposal. Because, this is the work of volunteers that have no corporate standing in FIRST. I would be happy with a contributors list showing every single team that has entered the discussion as an exotension to the authors list currently on the front cover.

5) I think we need to strengthen the section on Volunteer needs. Thanks for adding the spreadsheet of volunteers and roles. It was great that we have already identified Volunteer recruitment/development/coordination as a major need that requires considerable work from the volunteer community as well as FIRST. Its nice to see that action is already happening in this regard. Thanks Joe Petito for putting Inspector development into Off Season Event plans. I will be working on similar development for San Diego events.

6) Discussions pointed out that the Volunteer Coordinator was possibly the most important key role for event success. Random question--Would events be better if the Volunteer Coordinator was a paid position? Possibly idea would be a VC for each of the fields, assuming fields are planned to ship as locally as possible then the VC would have a solid handle on all the available volunteers and KEY volunteers within reasonable distance of multiple events.

If I struck some interest (or a nerve) please add your thoughts. --Steve

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Among other experiences, I've been a VC for a district event and a district championship. I think knowing local volunteers, having familiarity with local teams/businesses/other non-profits that are good places to recruit new volunteers, and understanding any local issues to be aware of are important traits for a VC to have, especially in the first year of a new district event. I don't think making VCs a paid position would have an impact on those key attributes. Perhaps it would make it easier to recruit new VCs, but I can also see it potentially attracting the wrong people to be VCs.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I can see that, too. Let's have VCs who have drunk the koolaid and are in this as committed addicts.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I don't know what their justification was but as someone in MAR, I would strongly suggest against splitting the state. We have trouble getting funding from PA because not all PA students are allowed to benefit from our organization.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

From my understanding of the proposal, the only real splitting is District Champs. It is still all run by one organization and there has not been a clear answer yet on North and South teams being able to attend the other's district events.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The comment I have received from CA RD's is A) to not use the California FIRST Logo and B) a general reminder that this is not an official proposal. I'm hoping the conversation can progress further. Side note: Senior Mentors receive a stipend (I believe).

I think CA could roll out together or separately. It will depend on more than just one proposal to determine that direction. It is important to, at a baseline, recognize that splitting state into two DCMPs will be key to make DCMP affordable for the most CA teams. Beyond that, I think roll-out timing, going together or separate, etc, is more of a "cross that bridge when we get there" sort of topic.

As mentioned before, a few volunteers are working to get some open communication channels with CA FIRST staff. This has been more difficult than I had hoped, but will keep trying.

I will remove the logo, thanks for expressing the concern. I would rather not track/tally all the discussion contributors, that list is over 200 people long at this point (which is a great thing!) The individuals listed currently went above and beyond to support me as I drafted the first and second revisions.

Do you have any recommendations for improving the section? PM me if you have specific additions you'd like to see, or post here.

No nerves struck, thanks for posting!

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

For the record...

The name is Rick Sisk, FIRST Senior Mentor, SoCal
And yes, we do receive a small stipend for our work (IMO, one of the best jobs in FIRST)

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

This is probably less a problem in CA because 1) the state is really so huge and 2) it has a long history of divided programs across the state. For example in many high school sports there are not state championships, but rather section titles, even N/S sections. Football is a classic example. If the program is advertised as being phased in at different rates, that should cover these issues.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I feel that it isn't that much of an issue because the proposal is for the whole state to go to districts. It would be a different story if only Northern California went to districts for example. Both districts will also be ran by the same organizational body.

Unrelated, but I also think it won't be that big a deal if we can allow inter-district play in California (NorCal-SoCal events) to count for district ranking points.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Been a while since I could catch up on this one...

I think that with the way the proposal is structured, it would be possible to run one end of the state on regional and one on district, should that become necessary, for a short while. I also don't think it'll be necessary.

I understand PA's objection to splitting the state, I think, but one thing the East Coast folks need to keep in mind when we're talking about distances is this: 307 miles from end to end (PA) is a fair piece... but CA is only about 500 from San Diego to Sacramento or San Fransisco (covers many of the teams), which doesn't include the northern part of the state. And there's mountains between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. We're used to being "split" due to the distances and terrain. (Here's a hint, for the NE folks: I think you could probably fit CT AND RI into one of our larger counties, with room to spare.)

So, with that said, I definitely think that for purposes of practicality (and/or "persuasion"), the option to run districts in one half and regionals in the other half, for a short term, should remain on the table. Should that actually happen, of course, a couple of district events really, really close to the border might be in order, for a variety of reasons.

I would assume that North/South division would only be for the DCMPs (on paper), but that actual play north/south would be more of a "is the team willing to travel when there's two events that aren't overnight away?" question.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Assumptions:

Don't want to make any, in that there could be the perception of some rivalry between N and S. There is none, to be clear.

