District/Regional Format
 

Perhaps this thread belongs in the FIRST in Michigan Forum but I decide that this was a larger picture discussion. I was afraid that by posting that forum, that the larger FIRST community wouldn't be involved.

Having seen the results from last year and this year of the District/Regional format, I can tell you that the FIRST in Michigan format is a real winner.

The basic idea to those not familiar with it is that Michigan had 3 regionals -- Western Michigan, Great Lakes, and Detroit (or was it called Wayne State?). They gave up 2 "Regionals" and formed 7 Districts plus the Michigan State Championship.

The Districts are put on at a much lower cost. They are 2 day events (FR/SA). They typically are in high school gyms rather than in stadiums. There typically is no extra lighting and the audio/video system sometimes would not meet FIRST's standards. For all this, I don't know that many FIRST teams actually notice the corners that are cut.

Importantly, the schedule is such that teams still get 10+ matches in the FR/SA format.

Also reducing costs is the "bag and tag" system which saves on shipping costs. Essentially a team puts its robot in a bag and has someone with a certain gravitas sign off that the bag was sealed when it should have been. Teams bring the robot to the competition in the bag themselves with the seal still intact. If all the paperwork is in order, the inspectors unseal the robots and that is that. No crates to deal with.

Due to the cost reductions, the teams can participate at 2 Districts and the Michigan State Championship (if they qualify) at a cost roughly of a single FIRST Regional.

The prestige of qualifying for the State Championships is such that it has replaced some teams "Atlanta" trip.

I could go on and on about the great things that come from this format.

I would like to have a discussion about the following two questions:

Are there any other parts of the country/world that are making plans to follow the FIRST in Michigan District/Regional format?

Should FIRST carve up the country/world into Regions and essentially impose the District/Regional format on the country/world?

I know there are place that it would be hard to make this work but there are other that seem perfect. I am thinking of the Baltimore/DC area, NY State, New England, the South East, California, and so on.

I really believe that this is a good thing for FIRST in the long run.

What do you think?

Joe J.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I don't know if GA FIRST is planning to do anything, but from what I know and who I know, I don't think so.

Do I think FIRST should impose the District/Regional format on the country/world?

From what I know of the system in Michigan (which is little, so bare with me) is that it seems you get more out of less. Specifically, more chances at district competitions, ergo more of a chance to get to Atlanta, from a "less" (read: same) amount of money.

Saving money is great, which seems like what this format was made to do, though without seeing/experiencing a district competition I couldn't say much about it. I can say I do like the lighting/set-up of the regionals. Again though, I don't know much about the district competitions.

I like the bag/tag idea though that's probably because our main regional is literally 10 minutes away from where we work. Don't know about the district format though, but that's probably because I don't know enough to make a well informed decision.

-Tanner

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Minnesota probably has close to enough teams, or will very shortly, but the problem I would see with using this system here is key volunteers.

Most of the key volunteers for the two regionals we have now are still imported from what I know. I believe only the LRI at 10k Lakes was from Minnesota out of the 2 LRI's, 2 Head Refs and 2 FTAs.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I know there's been serious talk of doing this in C.A. due to the large number of teams (~150 teams and 4 regionals). I'm not sure yet what I think of that.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I am biased, but I recommend that they "impose" the district model on the rest of the country/world. District lines should accomodate a workable mix of quantity and distance. There would be some resistance, like there was in Michigan, but I would expect that to go away once people realized that they were getting a much better value and only losing half as many work/school days (OK, so maybe that isn't such a great selling point for the students).

If you consider the inverse of the current choice, it sounds rather funny (or sad). Imagine FIRST coming to Michigan at this point with the following proposal: "In order to grow the program in your economically stressed area, we propose raising the fees, cutting the number of events in half, reducing the number of matches per event, removing any objective means of scoring your team relative to your peers, and eliminating any affordable, merit based events. In exchange for this, we have arranged give your hard-raised money to professional event planners and transportation services so don't have to lug that 120 lb behemoth by yourselves, and you can watch the few remaining matches under some really cool lighting and great sound." It wouldn't work with me.

Perhaps if the entire country followed the district model, we could find a way for teams to attend events outside their district. That is the only thing I miss with the FiM structure (we can still go out of State, but others can't come to MI).

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Tanner, that isn't precisely true. District winners do NOT get invited to Atlanta. In order to keep the number of teams that are given invitations from Michigan static (the same as when we only had 3 regionals), a set number of births are given: 3 State Championship Chairmans, etc etc. Only the 3 winning robots at the state championship are given auto-invites, along with the state championship award winners (EI, Chairman, etc).

So, it performs 2 functions:
It is MUCH harder now to get in to Atlanta by being a random "picked by the number 1 alliance" team, because you have to perform well at TWO districts (40% of your final score) and the championship (60% of your final score).

It is MUCH harder to get in via Chairmans, etc. You no longer compete just against the chairman's presenters at your regional. You compete against all other 140 teams in the state, because after you win a district chairman you have to go win a state chairman's to be invited.

Essentially, what you now have coming out of Michigan is the cream of the crop, the best of the best (as far as Michigan teams go). Unless a team has the cash to pay their way in, if they've come through the Michigan District system, they're the real deal.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Wayne, I'd love to see the FiM model expanded too (because we get so much for our money up here), but imagine having to drive 3 states away to get to your "championship", and one state away to get to your second "district". There team density is such that in many locations, they only have enough teams to fully fill 1, or sometimes two regionals. In those situations, creating enough district events to make the situation workable becomes a real problem, and even moreso when you take a state or regional championship into account.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

The problem with expanding the FiM model seems to be the number of teams from each area. States like MI and CA both have a large number of local teams, but I don't think even NY would have enough teams for this system. We only have one Regional, and half of the teams come from NJ.

I think this system would also take away diversity- teams wouldn't have the opportunity to play against teams from cross the nation and world. It's always great playing against the returning teams from London and Brazil at NY!

On the other hand, the MI system is certainly successful in giving teams more experience and does bring out the creme de la creme.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

When I first heard about the MSC format I thought it would be an awesome thing to have in the tristate area. A couple of district competitions throughout NY, NJ and CT would be amazing and it would help a lot of the teams in the area catch up to the Michigan caliber teams.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Good point, but teams in low density areas already have to travel greater distances to attend their first or second event. For them, even if they skipped the second district event or the district championship (which we still need to pay for, BTW) they would still get more matches at a lower cost than they do for a single event now. Perhaps a streamlined path to the CMP could be found for those areas.

(In my previous post, I didn't give the volunteers the credit they deserve. Just because we aren't paying people to put on the events, it doesn't mean they just magically happen by themselves.)

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Well Michigan is the test subject of the format because of such a high concentration. Some teams can not even afford going to State Competition even with qualification. Being able to attend a low cost District event allows teams to participate in events with a lower budget. The main issue as everyone points out is that a lot of areas do not have such a concentration of teams. If district events become more common in the FIRST Robotics Competition perhaps more teams will become created? In effect the high concentration of team will become existent by the very system that worked for high concentration teams. Maybe this can work?

Re: District/Regional Format
 

#1: I've heard talks for New York State, but that's about it. everybody seems to want it in Minnesota, California, the Southeast etc. though.

