[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by gblake

Remember, it isn't the notion of a "District model" that is the root of this situation. The root cause is that so many folks have a knee jerk tendency toward drawing district boundaries along state borders.

Force them to realize that being in one state or another (or one county/city or another) has nothing to do with being on a robotics team, and tell them to tell local and state officials that you think both they and the robotic programs simply don't need or want to create artificial boundaries at state borders.

When the old canard about state/local funds only being used to pay for folks inside of a boundary gets raised, simply tell them to go right ahead and do it; but to not confuse that support with saying that tournaments or other activities can only include those supported teams. They will find a compromise fast enough if folks like yourself stick to your guns. "Rules" like those get broken constantly.

Sure, in-state teams might get funding or other support from their state; but! that doesn't mean that the only way to draw a district boundary is to create one that excludes contact with or sharing costs with other teams and jurisdictions.

There is a huge difference between deciding to support a group of teams and deciding to exclude a group of teams. Folks often make the jump from one decision to the next for absolutely no good reason.

Blake

who said we even need borders?

I have an idea:

districts and world championship. thats all.

It would work where you would have district competitions all over the areas where FRC can be found.

Any team can go to any district they want. if they like being local, great. if they want to travel, fine.

Any trophy award gets a team the world championship. championship fields would be drawn from the list of those who got in and have paid their fees.

Essentially like 2008 only with smaller and more numerous competitions