2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Seems like the two events we usually frequent (Waterbury and Hartford) are unchanged from last year. If we make it, travelling to DCMPs will definetly be more of a challenge :) I'm excited.

Side note: Considering it's a 45 min drive for him, I hope Dean shows up at NEDCMP!

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Great to see more New Hampshire events, especially with District Champs at UNH! It'll be awesome to have those competitions in the state FIRST was founded!

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Or 15 minutes in one of his helicopters...
As long as they have a place for him to land.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I'm sure this was the best that could be done with date and scheduling conflicts everywhere, and that lots of people worked hard to get us this, but like a lot of regions in the country this year, this isn't quite ideal. Every event in MA is within the span of two consecutive weeks. The two week 3 MA events are 20 minutes apart. NE Champs is week 6. Most teams iin the region this year will end up competing back to back in one way or another.

I'm also a little anxious about DCMP. The location isn't very central to the region, and I'm a bit worried about finding close hotel space. I've also heard some difficulties with UNH in the past - e.g. in 2015 they infamously didn't allow drilling or filing metal in the pits. I'm sure that particular issue is solved for this event, but it does raise some concerns.

Regardless, lots of great venues this year, and there seem to be multiple events local to almost anyone in NE, so that's good.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I appreciate the hard work that goes into the locations and plannings for the district events every year but I am more disappointed with the locations than any other year. Based on team density, CT only having two districts seems wrong. Last year the Springfield event made up for this by its close proximity. This year the closest non-CT events appear to be RI and WPI.

With that being said, 558 is excited for a new season and exploring our options for playing both inside and outside the district for the first time.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Excited for a new season but interesting to note that all but two of these events are Saturday-Sunday.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

You can look at this as a challenge. Technically it should be possible to compete in three MA events since the load in day for SE Mass District is the same day the WPI District ends. You can use the drive from one event to the next as your unbag time.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I doubt FIRST will allow teams to register for multiple events on the same week, even with the convenient scheduling. And I doubt any team will want to go to two events in a row, without any iteration possible.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Sorry to see no UMass Dartmouth this year. I know we'll be thinking long and hard about our options. Typically we like to do 3 district events that are well spaced. 5 weeks with NECMP on week 6 makes this tough. We'll see what shakes out.

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I wouldn't be sure of this... I'm sad I couldn't convince 125 to try to add Palmetto onto their schedule last year :P

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

You should be. There really isn't that much hotel space within walking distance. Hartford isn't centrally located, either, so I'm glad that NE FIRST is still moving the championship location around.

I believe the issue here was that they needed to put ice down immediately after the event and having a lot of metal shavings on the floor would interfere with that. The college hockey season should be over by the time NEDCMP comes around, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Great to see the schedule released! As Chris said, thank you for all the volunteers who plan and schedule the events... it's not easy and takes a lot of time!

That said, I'd just like to raise a few concerns I have with the schedule...

1. Scheduling 8 of 10 districts for Saturday-Sunday
I realize many people prefer Saturday-Sunday events, but our team would appreciate more Friday-Saturday events (Pine Tree is the only one in 2017!). We'll be planning to attend WPI and Pine Tree, based exclusively off not competing on Sundays. It really seems like a 50/50 split (perhaps one F-S event and one S-S event per weekend?) would be ideal. Last year the tone that we heard with the 3 non-Sunday events was that "our hands were tied by other factors, our goal is a better balance in 2017." I'm curious if this was just some people trying to tell us what we want to hear or if a balance of F-S and S-S actually isn't a goal.

Also, I'm curious, what drove WPI to be Thursday-Friday again (I believe it was S-S last year, but R-F once before)?