To answer #2 Honestly, I'm not at all a fan of FIRST imposing the District system across the world. I would rather, create a 4 system approach

District System: same as the Michigan system but in different area's, ie: California, Texas and New England.

The "Super" Regional system: just like GTR in 2004 and 2006. 2 fields, more competition, and more spots to the Championship handed out at these events than at normal regional competitions. Count this as a State Championship without the process of going through he districts. This would work in a area where a VERY high concentration of teams are located in a small area, ie Minnesota, New York, The Baltimore/DC area, or areas where a District model doesn't fit the needs because there aren't enough teams to impose the system... ie: locations listed above, and Pacific Northwest. This would also benefit the outliers that fall into the system, for example teams that are located in Kennewick WA would only have to attend one event instead of going to Portland and Seattle for district events

The "Normal" Regional system: The normal setup for a regional. for places like Georgia, Florida, Arizona etc. who bring 40+ teams to their regional.

The "short" regional system: a setup just like Pittsburgh or Sacramento used a regional with 35 or fewer teams. ie: Pittsburgh, Palmetto, Hawaii etc.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I've heard a lot for New York State, and something about a Capital Region "district size event" in the distant future. New York isn't a bad region for districts, but there's a lot of separation between Rochester-area teams, Albany-area teams, and NYC-area teams, so I wonder how it would work in practice. Next year...

I want a District system that allows teams from other areas to come to us, unlike Michigan. Otherwise, I think I'm fine with it.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Thats one of my major gripes with the district system: teams are discouraged to from traveling outside the state to compete. The real answer to this thread can be found here.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I don't think that each state will become a district, but some are large enough to do so. I believe that instead FIRST will split up "sections" into districts. Like Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut could all probably wind up creating a New England District culminating to a huge championship. Although it would kind of look like a lot of the small off-seasons around which are pretty awesome! :)

But I do hope that FIRST works a way out for teams to travel. Our team traveled to another regional for the first time this weekend and had an amazing time at North Carolina. I would be very sad if others would not have the same opportunity. Yes there will still be travel with districts, but it is not the same when you are meeting/competing with a whole group of teams you have never played with before! :yikes:

I really like the district set up and how Michigan game play has dramatically increased over the past 2 years. I really hope that by 2012 there will be more in place if not sooner!

Re: District/Regional Format
 

This would be more restrictive than the Michigan system.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I don't think it's going to work in CA the same way it does in MI for a couple of years yet.

CA has: 0 regionals in the north geographic half of the state, 2 in the central portion, and 2 in the south. The team distribution (and the population distribution) follow this, so that doesn't really factor in.

What does factor in is that we've got two clusters of teams that are perpetually in the middle. The central coast teams like 973 have to go either up the coast and stay a few days or down the coast and do the same. The desert teams like 399 (Lancaster) and 1641 (Mojave) have to choose: California (typically L.A.), or Vegas/Arizona? It's not an easy question. It's like the MI UP teams, especially in the west end. I have yet to hear of a "good" solution for them (i.e., one that doesn't involve traveling a full day down and a full day back twice).

We've also got 4 main clusters, all around existing regionals.

But what really made FiM work well was the fact that there is one organization that assists the entire state. CA has no fewer than 3 (Team San Diego, SCRRF, and WRRF). They'd have to either coordinate or combine, and when you're separated by 2-9 hours between pockets of teams, and therefore organizations, it's a lot harder to do that.

For CA, a better short-term option might be to put a regional in the middle or expand one of the existing regionals to a double regional. If another regional was added, I'd suggest Bakersfield or Fresno--they're about in the middle, and could act as a meeting point for most of the teams. Long-term, yes, hopefully go district. But short-term, we don't have anywhere near the density MI does, and would want to build up more (and more sustainable) teams before going that route.


You can't just say, "You're going to use this model", because in this case, "this model" was developed in one area with one kind of needs, and those needs aren't necessarily the same in the rest of the country. You have to adapt the model to the area it's being adopted in. I've got some ideas how to adapt it to CA, but they'd need improvement, and you'd want another event or so.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Eric,
I would add HI as part of it. I'm sure a bunch here would participate as well.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Are the MI competitions less expensive to produce?
Can two MI events be produced for the cost of one "standard" regional?

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I don't know. Something about travel distances...

If HI was added to CA for districts, you'd have to include travel. A LOT of teams would have trouble, even with the bonus competition, so you'd really want to have 2 districts in HI, and then short-order travel booking to the mainland of some form.

I'm not sure that having HI in a mainland district is a good idea long-term. You'd have to get the younger teams very good at fundraising in a hurry...

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Me and a couple of friends discussed this a few days ago and we thought the district system would be good to implement in Israel. One of the main characteristics of FIRST Israel is that the nearest regional for us, except for the Israeli one is a 10 hour flight away.

That means no Israeli team competes in more than one event per season because of the prohibitive cost of airfare. Also Israel is quite a small country (six hour drive from the southern most point to the northern most point) so doing bag&tag events shouldn't be too hard. Our thought was that it'd be a way to make the Israeli competition better because It'd give teams more matches to play and more of the FIRST experience.

The main problem we saw with this is that there are too few teams in Israel (55 or so) for the model to actually work. What do you think is the minimum amount of teams to implement the district system?

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I'm a big fan of getting more for my money, but I'm a bigger fan of getting more robot competition time for the robot team.

We do 2 regionals (one away like FLR, CT, Pittsburgh, Chesapeake, etc. Some place thats a few hour drive for us) and one "home" event, Philadelphia (45 min drive so the families can all come and watch). Cost $10K+overnight stays

We also do 5 'off-season' events. Three in the spring (PARC, Monty, BR-BR) and two in the fall (Ramp Riot and Duel). Cost $1250+gas money

From what I see the 5 off season events (one day) are just as much fun as the big regionals. In our area (NJ, Eastern PA, DE) there seems to be enough teams to fill all the off season events. Which is a long way to say I think that smaller one /two day events would work and that bag and tag would also work in our area.

At a regional it appears that "most" teams spend the first day completing their robot and passing inspection. (First regional that they attend in a year, and no disrespect meant to your team). So I'd like to suggest that the teams that hold pre-ship scrimmages also have inspectors. If you pass inspection at one of the pre-events all you need to do is pass weight/dimensions at the regional. Inspectors could make spot/random checks if wanted. But it would cut down on the inspection process and be more of an inducement to be ready to play at the event.

One of the things that pops out in this thread is where teams are and how far they need to travel. For teams in Philly events in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Richmond and Boston (and all the places in between) are all a ~5 hour drive. So we have a huge range of choices. That makes it easier here to do regionals vs CA where there is 5-9 hour drive times.

One of the neat things is being able to see other teams at other places (like going to FLR this year and seeing Simbiotics and GRR in action). While it's fun to play with Chuck, Moe and Miss Daisy (which we do 6 times a year) playing with others is also very cool. So It would be nice to be able to pick which "district" event we go to.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I think that districts would work well in Philly/South Jersey/Delaware, but I don't see them working as well in many other areas. Michigan has an unparalleled density of veteran teams and experienced volunteers that only a few other areas can touch - I think that a cost effective but disorganized district system would be less preferable than the current regional system in many areas.