Making this work (the District Model) within the existing complexities would be helpful were there a consortium, within North, who would be willing to jump into the thing and experiment, whilst south steps up and participates in some of the events to get a handle on what must be done. And be a part of planning, if only to observe. It may take a couple of game cycles to get data from teams and analyze behavior and movement of teams between venues, and see what kind of success there is with actually booking venues for our purposes. The Reluctant Administrator Syndrome. (bless you those Administrators for getting behind us to push our Differentiated education!)

Does North have an organization that can pull this together in the next year or two? * South does not, to my knowledge. We have a lot of very good stuff, we keep a lot of balls juggled, but to be honest, it's not cohesive in such a way as to pull off this District thing in the existing or prospective environment.

* I do not wish to put pressure on teams or individuals by asking-merely an honest assessment of the Status Quo.

Joe
Repurposer

PS- Thank you Boeing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L0B...ature=youtu.be

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

What makes you say that? I know absolutely nothing about FIRST in California, so I'm genuinely curious why the South is incapable of Districts, even in 2 years.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Eric,

This is certainly one way to do it.

A straight split North/South would be another way to do it.

I'm sure a lot of people would prefer the option you presented.

However, there could be logistics issues with that approach that should be considered (planning for event capacity, district point allocations, etc).

Either way, for the purpose of this proposal, I think it is OK to leave this point open until other critical details get confirmed. Definitely something to think about long-term.

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I'd like to disagree. There are so many great people in SoCal doing amazing work that frankly are not active on this website (and for good reason).

I've been speaking to SoCal Mentors/Students/Alumni/Volunteers for years and most want the district move and want to aid the transition.
You can even see that more SoCal people are posting on other forms of social media rather than this page. And frankly, many well known mentors try to not engage in arguments back on forth on these platforms.

Most mentors on my own team don't engage in these forums.
How can you judge an entire region when CD only represents a small portion?

I'm sure if I sent an email to every single FIST-er in SoCal the response would be less "ghost town" and more "how can I help"
Thanks
-Pauline

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Pauline,

Great points you've made. A lot of people in California want districts! We will be discussing at most NorCal off-season events this fall about how to mobilize.

I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for Joe :) He does come from years of leadership with SCRRF, an organization that has served robotics initiatives in SoCal for many years. While I don't agree with his diagnosis, I think his evaluation comes from more than just these forums, and is based out of his experience with SCRRF.

I understand districts is a huge logistical and volunteer challenge. However, 9(?) other regions have moved to the district model already. What challenges do we face that other regions have battled, what challenges are unique to CA, and what perceived challenges are in reality trivial to overcome?

To Joe's point, I agree that working with school administrations is a challenge, but I do not agree that the challenge is unique to California. Other regions that run most or all of their events in High Schools have found solutions to this particular challenge that California should be able to adopt.

I think solution #1 is booking with venues early. Solution #2 is being willing to pay the usage fees (the 25k district event budget includes 10k for venue).

Thanks for contributing everyone!

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I think that the biggest unique problem for California (or New York, whichever comes first :rolleyes:) to trailblaze is district size and team distribution. Like Eric said above, California is big, and there are large parts of the state without the team density to host events. This is the root of the discussion surrounding possibly splitting Northern and Southern CA in some fashion. A similar problem exists in NY between teams in/around NYC and those upstate.

Whoever can work out scaling districts to situations like these (making a system that benefits teams and that HQ approves of) will end up having a large impact.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I think the point is that CA FIRSTers and its 501c (or plural) need to investigate the impact of any potential state (or other) funding on a "split" state format. That's not to say it should automatically rule out a split state format or that the state of California would be guaranteed not to support multiple partial state organizations, but it's a factor worthy of consideration. Getting blindsided by such as issue would be a definite negative for everyone involved, and especially so for those who hope to create a Michigan-like FRC environment in California.

Also, there's mountains between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, too. ;)

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I agree that CA is tricky due to the size both geographically and team count and I personally think that splitting the state into 2 districts is probably the best way to go. Then maybe after everything is up and running pilot points portability only for teams from and playing in the NCA and SCA Districts.

Two separate DCMPs avoids both potential long travel times and the need for an oversized FiM style DCMP. Points portability would potentially keep it as "one thing" in the eyes of the state and other potential donors.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I also have some experience along those lines, and have been able to draw from some other persons' experiences as well.

If I had to point to a single thing that would keep districts from happening in SoCal, based on my experience and hearing the chatter... I'll point out three.