2. Interesting geographic distribution
I felt like the geographic distribution in previous years was generally pretty equitable. Event density roughly followed team density, with a little preference towards the remote teams (as it should be, in my mind). Ideally, if there are too many events for teams, it's in an area pretty central to NE (pretty much means in Massachusetts). This year it definitely looks like the CT teams have the short end of the stick... two districts under-represent their teams (although the one in RI makes up for it somewhat) and the DCMP is also the furthest from CT that it's been to date. I like the idea of rotating the DCMP around, but I also wouldn't mind if it was just in a more central location each year (WPI or Boston, perhaps?).

3. Event timing (given location)
Having all 4 MA events in Weeks 2 and 3 is inconvenient for those teams. NH and CT are closer to being balanced.

4. DCMP Week 6
I'm not sure if this is good or bad (compared to Week 7). It's nice to have that break between the districts and CMP to reduce the likelihood of having back-to-back events, but at the same time, having more time before CMP will definitely be a plus... It's a lot harder to organize travel to CMP than to DCMP!

Back on the positives though, it is cool to see some new locations hosting districts... Bedford HS and Bridgewater-Raynham HS are both new locations, as far as I know.

I'm just quoting some of the other folks who I'm echoing:

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I think DCMP in week 6 is the biggest good thing to come out of this. It'll give teams a little more breathing room for preparing their champs travel.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

On the other hand, it gives less prep time for travel to DCMPs, especially for teams that qualify only after week 5.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Here's a map of the events (posted in another thread before I realized this one was created.)

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Thank you for sharing!

This pretty much confirms three things:

1. CT teams are definitely getting the short end of the stick.
2. Greater Boston teams are definitely "winning out" with ~5-7 events within approximately a one hour drive.
3. There's still a gaping hole of events (and dramatically fewer teams) in VT. The Pine Tree event and concerted effort by individuals and teams in Maine (Jamee Luce, 2648, and others...) helped spark a ton of Maine growth over the last 4 or 5 years... Something similar would be great in Vermont... but that's not easily carried out at all!!!

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

The map looks pretty well distributed for me. The locations of districts are entirely dependent on the locations of venues capable of hosting a district (within the price model of a district) and those venues almost entirely exist in areas populated enough to warrant one. It looks like the density of teams and the locations of the venues follow the population density of NE pretty closely. It would make sense that most of the teams and most of the events are within an 1-2 hours of Boston.

I wouldn't call the lack of an event in VT a "gaping" hole. There are 4 teams on that map in VT and there were definitely more than 4 ME teams (even if you adjust for state / population size) before the Pine Tree event started.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I have a hunch that Waterbury and Hartford will be filled with CT teams after 2nd event selection, given that there are nearly 50 CT teams and UMass Dartmouth was popular with CT teams (CT accounted for 10 of 32 teams last year at MANDA).

Am I correct in remembering that a district event is typically restricted to 40 teams? I can't find confirmation of any kind of limit but that's my recall. Having been to a couple of 40 team district events, I can't imagine making it work for much more.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I agree that most of the distribution looks fine, but CT definetly needs another event (maybe towards the shore - New Haven would be great). Anyway, satisfied for this year. Good job NE! #weAreNE

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Correct. Districts are capped at 40.

While Connecticut is in need of another event near them their two districts are centrally located for most teams and spread apart so attending both has a three weekend gap.

With the rotating DCMP we'll see events like Springfield in 2015 and Bedford this year, step in for a season and then disappear. Bedford is nice for teams in VT/Northern NH because it puts a second event slightly closer to them.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I'm a little torn on DCMP being a week 6.

1. With the lack of nearby hotels, finding one will be a pain.

2. With the extra week between DCMP and CMP, teams have more time to prep such as airfare (or bus), hotel arrangements, shipping the robot and their pit items (if they choose to do so).

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I think its a good move. Week 7 made it really difficult to arrange travel especially with airlines.