Leaving the choice of what is best for each region - districts, regionals, super-regionals, mini-regionals - up to the teams and leadership in each region is what is best for everyone.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

The teams get two district events for the same cost as one regional. Going to the championship costs $4000, the same as adding an additional regional. When space permits, teams can elect to schedule a third district for $500.

But Dr Joe missed one other cost savings - lower cost travel. The majority of teams can, if they wish, attend both district events without staying overnight. Those that do stay overnight have one less night lodging to pay for. (I'll address the minority of teams that have to travel to both.)

Which was exactly the case in MI before we went with FiM. There were two regionals only 50 miles apart in SE MI, and one in W MI. Nothing mid-state, nothing Up North. I appreciate that CA is larger than MI, but not all that much larger. Teams from the western UP are farther from the MSC site than teams from Philadelphia would be. We hoped to put one district in the UP, but there are only 4 teams (in an area 20% larger than Maryland and Delaware combined). Still, having a district in Traverse City cuts the travel time in half for one event. Far-flung teams have a disadvantage in both district and regional systems.

Hawaii does not yet have enough teams to fill one district; you need 30-40 (which you might fill with mainland teams as the regional does today). The HI teams would all have to travel somewhere else for the second event, and then again for a championship. Plus some teams would still have the inter-island travel for an in-state district event.

Far less cost. I don't recall the exact figures, but the most expensive district is only a fraction of the cost of the least expensive regional. All 7 districts are produced at a cost less than that of one regional.

Future district models would NOT be based on single-state boundaries, with the possible exception of CA and TX. Instead what you would be looking for is a concentration of teams and existing regionals. You replace 3-4 regionals with 7-10 districts and a championship event. You also need at least 90-100 teams in the area the championship covers. For example, the Boilermaker, Midwest and St Louis regionals could be replaced with district events in or around Chicago, Springfield/Peoria/Champaign, St Louis, Rolla/Columbia, Hammond/Gary, Indianapolis, Ft Wayne, Bloomington. (I have no idea if those locations are centralized for teams; I only picked cities that are distributed across the map.) Buckeye, Pittsburgh and Finger Lakes could also be replaced by a district model; in that case eventual district sites could be set up in KY or WV as well as in OH and western PA and NY. Three or 4championship sites could be established along the eastern seaboard from New England to VA/NC. The two Minnesota events plus Wisconsin could create a district area.

The southeast isn't quite at the concentration of teams needed yet. And it is very difficult to figure out what to do about large areas of the West that have few teams, and international teams. Something will have to be done in the Pacific Northwest; Seattle barely has enough room for the WA teams now and any expansion of teams would swamp them. But how do you combine Arizona, Las Vegas, Utah and Colorado? How do you accomodate the teams in MT, ID, WY, ND and SD, let alone AK? Another concern is that if many areas adopt the district/championship model, the remaining areas will have less options of traditional regionals to choose from.

Hopefully a cross-championship-border scheme can be accomodated, particularly in the far-flung areas. For example, teams in the western UP would be closer to events in Duluth or Green Bay than they are to the ones in Michigan, should MN and WI create a championship. For that matter, they'd also be closer to a championship in Milwaukee or Minneapolis. I'd also like to see ways to allow cross-border visits, even if only for a third event that doesn't count toward your championship points. We really miss seeing our friends from Toledo, Canada and other areas who frequented MI events in the past.

Someone mentioned the lack of volunteers for key positions in MN, and that is critical to the success of districts. Last year MI imported one district head ref and the FTA for the MSC, as I recall. This year we had all home-grown volunteers. That works in MI because of the depth and experience we have. With a state like MN with one 5-year team, thirteen 4-year teams, and the other 91 teams being younger (an incredible average of 30 rookie teams per year!), the experience level is just not there yet. Yet something has to be done; expansion of another 30 teams in MN next year will require yet another expensive regional. As Dean mentioned while speaking at the Troy District event, FRC started in a high school gym in NH 20 years ago, and the only way we can afford to expand the availability of FRC to all schools in the country is to return to those lower-cost roots for events.

There are problems with the district organization that have yet to be solved. One of them is getting the required two volunteers per team per event; some teams do not step up to fulfill their commitment and other teams have to take up the slack. Local committees can over-estimate their importance, making suggestions or even demands that go beyond or against FRC rules and policies. (That could theoretically happen at traditional regionals as well, but with key positions such as the FTA and LRI being appointed, there is less chance.)

If other areas adopt the district model, I am confident that we here in MI will support them with the experience we have gained these last two years. I believe that districts are the way to go, the only way to give FRC sustainable growth for the future.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

This is the one thing that I like about the district model over the regional model and that is that you get twice as many games over two separate weekends for the same cost. When you add in the State Championship for those that win, the Michigan System participants have a huge advantage over other Regional winners when they get to Atlanta.

We're a poor team that can only afford 1 regional and so we have 15 games under our belt going into Atlanta this year, where the Michigan teams going into Atlanta have 3 times that many. Practice makes perfect, and also they have had the whole competition period to mature their robot in the pits. We were a first week regional and didn't even get a chance to show our ball looper because all our potential alliance partner were trying to get working robots. We haven't seen our poor lonely robot in 5 weeks now.

Like you said, the first event for a team is usually about finishing up your robot to compete, and by the time there's a state championship the teams there are in their fighting configuration, battle tested. Add in that most of the Michigan teams know each other after seeing each other for so many games and it only takes one of them to seed high enough in a division at Atlanta to lock in alliance partners. Human nature being what it is, I myself would probably pick a team I know and have played with consistently over another robot I have maybe seen in one game at Atlanta. I hear tell that scouting doesn't work that way, but 2 trips to nationals and seeing who gets picked on Saturday tells me different.

So I like the district system for the opportunities and value it brings the teams for the money they pay, but I don't like having to play against those well practiced, pre-set alliances come Nationals time. :-) I would love more games for the same money.

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I have been thinking a lot about this lately for NY. Right now we have team density in NYC, Long Island, and Rochester (FLR). There are small groupings in Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. If NY had a grant program to start new teams much like Michigan had a few years back, and we went to the district model we could have a much larger impact. We could have district events in Rochester, Albany, NYC, Long Island, and Buffalo or Syracuse. The NY championship could rotate between NYC and Rochester. For those not too familiar with New York State, it is a 6.5 hour drive from Rochester to NYC. It would be sad to not see many of the out-of-state teams we see every year but it may have a trickle-down effect on helping improve attendance at other regionals. Many of the teams that come to FLR would now travel to Waterloo, Pittsburgh or Cleveland.
I would be happy to help get the ball rolling here in NY if there is enough interest. If there is anyone else here in NY that wants to get this going send me a PM and we can start talking.

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This is going to sound crazy, but I believe that all 7 districts cost about the same as 1 traditional regional. While that sounds impossible, you would be shocked at what a Regional costs. Talk to your local RCA to get an idea.

Joe J. was partially correct. 4 of the districts were at High Schools, and 3 were at colleges (Kettering, Wayne State, and Grand Valley). The State championship was also held at a university (EMU). For those that don't believe a great event can be held in a HS gym, I give you the IRI. With the lower costs and 1 less day of disruption, this model is much more attractive to Universities. A true growth plan would be to use technical Universities that are 1-2 hours from major team centers as hosts for District events. Teams would get the opportunity to compete in 2 districts in weeks 1-4 and thus qualify for a Regional Championship in week 5. About 50% of teams would qualify for the regional championship. At the regional championships, about 50% of those teams would qualify for the World championship.

