Re: Bill's Blog
 

Sounds like eventually they will have to.

I don't see how dispersed teams and a District model conflict.

In CA for example, there are two norcal, and two socal events. 90% of CA teams are pretty darn close to one or both regionals. If these pairs of regionals turned into 3-4 districts, and then a state champs that rotated year to year, who would complain?

Is it unreasonable to expect teams to travel for the State Champs?

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Dispersed teams don't conflict with a District model only if they normally compete within that district's borders.

The Capital region teams, for the most part, do not go to events in New York. The WPI and CT regionals are the closest, followed by BAE and Montreal.

The NY regional layout as of now is located at the extreme ends of the state. It seems unlikely that the manpower to produce two new District events for the Capital teams will arise out of thin air.

Since districts seem to be fixated on state borders, it seems unlikely New York will be included in any of the nearby districts. The Mid-Atlantic district map doesn't include us, a New England map wouldn't include us, so we'd be the odd state out here, where each of the three rough "sections" of the state really should be incorporated in a District model with nearby geographic regions.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Having just made the Trip from Hartford to Rochester this morning to come look at RIT, I can say that it is a long, somewhat boring trip!

While The Northeast is a great place to implement the district system, it will have to be cut up into a couple regions, and I can guarantee they won't be completely along state lines, and there going to be issues with the distrcting.

See this is where the districts will make or break us. Districts will have to be drawn not based on state lines if they are going to succeed.

For a minute lets look at Regional to Districts in terms of event amounts. One could say in Michigan the districts replaced 3 Regionals (2 existing and to allow expansion in place of adding a 3rd Regional) with their currently being 9 districts. So one could say for every 1 existing regional in your area, you could get 2-3 districts in place.

So New England would end up having 8-12 Districts in the region.

If the Capital Region of New York was to be included in the New England Region, there would be enough districts to be able to put at least one in the capital region.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

New York is already broken up into NY State FIRST and NYC/NJ FIRST.

Couldn't upstate slot in with Canada or New England and let everyone in NYC/NJ FIRST build a region with Pennsylvania and Delaware?

But then what happens in the Mid-Atlantic? Do you take MD, DC, VA with maybe NC and WV? How would WV affect a possible Smokey Mountain Super-Region with Tennessee and Kentucky? Where does Ohio fit in all of this? How would a proposed Southeastern Super-Region with Palmetto, Peachtree, and the Florida regionals? WOuld teams in the panhandle work better in a Bayou super-regional?

I can only imagine how they are dealing with this. It has to be a drag trying to turn teams and towns into puzzle pieces.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

I think that would drastically solve the problem at championships with conferences like NCAAF, but we first need to grow enough in the states now. Like for instance Florida, are we honestly saying that we should only have ONE Florida regional? We should have atleast 2 in the state.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

To add to the mess of sorting things out, the borders between "state" championships must be reasonable to explain to non-FIRSTers. It would be easy for them to understand district/state/nationals because that is the model sports uses. Admittedly, it is unreasonable to stick to state borders for this program until it becomes much more common and the large gaps between team concentrations are filled. The problem with arbitrarily drawing lines though is that it makes it harder to further the goals of FIRST. It makes it harder to explain quickly why making it to the "state" level is a big deal. I know this shouldn't be their primary consideration, but it certainly should be something in the back of their mind. If we went to the district setup nation wide and were to divide along non-state borders, what would you call the "state" competition? It would definitely need to have both the easiness to understand as "state" while being more precise.

Jason

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Regionals?

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Once again the problem comes down to the traveling Distances. Montreal I could see being attatched to New England, as for Teams in Ontario, and the Rochester/Finger Lakes areas, there just a big traveling Distance.

As for NYC/NJ going with PA and Deleware, I'm sure something along those line smay happen, however I'm not really up to snuff on the facts about that merger happening.


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One thing I forgot to throw in my last post is in terms of the borders, I think once there set, they need to be some what fluid. In terms of setting where the events are placed they need to be followed, however if a team is on or near a border between two regions, I think they should be given the option to pick which region they go and compete in.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

The regional model is a very strange thing. A regional can have 32 teams, 64 teams, or be a 120-team double regional.

That's why the district model needs to be phased in. If you have 20 teams within an hour drive of a central location, there is a district. You can bring in 10 more from outside, and it's like a mini-regional. In terms of my state, we could have four or five regionals: One in Richmond (Central VA), one in Charlottesville (Western VA), one in Hampton Roads (Eastern VA), and one or two in NoVA. Then one regional is in DC, and two are in Maryland. That's your Capital Super Regional Competition area. Problem is, the guys closer to a Southeast, Smokey Mtn, or Mid Atlantic Super Regional are in big money trouble.