The benefit to having a short turn around for the DCMP is we are all familiar with New England and while finding close hotels isn't easy there are still plenty a little further away.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Partially Correct - Districts may be capped lower if the venue has restrictions.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

It's more of a practical cap: district events are typically held in smaller venues, which means there isn't acres of pit space available like at bigger events. And the district system requires that teams get 12 matches, and the finite number of hours in the day limits the number of matches that can be scheduled. Typically, these factors lend themselves to about 40 teams being the maximum a district event can sustain.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Week 7 next year is Easter weekend too...it was definitely a good move to make DCMP week 6.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

We definitely feel fortunate to have 7 events within roughly an hour from Burlington! With the DCMP about 1hr 15min away, we will likely not spend on hotels for any district events, which is nice financially.

As some others have said, it would be great to see more Th-Sat events, and another one in CT would be nice too. I'm sure the committee did all they could to make a great slate of events - many thanks to those who put in so much effort!

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

If I'm remembering correctly, Waterbury is a 32-team event. UMASS Dartmouth may have been even smaller.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

In 2016 Waterbury had 38 teams, and Dartmouth had 32.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

2016 UMass Dartmouth expanded to 32 teams from 28 teams in 2015. The new venue for the SE Mass District will provide more space for more teams

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

I don't want to make a particularly big deal of my VT comment in the context of this years' event schedule... it's not a real criticism of anyone, and not the NE District planning team(s). But I do disagree that VT has anything close to a reasonable representation of teams.

I wasn't saying "gee, the fact that VT doesn't have a district is a crying shame!" I was more saying "man, I wish there was more FRC (teams and events) in VT!" and that I think having more/closer events would be a big help, similar to both the help and support provided by individuals and groups in Maine over the last ~5 years. In 2010, Maine had 6 teams, including 2648 who was competing in their 3rd season. In 2011, Maine had 8 teams, when the Mainely Spirit off-season event was first started. In 2012, the year after teams had their first off-season nearby to attend (which I believe 2648 and co actively recruited other seed teams to attend) there were 10 teams. In 2013, when the Pine Tree regional had its first season, there were 13 teams. In 2014, with the first year of districts and the second year of the Pine Tree, there 18 teams in Maine. There were 24 teams competing in Maine in 2016... I don't know how many there will be in Maine in 2017, but I'm guessing they're adding a few more.

I definitely wouldn't say that VT's FRC representation comes close to following its population density. VT has a population of 626k over about the same area that NH has 1,300k people... NH had 32 teams in 2016, while VT had 4 (and that includes 95, which is based right on the border of the two states and moved their meeting space from NH to VT last year). Additionally, VT doesn't have any teams in the Greater Burlington area, which comprises almost 1/3 of the state's population. I'm sure this largely has to do with no events being within a 2.5 hour drive. If anyone did approach a school board about starting a team in VT, I'm sure (well, our first event is over 2.5 hours away, and we're supposed to attend at least two... if we succeed the Championship is even further away in New England) is a tough sell, particularly when there's little supporting infrastructure.

All that to say, I'm not blaming anyone for VT's under-representation in FRC, but I'm sure with enough concerted effort it could be "fixed." I'm not in a good position (geographically, particularly) to spark it, but I would certainly be willing to support it from a planning or technical support standpoint.

Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
 

Our team is disappointed by the distribution of events this year as well. First year of districts we had 3 events in CT, the past two we have had 2 with at least a couple close choices to go to that were close. I was shocked to see 3 Boston area events in the span of 2 weeks as well as the really bad Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at WPI this year. We normally do 3 events and now we are limited on choices unless we choose to travel to 2 and then travel again for the DCHP. It looks like we either spend more money for travel or curtail the number of events we attend.

We are looking to host an event at our school but we were passed over by the planning committee at least for this year. One challenge I found is that it take far too long for the planning committee to decide when and where the events will be held. At least in our school the athletic department has their schedule in place with the state by the 2nd week in August. We just found out last Wednesday that we didn't make the cut. I think the whole process needs to occur sooner to allow more schools the opportunity to host an event. If the planning committee had more choices we could probably have a schedule that works better for all the teams.

All in all I think the planning committee did a great job with what they had to work with even if it isn't totally to our liking.