Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain
I love a lot about the district model personally, but an issue I know the state we both have teams in is going to run into a money issue. 5/6 teams who won awards at the Virginia Regional only attended one regional event and some barely made the financial cut for championships to the point where 422 was subsidizing the costs for merit based teams to go. There are a lot of reasons some of these teams aren't making enough money, but putting less strain on all teams by dropping the requirement a state/regional CMP $4k registration fee would be nice.
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I'm not on the FiM board, so I'm not exactly sure how the price for our state championship is set. I think it is based on FIRST's standard price for teams going to a second regional, and was set up that way as part of the operating agreement between FiM and FIRST. As the district model is expanded, perhaps this arrangement can be revised to allow the various district championships to be managed along the "district event" model rather than the "regional" model (i.e., lower cost).
In Michigan, there are usually a few (2-5??) qualified teams that decline their invitation to MSC. Money is usually a factor, but many of those teams decline because they chose to spend their money on other things (for example, they were already pre-registered for CMP or they competed in out-of-state events).
The "worst case scenario" with the district system is that you pay your $5K entry fee, go to two events (24 matches + elims). You decline the district championship because you couldn't come up with $4K in March. In the regional system, you pay your $5K entry fees and go to one event (8-12 matches + elims). You didn't sign up for a second event because you didn't have another $4K last October/November. The district model always gets you more playing time for the initial investment, and gives you more time to come up with additional money if needed.
For anybody that has been following the "mentor burnout" thread (which deals with much more than burnout), the structure of the district model accomodates some of the proposed solutions much better than the regional model. Most mentors and students can attend 2 district events for the same time off work/school as one regional event. The average playing time for "elite" and "struggling" teams is brought much closer - moreso by bringing up the bottom than bringing down the top. Robot access/out of bag time can be set as desired to accomodate goals for fostering continuous improvement while preventing an arms-race mentality or "wait and copy what works" mentality, reducing the "need" to build practice robots, etc.
I realize that the district model presents some challenges to some teams, but on the whole I think it is a necessary and good thing for the continued growth of FRC.