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The biggest issue with the District Model for my team would be getting the trip to the State Championship or World Championship Event approved should we qualify.

Currently, to get any trip approved we have to go to the school board 30 days in advance. While we've already gotten very good at getting around this (Get any possible trips approved and cancel them when we can't go) it's just one more thing to worry about during the competition season.

Even with the above issue, I'd still love to see the New Jersey, Philadelphia, Delaware, New York City Area go to a District System. For teams that struggle with funding every year it's a really good way to make sure that you compete more than once, and it also extends the competition season for a lot of teams.

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Just to keep the balls in the air, let me toss this out there.

Mixing matters. Both at the CMP and at the lesser events. There is value to FIRST to have the cross pollenization between regions.

What do you think of the idea of an Ambassador System where the Winners of a regional championship as well as the Chairman's Award winners (and perhaps even the Finalists) are invited to compete in a different district/regional the following year. It would not be mandatory and I think it would be best if the Ambassador teams were financially subsidized for the extra travel/shipping/etc expenses. I am thinking that of those 9 teams (3 winners, 3 Chairman's & 3 finalists) perhaps 3 become ambassadors.

In this way, teams from various regions would still mix and the culture of FIRST could be spread around but the costs are still kept reasonable and the Ambassadors would be charged specifically with spreading the culture. We could leave it to the creativity of those teams to define what that means, but I think that by charging them with the goal, you will see 1000's flowers bloom.

keep the thoughts and ideas coming.

Joe J.

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I think New England should be the next region to go to District system because it already has the elements in place. ~ 100 teams in an area (NH VT MA CT RI & ME) with less area than MI (and most of that is ME). 4 Regionals currently and loads of experienced volunteers and FIRST HQ (which will get a chance to closely study district model first hand). CT regional is big enough and late enough in the season to be the the championship. Other 3 regional GSR, WPI, Boston become districts and you need 2 more districts (RI and maybe a second Boston district).

I am in favour of the district system for my area, Mid Atlantic, but drawing lines though the middle of states (and established regionals) is a difficult task to get correct and needs further study. You pretty much have to make multiple districts at once and split states. They to need make a proposal to teams, get feedback and adjust. I agree there needs to be line separating east/west NY, PA, and maybe MD & VA and that is the line to start with (I'll miss FLR:( ).

I hope they bring the Bag & Tag system to all regionals next (which looks like the way it is going). They could adjust the B&T hours for 3 day events because it would be difficult for larger events to be 2 days. The 3 day events should try to start qualifiers on Thurs like MSC and CMP.

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I don't think that a district setup would work for Wisconsin, since most of our teams are in Waukesha county, and the other few teams are scattered across the state. In a district approach, there would probably be a couple Waukesha county districts, and then one other district, which doesn't make sense. Bag and tag, on the other hand, makes sense for areas where most teams are close to their home regional.

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I dislike the district/state championship format for a few reasons. I feel that this format stops Michigan teams from knowing about the teams from the rest of the world. Sure a team can go to another regional, like 217, and see those teams, but who has that kind of money any more. Back when I was onmy team, I knew teams and people from around the world because I went to different regionals outside my state. Now I feel that the Michigan kids of today are being deprived of that. These kids hear of stories of other legendary teams around the nation and they can go check them out on here or other websites. But what about these new upcomming teams that, because of the new district format, people like myself cannot even get to see. Back when I was on my team we would go to the midwest regional and see teams like 71, 111, 45, 101, 383(yes the brazillian team), 16, 648, 234, 447, 292, and 461. Those are just the teams that I can remember off the top of my head. These kids will only see these teams at nationals. I think that it hurts FIRST by doing this. I know this format is well liked, and I know that I am rarely every on any more, but I do know that I kind of dislike how things are going and I wanted to voice my opinion on it. Thanks for your time.

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What if teams could determine their equivant to "state championship" before they register for their districts. They would then compete in that area all season. For instance, what if 217 was getting tired of playing MI teams, so at the start of the seaon they decide to play in the Midwest area. It would solve the issue that U.P. teams have along with many other not densely packed areas, and would allow teams to intermix year to year. The only downside is travel costs. Which mean the intermixing would be limited to only a select few.

On a side note I had no idea teams were not supplying their volunteers. What if the number they needed to supply was based on the number of students on the team. I'm sure enormous teams like HOT and Chickens can spare a few more hands than say Martians or other small teams can.

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Perhaps this topic deserves its own thread. I have heard grumblings about teams not supplying volunteers and wondered about it. I think teams that don't supply the required amount should pay for the cost of people to replace their shortfall. Volunteers could be part of the price of entry.

However, that said, I and several on my team volunteer because we enjoy it and want to. Working with a "requried volunteer" that wasn't there for the experience would be a lot less fun for us and the teams.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

There are aspects of the Michigan system which are good, but I really don't think the Michigan system is a magic bullet that will fix FIRST everywhere if only it can be imposed on them. While anything to help reduce costs to teams will certainly help everyone in the long run, I don't think the Michigan system is the only way to attain high team sustainability and competitiveness.

In fact, there's a competing system in place, which has been around for the greater part of the last decade, that does many of the same goals as the Michigan System. This competing system involves a very large number of very-low-cost competitions in a relatively small geographic area that extends the FRC season into a year-round program. This system wasn't imposed on anyone, but organically grew from passionate grassroots efforts on behalf of teams and mentors. This system is what some might call the New England system (possible even the Northeast system to include NY and NJ area).

Since the 1990s, New England (which is about the same size and population as Michigan) has been slowly building up a very robust off-season competition circuit. Each of these off-season events are hosted by a team, and many of them act as fundraiser opportunities to fund their own team's program. Despite this, up to a dozen off-season competitions can be attended for the same price as one FiM District Event. As a result, it's not uncommon for a team to attend three, four, five off-season competitions each year.

Due to the deep history of not only off-season events, but also FIRST in general in New England, the mindset of FIRSTers here is different than other parts of the country. It's really hard to put how it's different into words, but it's unique. Due to fact that many teams and mentors involved in FIRST here were also involved in FRC back in the defense-dominated games of the 1990s, defense is also pretty big here.

We also take to off-season events here like a duck to water. Since these competitions are "just for fun", teams often let any and all students drive their robots. These students, who wouldn't normally get to drive the robot at official events have a blast at these competitions. We often tweak the rules of the game at these events, to make the game more fun or challenging. Mentors like these events because they are relatively stress-free, especially when compared to official events. Overall, they are cheap, fun and popular.

Many of the teams, mentors, and volunteers who plan these events are also the movers and shakers of FIRST in New England. They would be the ones responsible for establishing a District System here. But from talking to many of these individuals, there's not much of a desire to impose a District System here, as it would overstretch these volunteers as they run their own teams and manage their off-season events. And for the reasons listed above, they doubt the need for a District system here.

