Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Being about 40 minutes South West of DC we have the "luxury" of a number of different regional events within about 2 hours of us, but I know our school district would welcome any change that have our students miss less class time.

Question for you Michigan people, do you day trip to the event or get a hotel close by and deal with the cost? Due to how far our district will let us take a school bus the big expense for us is hotel unless we go "far" away.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

We day trip to Kettering, Troy, and MSC (about 50 mins, 40 mins, and 1 hr 15 mins respectively).

We used school buses for those three trips.
The pit crew and comp team goes to the thursday districts (which start at 6pm) in vans and trucks, along with the robots and stuff. At districts, only the pit crew and comp team goes on Thursday. At MSC, the pit crew and comp team goes down in the morning, and the rest of the team joins us after lunch.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Honestly, it depends on the team. For some of the Detroit-area teams, there are almost three districts within a twenty minute drive (you only go to two), while the UP teams near Michigan Tech have 9.5 hours to get to Traverse City, and then they have to get to another district (probably West Michigan, an additional two or three hours, my estimate).

My team, on the outside corner of the Detroit metro area, has one within fifteen minutes and then two within about forty minutes, so no hotel is neccessary. However, once it is an hour or longer (the state championship), we get a hotel.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

It depends on the event, for example 910 tries to do one "travel" event and one "home" event. Our home event is about 15 minutes from our school, so we don't use a hotel, while the travel requires a hotel. We could theoretically do two districts where we didn't need a hotel, we just don't. I know a lot of teams just do day trips to save the costs.

However, this is only how we do it and we are in metro Detroit, where most of the events take place. I know travel can be an issue for teams in the U.P., which has been discussed above.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

I wish people would quit blindly quoting this. Even Google and Mapquest say it's 7.5 hours from Houghton to Traverse City. So unless you're traveling by broken-down school bus that can only reach 47 mph max or have a significant weather delay, this estimate has added at least 2 hours to the actual time needed. (And as anyone who has ever gone to MTU knows, you can go much faster than the speed limit through most of the UP. Not that I admit to ever doing that. :rolleyes: )

Travel for the UP teams (and for the second event for northern LP teams) is a significant factor. Let's just not make it more than it really is.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

There's this one REALLY long traffic light...:)

Being a data junkie, here are all the relevant driving times and distances assuming flights aren't taken and discounting inclement weather and traffic (Google Maps).
That's just driving time. It takes longer of course to load up the bus, depart and arrive. Sort of like saying our flight to Atlanta only took 3 hours, but it was 9 hours between school ending and getting into our hotel rooms herding cats.:rolleyes:
Remember a trip is twice as bad when you start recognizing that it's a round trip, then we realize that the poor Houghton team spent at best 34 hours or almost one-and-a-half 24-hour days just riding the bus for it's two district events in 2011. Uphill both ways...

Houghton, MI to:
hours ----- miles ------ event
7.5 ------- 394 ------ Traverse City
8.7 ------- 494 ------ Kettering
9.2 ------- 525 ------ Waterford
9.3 ------- 510 ------ West MI
9.4 ------- 538 ------ Troy
9.4 ------- 544 ------ Ann Arbor
9.6 ------- 552 ------ Livonia
9.6 ------- 558 ------ Detroit
9.7 ------- 517 ------ Niles

4.1 ------- 216 ------ Lake Superior Regional, Duluth, MN (shorter distance by boat I suppose)
6.0 ------- 331 ------ Wisconsin Regional, Milwaukee, WI
6.4 ------- 341 ------ 10K & North Star Regionals, Minneapolis, MN
7.75 ------ 422 ------ Midwest Regional



For comparison to the Mid-Atlantic region the time/distance from say Gettysburg, PA to Trenton, NJ is
hours ----- miles
2.8 ------- 160


The Sidney team still wins the travel pain award with a 10 hour flight to the Hawaii Regional (closest).
Just for fun I asked Google maps to plot a drive from Sidney, Australia to the Regional in Hawaii.
It actually produced an answer... with a 6,000km kayak leg in it.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Busses tend to drive the speed limit ;P And taking a bus does tack on a little additional time because you have to stop for food, bathroom breaks, etc. Most people can drive from Detroit to Mackinac City in 4.5-5 hours, but when I take a bus up there with scouts, it's about 6 hours because we have to stop for two meals.

On a side note, I learned yesterday that the distance between Detroit and Houghton is greater than the distance from Detroit to Washington DC...

My team's school district doesn't have school busses, and we are not a large team, so we carpool to events. We also try to do one "home" event and one "away" event each year. Being directly north of Detroit puts us within 2 hours of all of the MI events except Niles, West MI, and Traverse City. We get a hotel if we travel to one of those events. Kettering, Detroit, Livonia, Waterford, and States are close enough that a hotel would just be a waste of money. Since we always can get enough willing parents to drive (and students, for close events), renting a bus has never been considered as a viable option.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

I am a Michigan Tech Student (that means I live in Houghton), and the trip from Houghton to Grand Rapids has taken at the shortest 8 hours (speed limit of 70 in the LP), and at the longest 13.5 Hours. Its not all that inconceivable to be driving 20 or 30 miles per hour on some stretches of the UP when it is snowing.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

For what it's worth, MAR has posted a link to their July 11, 2011 forum, which covers most of the issues at hand, including those mostly decided and those still up in the air.

Here is the link

It's an hour and a half, but goes into great depth, particularly the discussions at the end.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Don,

Slogging through the recorded webinar at the link is a bit tedious for those of us who are just interested in the big picture take-away.

Do you have a connection to anyone you can convince to post a downloadable slide deck?

Blake

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Of course, it never snows in MI in March, nor do students need to eat ever...
This is an early version, the latest one I have seen is not much different. Sorry it is huge.

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Thanks for posting the PDF Don!

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

For those out of state teams that would like to know what it is like at a Michigan district event come to the Kettering Kick off event on September 17, 2011. Many of the great Michigan teams are there for you to compete with. The Kettering Kick off is run very close to what the district event is and by most of the same people.
For more information http://www.ketteringfirst.com/

Re: Michigan, be honest, how is the district model?
 

Even though the cost to attend state and nationals separately goes up, the cost of traveling goes down because you don't have to travel across state lines to attend events. I like the way things are in Michigan now. However, I suppose my preference is biased because I wasn't around before they changed everything. Still, from what I've heard, I prefer it the new way. It's helped our team a lot.