Maybe instead of lines, you pick a venue, and then teams within an x-mile radius are eligible for that super-regional and all of the districts that feed into it. That keeps the teams out in a place like Southwest VA sending 20 kids and a robot on a 7 hour trip to D.C. for a super-regional.

All of these hypotheticals make my head hurt.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Guys .... I'm sure FIRST has looked at all of the different outcomes and they will choose what is best for the future growth of the program. I definitely applaud the GDC on finishing the game early and they seem to be on track. I definitely like the idea of a shorter manual! ::rtm::

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Just to clarify this a little. NJ is no longer part of NYC/NJ FIRST.
NYC FIRST is it's own entity, and NJ is now aligned with Delaware and Eastern PA.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

If we are to move to a District model we have to take into consideration situations where we have double regionals. In Washington we presently have one double regional... This could not really be broken into 2 district events because it would not be possible to participate in 2 events when they are held at the same time. There is discussion of adding another event in Spokane and we do have the Portland regional which is in close proximity to the state.

Having several small regionals in a state takes a considerable amount of planning and volunteer effort. i would think that these district events would appear on the surface to take less effort but in reality I would think that they would take about the same time and effort to set up and man as a normal regional. I know that it is one less day for volunteers... but the planning and set up/takedown would be virtually the same.

I know that the points system in Michigan now allows the same number of teams to go to Championships. It also has resulted in different teams going because the points systems rewards accomplishments that are not rewarded in the present Regional System (Only the winning team and the RCA and EI award winners presently get the ticket... for regionals...) I like this system actually... but I am not sure exactly how it has worked out for Michigan...

In a regional where there are a well defined set of strong teams you will (for good reason) see those teams qualify for CMP in either scenario. It might be better to reward teams for consistent performance over several district events (the present district model in Michigan .. I believe.)

I am not sure how this has worked out when it comes to the RCA or EI in Michigan... Is (Are) there a team(s) out there that can shed some light on their experiences with qualifying for CMP under the District model?

I am not really sure how it works...
thanks!

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Why bother breaking into regions at all, how about this?:
Each team gets 2 district events with their registration, and an optional third for a small fee; they can use these registrations to enter any distric event they want. You score points for your placement and awards at each district (with 3 district teams getting their total points multiplied by 2/3). There are about 12 regional championships, the winning alliance and chairmans from each district automatically get births at a regional championship the rest of the spots are filled based on district score. The winning alliance and chairmans from each regional championship advance to the championship, with the rest of the spots filled based on a combination of the team's score from districts, regionals and the currrent lottery factors. The core of the system is that you aren't physically restricted, if you make it into tier 2 then you can go to whichever regional championship you want.

Re: Bill's Blog
 

I would take sports as an inspiration for explanation. SEC(south east conference) groups all of the big schools of the same area. it has its own conference championship, and the teams in the conference can play games in any other conference they want as well as compete for the national championship. Though it is not one on one like Football, I think the district model is much closer to how football is already does its groupings, which will make it pretty easy to explain to any one not in FIRST

Re: Bill's Blog
 

Districts definitely should not be drawn on state lines, it may even be better to allow teams to select what region the compete in (but limit them to one region per year). For example some teams from the Albany area may prefer to head to NYC while others may prefer to head to New England. WPI is ~2 hrs from Albany, NYC is ~2.5, Boston is 3-3.5 and Rochester is 4, Syracuse (there isn't anything there now but if the district model allowed the program to grow it would be a logical place for development is ~2.5.

Assuming 6-8 New england districts you would expect Hartford, Boston, and Manchester to keep their competitions, if you kept it to major cities Springfield would be a decent choice and is only ~1.25Hr from Albany (less than an hour from Hudson where another Capital District team is located). Or possibly Vermont which features multiple suitible cities within 2-3 hrs of Albany.

I think that the District model is very feasible in the North East, infact other than Michigan it may be the area where it would work the best.

I agree 100 percent. As for what to call the Championships, if the system of districts was used nation wide why not call the Championships "Regionals", it is after all a regional competition.

To further the sports explanation and support my point of teams going out of state. Rugby is set up by Territories, NYS does not have its own Territory for Division 1 Rugby. There are DIV 1 teams in NYC, Albany, Rochester, and Buffalo (the same areas with FRC Teams) The Albany team competes in New England, NYC teams compete in their own Territory along with Long Island and NJ, and the western NY teams compete in the Midwest