Instead, there have been strong efforts here to create a sort of Regionals 2.0. Better, stronger, faster, cheaper. The WPI Regional is a prime example of this: a small 30-40 team event allows a high number of matches, has travel grants to reduce the costs for all attending teams, has Regional-specific scholarships to reward students, and by doing everything "in-house" on a college campus, they can host a full-quality Regional for a fraction of the price. I foresee these trends to continue, as the NU CT Regional also awarded travel grants this year, and at least for a few days this past season was slated to be hosted at a college campus.

What this New England system allows, is for a $10k/year team to attend one high-quality Regional event and up to a half dozen off-season events scattered throughout the year. Since these off-season events are mostly single-day events, travel costs are essentially null. By spreading the competitions out over the year, it reduces burn-out and keeps students engaged throughout the year. And the "just for fun" nature of the off-season events allows all the students to be inspired behind the glass, driving the robots.

Please don't take this as an attack on FiM. If the teams in Michigan appreciate and enjoy the District format, congratulations for finding a solution to fit your regions needs! But please don't make the mistake of thinking that the entire country has the same attitude about FIRST and try to impose the District System on everyone. Some parts of the country have already found our own successful niche solutions, and while we may not always brag about them, we like them and we want to continue doing them.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

For LRI Jeff (10K regional) is from MN, Chris (North Star) is from WI, and Al (not LRI at either regional, but a great aid is from IL). For Head Refs, Dick (10K) is from MN and Chris (North Star) is from IL. For FTAs, I don't know who it was at 10K, and Chris (North Star) is from IN. (Yes, the LRI, Head Ref, and FTA at North Star all had first names of Chris.)

In fact, going further, at North Star, the majority of inspectors and refs were from out of state. At 10K, most of the refs were from MN and I do not know about inspectors (Jeff can probably mention if he sees this thread).

In addition, in asking Mark Lawrence about this during the weekend, he said it was a ways off in MN because creating a 501 c3 is not something that is on the radar.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Thanks! A few more from nearby than I thought, but still probably not enough and it looks like there are other barriers as well.

The FTA at 10k Lakes was Mark Koors from IN.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Let me start by saying that I really like the District idea if it is implemented everywhere. Michigan was a perfect place for a pilot, but I believe after two years, FIRST knows if it’s going to work. In my opinion, Michigan cannot stay as this “one-off” state where people can go out to competitions but others cannot come in. I understand it will take some time, but the ball needs to start rolling one way or the other. The status quo is not fair to the teams in the states around Michigan. I know life isn’t fair and neither is FIRST, but I think we should try to make it as close as possible from a cost standpoint as we can. If another regional only charged teams $2500 and only let people in from their state, others would feel the same way.

FIRST has had incredible growth over the last decade and I see that continuing in this decade. Personally, I find it very exciting to be able to say that I was involved at a relatively early stage in FIRST's history. For those who have been involved for longer and have pushed this program to the point it is at now, you're my role models. I see FIRST moving in a few different directions during this next decade. Some of these changes are complementary and some of them are not.

1. The Championships will become a true “Championship” which you must qualify for to attend.

As FIRST grows, the increasing number of teams will make it impossible to continue to have “at-large” teams present at the Championships. FIRST will probably go to a qualification system similar to what FiM has started. The tricky part here is that you have teams with more “plays” than others and therefore more opportunities to earn points to qualify. However, this is no different than the current situation where teams can do three regionals in an attempt to qualify. It will be interesting to see which Michigan teams have qualified for The Championships and how many are the same as last year. Some may say this is a bad thing and a reason not to have a qualification requirement. But look around, it’s roughly the same group of teams attending Atlanta from other states each year anyway. There are nine teams attending from Indiana. Eight of these teams attend every year. The other is a rookie team (3176) who won RAS. I don’t know specifically about other states, but I’d guess this is pretty common.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t FLL require teams to qualify for States and Champs? If elementary school kids can handle not qualifying sometimes, I’d think high schoolers could, too. FiM has shown this to be a realistic option.

2. FIRST will transition (or at least begin to transition) to a district or modified district format everywhere.

I believe some type of district/qualifier/whatever-you-call-it structure will work in New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest (some group of IN, IL, OH, WI, and KY), Minnesota, Texas, and California. Will it be messy at first? Yes. The FiM structure won’t fit perfectly into the mold at each region. But, we are all pretty smart people, we can figure out how to make this work. The cost / benefit from the Michigan pilot has shown this to be a value add to the program as a whole. In my opinion, the Regional model is almost saturated in many locations. The sponsorship money isn’t available to start more Regionals as more teams start. The increasing costs also create a pretty large barrier to entry and are starting to stress an already stressed mentor base. There are a ton of teams in MN and there is no talk of slowing down their growth. Most of these teams can only attend one in-state regional a year due to financials. The District model where they got a minimum of two competitions with twelve matches each and had a higher likelihood of playing into the afternoon Saturday would be a huge step up for these teams. I think this would only lead to FASTER growth in the area.

Would it stink not to be able to travel and see other areas of the country? You bet. When I was a student, we went to Arizona twice, which was awesome. The Championships used to be at Disney, which was really cool, too. But, we outgrew Disney. Eventually, we’ll outgrow the Regional structure. Personally, I’d rather be leading the charge on this change than pulling up the rear.

Also, teams need some help with scheduling. St. Louis, Chicago, and Indiana regionals were all the same weekend this year. So, for teams to go to a second regional and not do back-to-back weekends, the second regional option was pretty scarce and usually around 8 hours away.

3. Forget the Bag & Tag, we’re moving to a point that you only ship a robot if you’re going somewhere you have to fly. You heard me, no more ship date.

Which seems more fair:
Team A goes to a Week 1 and a Week 5 Regional. At the Week 1, they see all kinds of things they can do to fix their robot to make it play the game better. They can take up to 65 pounds off this robot and take it home, improve it, and bring it back to the Week 5 ready to play. They have 3.5 weeks to make these improvements.
Team B goes to a Week 4 and a Week 5. They also see improvements they can make to their robot while watching a Week 1 webcast. But, like most teams, they don’t have a CAD model or a practice robot on which they can try these improvements. So, they do what they can, but then struggle in Week 4. They plan on taking 65 pounds home with them after Week 4, but they only have 3 days to make the improvements before the same Week 5 regional.

By going to a system where you don’t ship the robot, it can (not will, but can) lessen the stress of the build season, can (not will, but can) increase overall robot quality, and can save teams money because they won’t be pushed to build two robots so they can have one to use for practice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All of these changes are pretty radical and will cause a bit of a shift in how FIRST operates. In my opinion, these changes all help to bring the bottom up. The top teams will still do 2 districts, state championships, and World Championships. I think it gives teams a better shot at having that one magic year where it all comes together and they make a run to the World Championships.

I used to be hate the notion of a FIRST team in every high school. I didn’t think it was a realistic possibility. I can see it now as a realistic goal. It will take some time, but it is possible. But for that goal to have a shot, a change to the current competition structure has to happen.

