Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Hi,
Districts in Israel 2017 announced today and it will include:
3-4 district events in weeks 1.5-2.5 (available dates: March 5-17)
1 Israel District Championship in week 4.5 (available dates: March 26 to 31)
Israel owns only one field so the districts won't be at the same day.
The cost for 2 district events and KoP is 40K Shekels (10K Dollars)
The cost for 1 ditsricts championship is 12K Shekels (3K Dollars)
The Israel District Championship will be held in Menora Mivtahim Arena (Formerly known as NOKIA Arena) which is the home of Israel Regional for the last 11 years.

65 Teams will compete in Israel 2017 and the goal is 120 teams by 2020
In 2018 Israel will own a second field so 2 districts at the same day will be an option.

Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Woah...

I didn't expect this. It's great to see another area go to districts! Unfortunately, we're still stuck in the past here in California, but I hope that more places going to districts shows the FIRST in CA leadership that we can too.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Congrats to all the people who helped plan out this change.

I would expect Mexico to eventually follow this model as well.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

This is beyond fantastic. Talking to some Israeli teams I've learned just how hard Frc is financially for you all. Especially if you wanted to do 2 events + worlds. Although... The jealousy is real.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

You can notice that the dates of the district championship are diffrent from other districts due to the fact that Israeli teams need more time to prepare for the championship (passports, visas, crossing half of the world...)

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

!מזל טוב, ישראל

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

lol

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

That is awesome!

FRC is truly becoming a global competition! First Ontario and now Israel going to districts as areas outside of the USA!

Makes you wonder where next? China? Hawaii?
(Those are just thoughts I had, not actual rumors.)

Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

California?

Just kidding

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Doesn't surprise me.
Israel seems an ideal setup for Districts with theur amount of established teams, solid volunteer base and their isolation from the rest of FIRST. Districts is the perfect solution for them.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Glad to see the district model spread - looks like a near-perfect fit.


... Now please excuse me while I go be jealous over here in the corner. :)

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

We are very happy to be moving to that direction, along with FIRST Israel announcing their goal of 2020 teams by the year 2020 (Including all FIRST programs that is). That means, doubling the amount of teams in less than 4 years. Quite a challenge.

We hope to be a model for future implementation of FRC in other International countries, and are looking forward to having more teams represent Israel at the championship event, with even better achievements than this year.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

California, New York, Minnesota ect., your lack of districts have now entered the realm of laughably sad. Good job Isreal.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Congrats to Israel on taking the plunge! It'll be an adjustment, but the benefits of going District vastly outway the costs for any region ready for it.

Next year, Israel will send around 16 teams to Champs, compared to the 6 the Israel regional qualified this year. Considering two of those teams made it to Einstein this year, I look forward to seeing what this larger cohort of Israeli teams at Champs can do.

It really does make sense. Israeli has such a high number of teams in such a small area. Israeli teams currently have to fly accross an ocean to attend multiple events, so most don't. From my personal experience on a district team, the additional play time for the same price to improve and iterate can be immensely rewarding and makes FIRST a much more worthwhile investment.

This comes with the added bonus that Israeli teams can get a second or third play without being forced to compete on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.

You and me both, haha.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Props to Israel, can't wait to see more great teams come out of that region!

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

New York will never go district. I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it!:mad:

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Sigh, Minnesota what are we gonna do with you... :(

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Perhaps... but it'll be a New York team that figures out how to attend two regionals on the same dates. :eek:

:D

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

It was/is actually a concern, that teams in Israel put so much effort and time and money into the robot - and if they don't win or don't even qualify - it all ends up with 10 matches, as going to another regional is too expensive (only three teams have done that so far), so it's great that teams will have more than one competition.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

This is the second district going to South Champs (after PNW), right? Should make the field there a little bit more competitive, which is another benefit.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Minnesota will go to districts when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Did you mean second largest district? Because otherwise you're forgetting about NC and GA, which are also in districts. Additionally, GA and Israel have about the same number of teams.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

So excited! Finally Israel will be able to send its best teams to the World Championship all at once. Israeli trams have improved a lot in the recent years and sending only 6 left many good teams at home. Not anymore.. :)

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

actually, as i see it now this change will make the financial side of frc even harder. the basic cost of KOP and 2 district event will rise to 40K and it won't include the cost of ordered products and for teams who qualify to the district championship (about 60% of the teams) another 12K.... the next season will probably cost 20K more then previous seasons for a qualifying team (about 4-5K dollars), and if this team will qualify to the FIRST championship they will have to arrange flghts, hotels, visas, food, transport, etc.. in 3.5 weeks. (without talking about the financial challange)
anyway this is a hugh improvement for the avarage israeli teams, who used to compete in 1 event each year, and now can compete in 2-3 events, with better chance to qualify to the FIRST championship.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Oh gosh, I got the map completely mixed up in my mind. For some reason, I remembered it as east/west split in the US.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

You think Minnesota will be ready for districts in 2018?