1) "Non-team" influences. That would be, as discussed previously, some combination of CAFIRST, school administrations, and other persons or groups that aren't necessarily affiliated with teams but have some stake in how FIRST is run in CA. No need to repeat that discussion. (I think the solution is to educate those folks on the benefits to the teams, and to them.)

2) Disunity (not discord, mind you)--this is more of a "we're not actually pulling together, only in the same general direction" than anything else. I'm only aware of WRRF in NorCal as far as robotics support organizations. I'm aware of SCRRF (LARobotics) and OCRA for sure down this way, and if I'm not mistaken there's another group in San Diego. All three will need to work together, more than simply coordinating when their offseason events happen so there aren't conflicts (they're really good at avoiding each other's event dates). Working together can produce a stronger pull than three individual yanks. I don't see a lot of that. Though there was that one year where the events all scheduled back-to-back and got one field for all the events, everybody pitching in to assist in insurance and moving it around the state--that's what we really need to see, everybody working together for a better experience. (#notajoke: I heard that the rev 1 proposal was the first time that SCRRF was officially aware that CAFIRST owned fields. We've been using the same wooden field for much of the last decade, with repairs of course, and sometimes a metal one.)

3) "Hey, aren't you the same person doing this as the last 5 years?" I'm not sure about the other groups, but for whatever reason, finding new people to fill old shoes isn't exactly easy. Either the new folks disappear after a season or two, or they never show up. Leaves the "incumbents" there, until they suddenly can't make it and somebody has to step up. (I didn't duck quick enough when that happened with the head ref at the Fall Classic a couple years back.) There's also the problem of "what can I do to help" turning into "where'd that volunteer go, he said he'd help?", but that could have a number of factors that aren't obvious and there isn't a single solution to that issue.


I think it can be done... but again, it's got to be together. Let's say we figure on two years as the timeframe. I think the first year would be dealing with a lot of the core issues--see the first two items above--on top of talking the system over with teams to identify where they can help (and maybe they can help with those items too). The second year would be the major push: venues, volunteers, and other similar items, in detail, along with getting the proposal in to HQ for a yea/nay. Am I sure it could be done in two years? Not really. It seems to me like dealing with the second-year stuff is being done first--my point of view, not necessarily accurate--which, while helpful in terms of making it faster later, doesn't address any of the first-year stuff that would need to be handled first. Does it need to be done, sure! Can it be done at the same time, sure! But the question is, are we ignoring issues that could prevent us from moving even faster? If we are, we need to stop ignoring those issues and solve them. Or: What do we not know that could wreck plans?



[This part mainly for humor.]
@Sean: The main pass north-south is higher than PA's highest point, by about 900'. I'd say that everything's bigger in CA, but any Texans reading this would probably object. :p (On a serious note, speaking of Texas, they actually submitted paperwork for districts and they've got a bigger spread/cluster effect than CA. Think we could learn a few lessons from those documents, but I don't recall them being made public.)

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The Texas documents aren't public, I haven't seen them. I can tell you we have fewer teams then California but we do have a very big spread problem but also probably more clusters so that may make events easier. The plan was likely 9-10 events. We are using the extra year to get prepapred, hopefully more off-season events (only have 3 this year so far, California has way more) and train volunteers.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Allen,

Thanks for the insight into Texas.

Do you have any more details on the steps Texas is taking to get more prepared for Districts in 2018?

Thanks,

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

So Officially I know FRIST inTexas is getting more organized. They hired staff which didn't exist before and have have more regular meetings about the transition. The email that said we aren't going to districts mentioned the possibility of new regionals this year to help add more room to register new teams. So if that gets confirmed we'll have more events this year which gives us the ability to train volunteers.

As a community we are trying to get more organized as well. We are transporting the field and elements to off-season events ourselves this year, where in the past we used AndyMark. At all our off-season events we are trying to train a large number of new volunteers, especially in postions of greatest need such as FTA since they will need to get nominated and trained at HQ before doing official events. We started a slack team for TX mentors/volunteers to allow us to talk quickly about details, etc. We are looking into new off-season events possibly even this season to train more volunteers and test potential district locations. I actually just started using something like your volunteer database to unofficially track key volunteer interest. In general we are just to talking to teams and key people and making sure we are prepared as possible for 2018.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

I met with the FIRST-in-Texas (FiT) board in-session last week in Austin at their annual meeting to provide info/feedback from the field/teams and have some Q&A.

I was told by the board the key reason the move to 2017 District Model failed after filing for the transition was they didn't meet the financial metrics required by USFIRST (they didn't raise enough $$ and get enough long-term commitments from sponsors to meet the minimum floor to pull-the-trigger).

Had they raised enough $$ we'd _certainly_ be moving to District Model in 2017 and the other areas we're short in, that Allen mentions, would be dealt with and resolved as things rolled out.