Another great thread, Joe. Please, keep them coming.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

This is an interesting concept; it may actually help to "level the playing field". I like that it promotes continual improvement and I think that it is a logical extension of the coopertition concept.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Even some of the L.A. teams stay overnight, just because it's a 2-hour commute or so in moderate traffic. L.A. - San Diego (2 hours, or thereabouts--over 100 miles) often sees teams staying in hotels; same for the SVR-Sacramento leg, which is a similar distance. L.A.-Sacramento or L.A.-SVR is a good solid 6-7 hour drive. Add the L.A. - San Diego distance if you're coming from/going to S.D. instead of L.A. These aren't far-flung teams either--these are the places there is an event currently, and most teams have their second event in CA as well. The far-flung teams typically wind up in Las Vegas due to being mainly in the desert area on the east side of the state--another overnighter either way.

If the various regions opted to do this... Oh, and put the RAS into the pool of teams, for a pool of 10. And have a couple of at-large spots in each district that could not go to in-region teams until after X date.

I like the idea. I'll even go you one better, Joe: If you're invited, the "away" event is counted as part of your registration for your home region, and any points you earn count in your home region.

Example: CA is one region, AZ/CO/UT/ID (AZ) are another. Teams 60, 159, 3006, 39, 987, 3194, 1013, 1011, 3315, 842 are the pool of ambassadors for AZ; 254, 330, 1717, 812, 692, 3186, 1323, 1622, 1266, 971 are the pool for CA. Up to X teams from the AZ pool can compete in CA, and up to X teams from the CA pool can compete in AZ. All the teams competing in AZ have their points--and registration--in CA, and vice versa. Meanwhile, 359 and 368 get the at-large spots in the San Diego district, and 2576 gets one of the ones in the Los Angeles district.

(Note: could also be MI, the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, or any other region that uses the district system)

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I don't really think this is going to happen. I mean, the current system still lets teams go every year if they wanted to, when I heard the system was originally made to basically ensure any team with the funding could go once every four. When the open slots fill up completely in the registration period for teams that did not attend the previous year, I'll give you that, but right now I think people are just going "more teams must mean the championship is too full for everyone".

At least, that's my hope.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Maybe that's where Toyota went wrong?

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I understand what you are saying, but I also don't think it's as big of a problem as you might think. Right now, teams that have the resources (manpower, machines, money, etc.) to copy, will already have a practice robot, and the drive to continually improve their robot throughout the season. Our robot is never done...until we put it in the trailer after IRI...maybe. These are the teams that would have the resources to copy other robots...if they wanted...and would do so anyway. And it doesn't really happen that much.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

How exactly is it a "very low" thing to do? FIRST allows you to hold back 65 lbs. If most teams wanted to, they could have rebuilt their robots into a 469/67 type looper. Our frame + drive + electronics is easily over 55 lbs. We'll have had 3.5 weeks between Boilermaker and Championships. Did we do this? Nope. We've been working on making the robot we designed better (improved autonomous, better ball grabber, driver practice). Is it fair that we have a second robot and room to build part of a field while other teams cannot? NO WAY! To me, it's much more fair for teams to just never have to ship their robots. Then, all teams going to Week 5 events would be in the same boat. I would bet that if a team tried to build a "better" 469 in the weeks between Week 1 and their competition, they'd end up with an inferior robot on the field. Very few teams in FIRST can prototype, design, and fabricate a robot that quickly (then practice, break, fix, and debug that same robot).

In this hypothetical situation, if the team did pull off creating a better version of another robot, I would applaud their efforts and know that they worked their butts off. But don't forget, the good teams that figure out these "dominant" strategies early enough to build a great robot are CONSTANTLY improving their strategies, driving skills, autonomous, and every other aspect of the robot between their competitions, too.

The goal of FIRST is to Inspire. In my opinion, all three options I laid out can only help grow FIRST to reach its goal of Inspiring as many kids as possible.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

My experience in VEX, where we have five tournaments each about a month apart in Redmond, Vancouver, and on Vancouver Island for just over 50 teams is that keeping the robots back does allow some copying. But I think that is a good thing.

It gives teams a microcosm of the real world of engineering, where you KNOW you can't stand still. The robots that won our first event in November, would have been slaughtered at our final event in March. I tell students that if someone is copying you, then that means they are one month behind you... and you better keep running if you want to stay in front... and watch out for teams that will leapfrog past you with radical new designs. We saw at least one completely brand new concept in how to play the game in our fifth and final event this year. In FRC, if you've got a good robot in Week 1, you can be pretty confident that it will be a good robot at the Championships. Not in VEX.

Of course rebuilding in VEX is pretty easy to do... the robots are all made of re-usable parts, so doing a complete re-build can cost absolutely nothing.... and the events are weeks apart, giving plenty of time to tear down, rebuild and retest.... and can be done without close adult supervision.

The FRC schedule has different constraints on it than the VEX schedule does, and thats why I'm happy to be able to play both games... but I wouldn't necessarily condemn copying or improving upon a good design as a bad thing. In fact, it is the smart thing to do!

Jason

Re: District/Regional Format
 

VRC teams do exactly this. It's not something low, it's copying in a way... how many teams are currently trying to tried to copy 469 after they saw them at Cass Tech?

I like the idea of ship date, leave that no ship date to FLL, FTC and VRC

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I have been a part of FIRST since 2005 when my son was a freshman in high school and have always enjoyed reading Chief Delphi for as many years. But, I have never officially registered or posted. This is my first, so please go easy on me :) .

My team, 910 really enjoys the playing time we get for our money with FiM, but we too have really missed the opportunities to play and get to know other teams from outside of our state. We do not have the extra money required to pay for both travel and registration for an out-of-state regional in additional to FiM.

Right now in FiM, when there are open slots available at a district event, teams can register for a third district for $500. Registration for these open slots occurs after regular registration (your first two choices) is closed. Last year we were able to play in 3 district events. This year we were not.

I propose that a team’s third event (for that same $500) can ONLY be for open slots in district level events outside your home state/region (which operate in the same or similar format as FiM). This would go in both directions, thus providing teams outside Michigan to compete within Michigan, as well as essentially reserving the extra slots for only outside teams. Only your 2 district events within your state/region would count toward your qualifying points for your state/regional championship event.

In terms of off-season events to get in extra play... The mid-west has many off-season events also. Our team tries to attend as many of them as we can for all of the reasons stated in earlier posts. I would encourage all teams to participate in them. But I do not feel that it replaces or takes away from all of the positive aspects of the FiM structure.

In response to State lines not working for all states, I do not think that ‘conferences’ (to steal a word from sports) has to be based along single or multiple state lines. It might be more cost effective for some of the teams in the upper peninsula of MI to play in a ‘conference’ out of Chicago or the North Central US. Or maybe, for teams in northern CA to be a part of a Northwest US/Southwest Canada 'conference'. There is no reason why the lines couldn’t change and/or the district format evolve as FIRST grows… continuous improvement:) .

Getting excited for Atlanta... see you there!

Re: District/Regional Format
 

There are some really great ideas in this post. Welcome to the CD Community. If the rest of the posts are anything like this one, you'll be a valued member very quickly.

I really like this idea and think that it can be implemented the quickest of any of the other ideas proposed here with the current FiM structure. It could be a first come / first served for "outside" teams. I would love for our team to come see how a district competition operates and how the model could be expanded to other regions. What better way than to let them compete. A few caveats I think that would need to be in place: 1) Since there would be so few spots available - the "outside" team would get no Championship qualification from these events. Since a Michigan team cannot qualify for Championships simply by winning a district, why should a team from another state? Also, to make sure none of the Michigan teams lose point earning oppotunities at that district, what if the "outside" team was not able to win any judged awards, at least during the learning phase of the "team swap"? It would stink not being able to win awards at a competition, but that's a price you pay to go to this extra event for so cheap.