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

I am not sure all of you guys know so, getting a visa can take couple of weeks and about 150 USD..
So the short period between the DCMP and Worlds is a bit problematic, anyway it's gonna be interesting

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Normally I'm a Colts fan, but I may have to cheer for another team this time :rolleyes: :D .

---

Sounds like Israel is trying the Indiana-style micro-district routine. Too bad I'm half a world away otherwise I'd love to lend a hand.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Go the Palmetto route of bagging your main bot and practice bot at the same time.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Now that I'm studying at the Technion, I'd love to lend a hand with all the competitions I can! One of the nice things about Israel's geography is nothing is too far away for a weekend drive :D

EDIT: I am wondering whether the competitions will be on Saturday and Sunday like most US district competitions or Friday and Saturday in accordance with the Israeli weekend.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

@Ari423

First of all welcome to Israel and the Technion!

The Israeli competitions are held on weekdays and not on the weekend in order to allow religious teams to attend and participate. However for students the competition season falls on the B exams period so if you don't need to retake anything you have time off for it.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

The competitions will all be during the middle of the week and not on weekends, due to the importance of keeping the Shabbat.

There are going to be many events, and FIRST Israel will need a lot of dedicated volunteers, and those with knowledge of the FIRST program are particularly important for certain key roles.

11 FLL events, 5 FRC events, 3 FTC events and dozens of Jr. FLL by my count all at around the same 2-3 months. (nothing official)

Please contact volunteer@firstisrael.org.il and let them know you'd like to volunteer. I know they are looking for certain key volunteer roles to be filled, and would love to get ahead on them ASAP.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Congratulations! I am very excited to see how this impacts FRC in Israel.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

I'm not laughing.

Ditto to Israel. Huge congrats.

Ever since attending the 2012 Israel Regional, I knew districts would be a great fit for that region. There are so many great teams in Israel, but the country has been consistently under-represented at CMP under the Regional model. I'm excited to see more Israeli friends at CMP in the future!

-Mike

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Agreed. Unfortunately, with California not moving to districts for the next couple of years, teams that have travel to Israel in the past (like 1836 & 1662) won't be able to visit their friends in Israel for a while.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Unfortunately, there is no other option. The decision to moving to districts was not only becasue it is a better model. Israel Regional was over populated in the last years - not only we were the only regional this year that was 3.5 days instead of 3 but also, the teams got only 9 matches, the field stuff had to pass lunches and extend competition day after 9PM.

Another regional is probably is not preferable since it will be filled very quickly (not to talk about the finncial side)

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

It's interesting that some teams may have less than 24 hours between load out at one event and load in at the next (not to mention the field which will probably have around 12-15 hours).

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Yeah, with 4 non-coinciding competitions in 2 weeks it's going to be extremely hard on everyone involved (teams, volunteers, the field, etc.). Since there may not be enough time between competitions, I wonder how the rules will tackle the 6 hours usually allotted to district teams to make up for the lost day of a 3-day regional.

P.S. - it looks like I will be volunteering as a CSA at most, if not all, of the Israeli competitions

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

AWESOME! See you there!

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

my one worry about this would be inclusion of non-israeli teams that used to go to the israel regional. But then, I have no idea how many non-israeli teams went to israel last year :v

a quick search on TBA shows that just one non-israeli team went last year, from Bosnia and Hertzegovina of all places. I didnt even know there was a team from there!

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

This is great news for Israel but too bad for us here in California. Hopefully we'll still find a way to see each other.

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Throw the programmers (or freshmen with duct tape depending on the state of your robot) in the trailer with the robot for the ride between events. Problem solved. :D

Re: Districts in Israel 2017 Announced
 

Yeah, I am totally in agreement. Having personally been on the travel team that has gone to Israel (twice now), it was unfortunate seeing the great teams that only had a single chance to compete. I'm rooting for 1836 to make it to champs so that we can see our friends from Israel there.