After meeting with the Board members I can see their intentions and hearts are in the right place and they're all good and interesting folks who I'd like to get to know more, but I'm not sure their methods and approaches are the _most_ effective and high-yielding IMO.

Hopefully, 2018 is the year we make the move... I offered to the Board to pitch-in raising $$ and anywhere else I can help but we'll see where things go...

--Michael Blake

"Retired Insurance Guy"

Link to me on this new fangled-thingy called The Linkedin and help make me popular or at least appear to be...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmichael...ve_tab_profile

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Eric,

Great thoughts, thanks for contributing once again. I agree, we need to do this together. That belief is what led me to write the Preface in Rev. 2 on "Change". I think the Preface was an important addition to a document that is meant to bring us together rather than further divide our region.

Your point about "first year" and "second year" things is an interesting one. The proposal does address both "first year" and "second year" things, especially in the Next Steps section. But I also agree that getting some "first year" things done will make "second year" items much easier.

So why does the proposal talk so much about the feasibility of Venues, Volunteers and Finances of the District model (aka. "second year" things)? To put it plainly, we have no authority to implement many of the "first year" tasks. I am not a Regional Director, the proposal contributors are not on the California FIRST BoD, none of us are major CA FIRST sponsors, etc.

One purpose of the proposal is an appeal to our local leadership. We will continue to appeal to our Regional Directors with the hope of open communication at some point down the road.

Another purpose of the proposal is education for the community. I am giving a Fall Workshop on the District model at CCC, and will hopefully have the opportunity to promote the District model at other off-season events in NorCal. I'd encourage anyone else invested in seeing the District model come to CA to similarly promote the proposal within their spheres of influence.

Thanks everyone,

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

With the discussion of 2 districts in California, and how the split would play out, I thought it'd be interesting to map out where the teams at each regional were from. Mapping only teams from California, I found that Los Angeles was the least spread out:



And CVR was the most:



Here are the other regionals if you're interested:
Davis: http://imgur.com/YRICGFu
Orange County: http://imgur.com/XfZfSGL
San Diego: http://imgur.com/6d508PU
San Jose: http://imgur.com/gNlYtrU
Ventura: http://imgur.com/IwDWM4F


(red markers = the event location, dots = teams, larger dots = more teams at the same location)

I'm not sure if there's anything that can really be gathered from this data, but I thought it was interesting to look at anyway. There's a clearer norcal/socal split than I expected, especially with socal events.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

There's a tradition in CA of split state organizations, particularly for HS sports. The Sections run largely independent of the statewide CIF and are quite akin to the state HS federations elsewhere. I follow HS track & field closely and I'm not aware of any other state with a similar geographic split in organizations. (There are states with differences based on type of schools, e.g., public, private, Catholic...) I would expect anyone would look at a N/S split in FRC as being quite similar, and in fact may even expect it.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

It's only 1 state org (MHSAA), but Michigan has separate LP and UP track & field Finals. But most? other sports are statewide i.e. basketball.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The UP being an outlier, Michigan is much smaller and closer together than California.

Traffic is bad in the San Jose/San Fran area, as well in LA/SD. So any southern team going all the way north to compete (or vice versa) has a pretty brutal drive.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Nice job Mike representing us on Twitch/Spotlight.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

+1

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Thanks Joe!

All,

I mentioned on the show that I've been studying 990's to try to better understand the finances behind FIRST and Districts. Here are the latest 990's I could find: 990 Forms

Given the information in these 990 forms, I updated the District Cost Estimate further to reflect the need for payroll taxes and travel/hotel reimbursement.

Please note, nearly half of the CA District Budget is for staff salaries and related expenses. I think RD's in CA are concerned about keeping their jobs, so I believe it is important to demonstrate that there is a financial motivation to moving to districts.

Happy to answer any questions.

-Mike

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

Look forward to meeting you all in Los Angeles. Round two:

http://teacherweb.com/Blog/CA/Richar...5-6a5e83e1392d

Thank you all for your constructive ideas, comments and suggestions.

Joe Petito
FRC 1197

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

The discussion after the discussion:

http://larobotics.org/Workshops2016.html

$100.00 per team, bring all the students & mentors you like, surplus funding goes toward scholarships--scholarship winners announced at LA Regional.

Watch our page after Nov. 21st for the 2017 scholarships link and submit yours.

Re: California District Proposal, Rev 2
 

California is unusual compared to other states. Until the 1970s "state" championships were the exception rather than the rule; Section champs were frequently the final stop. Even now at least 4 of 23 sports have N/S championships only. http://www.cifstate.org/governance/Playoff_Calendar.pdf