I love this idea. What if, every three years you had to declare your "region"? This would put the onus on the teams to figure out where it fits best for them to play. You would be limited to only select from say 3 regions surrounding your general geographic location, but the choice would still be yours. This can be implemented while there is a mix of districts and regionals, too. Why can't, after two years of trying it, a team from Michigan decide they don't want to do the FiM structure? Why can't a team from a state close to Michigan decide that, for the next three years, they are going to be a "Michigan" team?

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Take as an example, 33 last year. (Sorry Jim) After seeing 67's dominant machine they rebuilt their robot to be a wide dumper similar to 67's. They had the added benefit of a crab drive system underneath. LOGICALLY they should have been better than 67 because the upper structure was nearly identical and the drive train was imho better. Why did 67 win another blue banner while 33 got knocked out in the semi's? I always attribute it to driver practice. Their drivers practiced playing one way but the new system required a different style of play. Winning in FRC isn't all about the robot, it is about the drivers practicing and communicating.

Please note, this is NOT knocking 33. There are very few teams that consistently awe me with every aspect of their program.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Andrew,
No problem...our efforts last year were just an extreme example of what we never stop doing: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT. We made a 39.8 lb replacement part for the Championship. This took considerable time and effort, but it was something we felt that we needed to last year.
I personally have never truly understood FIRST's motivation to restrict our access to the machines. I know that many believe that it is to make things more fair, but in realility all it really does is widen the gap between the teams with a lot of resources and the teams with less. There is no other machine sport on earth that I know of where they take your machine away from you.
Shipping/bagging is a vestige of a time in which most teams went to a single event. The now that we are playing a SEASON it no longer makes sense.
To me the most tragic thing about shipping/bagging is the fact that it prevents teams from self-promoting effectively precisely when we have the best opportunity to do so. You build hype BEFORE the big game, not AFTER. We are Robotics teams, and showing people our robots is the single best way to fulfill Dean's homework assignement and get outsiders to our events.
Teams are their own best advocates, by taking away the robots, FIRST takes away our best promotional tool. If Dean wants us to complete his homework, then he should eliminate these obsolete rules to allow us to do this effectively.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

It's been my impression that the purpose of ship date is to impose on us an artificial time constraint. 6 weeks is hardly enough time to build a robot. But it just means we have to exercise good time management.

This is why team 840 did not hold back anything this year, even though we really could have used some drive practice, we believed it was against the spirit of the competition.

Also, having no ship date would intrinsically cause some unfairness. Say that Team A and Team B both attend only 1 regional, Team A's event is on week 1 and Team B's event is on week 5. Team B gets 4 extra weeks to build their robot! Even if they don't try to "copy" successful designs, it doesn't change the fact that they are much more prepared for their event than Team A is.

Then again this is assuming both teams only attend 1 event, which wouldn't be the case under the district system. Still, timing differences would be an issue. With ship date, the same deadline is imposed on every team.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Team A would compete against teams who have a similar disadvantage. Now, at the Championship level it could be a problem but if all teams get their robot back and have time to work on it after their events this difference goes away.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I think this is one of the better reasons I have heard to not have a ship/bag-tag date. This would work really well for those teams that made it to championships but need a few more dollars to get there. They can bring their robot around to local companies and be able to show them their robot itself. Without this all you can do is show them pictures, but having a robot there would make it easier to get them as a sponsor. Personally I can see positives to both sides.

As far as districts go I do hope they do this nation wide. It is a good way to get out and be able to play a lot of matches/events. Like many it will depend on how they split up the nation. Overall I think natural geography rather than state lines should play more of a role into where teams land. I dont think teams should be able to change the district they compete in, but allowing them to play in a 3rd event outside of there district if theres room would be a decent idea. Hope they do it and curious to see where the lines end up. Sounded like last year this would probably happen after the competition this year.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Agreed! I think that districts too will have a better ability to help complete Dean's homework as they are more "local" events. It seems that more public comes to see some off-season events in Manchester such as River Rage than GSR. Yes, that assumption may be wrong a little, but I hear a ton of people walk in the doors saying they heard there was a robotics competition and decided to come in. How many people will travel 40+mins to a regional to watch a team compete from their local high school? Most likely only family and close, close friends would do that. If a state had several districts spread out, the public would have an easier time coming into the regional right down the street than a trip down the highway.

EDIT: I would like to apologize for two posts I made earlier in this thread as I did not think thoroughly through the idea and they were not related to this thread which is why they were deleted.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Last year, I wasn't a fan of the District format. I hated it, because it meant no travelling out of state (going to Pittsburgh as my first FIRST event freshman year was the highlight of my season). Since then, I've been somewhat converted. In 2009, we would have been able to only go to one event, because of monetary issues. The district format allowed us to attend two events, and gave us time to fundraise for states. While MI doesn't have the worst economy in the nation (to my knowledge), we have one of the highest concentrations of FRC teams all badgering for the little money that's available. From a financial standpoint, FiM is great.

However, I don't support the idea of implementing the same system in other states, because of the travel constraints it would impose. If we were to shut out all of the events in the Northeast, all of the events in CA, and all of the events in MI...well, that would put the teams who don't live in those areas in a VERY difficult situation. Teams from Nevada wouldn't be able to go to their CA events. You wouldn't see 217 at FLR, and you wouldn't see a lot of the Canadian teams outside of Canada (Israel would be the one exception, though - open that up to Israel and Turkey and any other teams from the Middle East area, and it would be a great event. Especially given the struggles from this year). Somebody mentioned that MI kids aren't as exposed to the rest of the FRC world outside of MI, and I completely agree. Soon, very few MI kids will recognize names like Wildstang, MORT, Exploding Bacon, etc.

(my quick $0.02 while waiting for our team meeting to start)

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Yes! A word to define the geographical area which supports a championship - CONFERENCE. Let's push for that to be the official designation.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

That's true. Event timing should ideally still be consistent for everyone, but with a team attending 2 district events in 4 weeks, variations in event timing probably won't influence performance by much either way.

Sounds like a good idea.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

The district format has many positives from a robot perspective, yes. More matches, more robot access, more benefit to building a strong "winner" robot than a GP helper bot. But it's not a model that solves all problems, and it's not a model that works everywhere. I see it working in CA & MI, Florida maybe, and New England if you include all of the states and let outsiders "opt-in." One problem with districts is that you can't "Opt-Out." Tech Fusion was lucky because they're physically half-Ohio, but for the rest of MI teams, it would cost $11,000 to attend one competition if you didn't want to be part of MI. This puts teams in border areas like the UP at a disadvantage, because it may be easier for them to attend MN or WI regionals than MI districts. It also inconveniences border teams on the other side, that are forced to go to a regional, when there are two districts physically closer, but behind the Steel Curtain.

I think a great advantage that I had as a student in FRC is the ability to go to Midwest and Epcot and see all of the teams from different cultures that you don't see with a homogeneous population. It gives you different perspectives, seeing how different areas of the country handle the engineering challenges. I've heard more than once how some people miss how the MI teams, the "West Coast Offense" of FIRST, come into a Midwest or Pitts or FLR, kick butt, and inspire their own teams to be more "Michigan." There's also an indescribable professionalism that I see with regionals that you miss out if you're stuck behind the Steel Curtain.

I agree that some things, like the crating procedures and the all-Thursday practice, are archaic, but the main benefit I see of the district format is that it has forced the FRC to compete with it. You see that this year with Thurs Quals next week, the pilot bagging at Pitts and KC, and faster match turnaround at regionals this year, leading to more matches. I think if we maintain the current status-quo, with an "opt-in/opt-out" clause, the two competitions FRC and FiM can feed off of each other and benefit each other by forcing the other to innovate and push the envelope.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

There are 3 central coast teams; 973, 1388 and 1717. Also, we currently have to travel to every event, so I see no downside to the district system.

Making a central coast event would really be inappropriate in my opinion, there aren't a lot of good locations, every other team at the event would need to travel, and considering we're 120ish miles from 1717, it wouldn't be local to all the central coast teams.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Personally I love the districts. Before they were started our team would attend a regional, play 8 matches and we would call it good for the year. With the districts we play approx. 25 or more matches. That is triple from what we used to play.

One of the biggest reasons districts work is because of the volunteers. Each and every team must supply at least 2. On top of those great volunteers from the teams, we get others that are willing to give a piece of themselves. Michigan has some of the finest people who are willing to come lend a hand. Each event has at least 100 volunteers that are willing to do any job from being a judge to handing out safety glasses at the pit doors. Every job is extremely important.

Each host team works for months in advance to make sure everything runs smoothly. Setting up the field takes an incredible group of team leaders and students working side by side. The only rewards they get are a few pieces of pizza and the satisfaction in knowing they have accomplished something that many teams from around the world have never known.

While I seriously doubt that this would work for everybody. It would work in other areas that have well over 100 teams like MI. CA and FL come to mind for places that it would work.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Even at the end of the 2009 season, the regional director for NJ told us to be ready to hear the final word about hosting a district competition. The others, from what I recall, were team 25, 75/1403, and I think there was one more other than us. This was not put into place for 2010 because of contracts and arena agreements that had to be met. There was also no finalized cost/benefit ratio determined for having teams host the events at their high schools . I'm hoping this has changed, I will get in touch with the regional director and find out what his plans for 2011 are.

11 and 25 were ideal for hosting events as both teams have been doing so for a decade now.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Mathematically, the minimum size area to implement a district like system would be just under 60 teams. With 60 teams, you would have a set-up for doing 3 x 40 team tournaments just like an FiM district. This would give each team 2 district opportunities. The next point would be with 80 teams for a 4 district set-up, and then 100 teams for a 5 district setting. These numbers are relative to the 480 slots required by a 40 team 12 match schedule. the other option would be slightly larger events with fewer matches. A similar time table could accomodate 44 teams playing 11 matches or 48 teams getting 10 matches.

I think areas like Isreal could/would benefit from a system like this. Currently they are at 51 teams. With 54 teams (3 new ones), they could do 3 x 36 team districts and then invite the whole country to the Isreal Championship (a 54 team event). While getting to 140 teams with 7 districts and a championship sounds quite daunting, Having a more local 50-60 teams competing weeks 1-3 at Districts of 35-40 teams and then having Regional Champioships sounds more practical to me. As the areas grow adding on a district is very reasonable, and then once the championship is full, you begin to cut numbers.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Adam, I was using you guys as an example. I couldn't remember the other numbers on the central coast.

I agree that a central coast event would at this time be inappropriate. Where are Bakersfield and Fresno, which I suggested as an alternative that may be a bit closer than L.A. or SVR? Central Valley, which is home to several teams that are currently in a similar boat. It's also a bit closer to the desert teams, giving them another option.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Okay, so, I'm going to preface this by saying that I haven't read all of this thread, only the first page or so. I might be agreeing with someone, or arguing a point that's already been settled. In the case of the later, I apologize.

Anyways,

I think that anyone can attest to the fact that what really drew them to FIRST was the grandeur of it all. If kids want to compete in a high school gym, then they have all the opportunity in the world to do so.

The reason that I (and everyone I know) was so enthralled by FIRST is that I was competing in the San Diego Sports Arena, not some high school gym. That's the reason I kept doing it, to some degree. FIRST gives you a feeling that you aren't just in some ordinary high-school level organization; you're in something real.

Sure, it's cheaper and you can get more teams through, but I feel like the quality of the experience is cheapened by dropping from regional to district events. Because it doesn't have the extraordinary shock-and-awe factor, I feel like the retention rate isn't going to be very high. I expect a huge influx of teams at first, due to the low cost, but then a steep drop-off as people stop caring as much.

Also, all of this seems to be centering on "let's get as many teams as possible to the Championship". Is that really was FIRST is about? Going to Atlanta (or St. Louis)? I feel like FIRST is getting way too focused on winning, which goes against the whole spirit of the thing.

Anyways, that was more rambling than I intended.

What I really want to say is they we're fixing things that aren't broken. If you were to go up to teams and ask if they would like to change anything about their competitions, I'm willing to say that most everyone loves the system as it is (I mean, maybe more songs on that default FIRST playlist, but, hey, nothing's perfect, right?)

So, there's my two cents.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Well if you have an enthusiasm for science and technology it shouldn't matter that the arena is of lower quality than an actual stadium. We come here to celebrate FIRST, not the grandeur of the stadium.

Getting more teams to Championship is not focused on winning at all? How did you come to such a conclusion? It is getting more kids to experience what the Championship is.

Sorry if I offend you but taht is just my out take on your 2 cents.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. The Michigan District system was designed to send just as many automatic qualifiers to Championships as the 3 regionals it replaced (Great Lakes, West Michigan, Detroit).

Re: District/Regional Format
 

I really want everyone to stop with the "All about winning" stuff. Actually it is quite the opposite. At a normal FIRST Regional, only the winners advance. In other words, the RCA, The Rookie Allstar, and the 3 teams that win. IN A NORMAL EVENT, ONLY THE WINNERS GET RECOGNIZED. Remember there is more than just a I in FIRST. R (recognition) is a big component as well. In the FiM system, being really good gets recognized. If you are a repeat finalist, if you win some smaller awards, if you play well and are picked for elims, you get seeding points to compete in a true Championship.

You are correct that the District events are not as glamorous as a Regional, but the scale of difference is much much much smaller than you preceive. Only 50% are in high school gyms, and these are big high schools. The other 50% are at University field houses and stadiums where they were before the District system got started.

As far as retention goes, Michigan had one of the highest retention rates in one of the worst economies. The reason is the affordability and the chance to get to play two events and really see the improvement that comes from 24+ matches.

Re: District/Regional Format
 

Obviously there is talk of the expansion of the District format to other states/regions. Does anyone know what new regionals there will be for the other states/countries? I heard someone connected with FIRST say that there is to be a new regional in Texas (where in the state, I don't know).

Re: District/Regional Format
 

But at the same time, less "winners" move on. Don't get me wrong, I think I probably prefer the Michigan system, but Michigan isn't "doing more to recognize almost winners", they just decreased the "win count" for their state so 6 almost winners can advance too.