Quote:
Originally Posted by dodar
...Florida couldnt be a part of a region like MAR and PNW because of the distance that teams would have to travel.
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Florida's actually significantly smaller than the PNW. Florida has an area of ~66,000 sq mi, while the PNW has an area of ~160,000 sq mi (New England has an area of 71,000 sq mi, as a sidenote). The PNW also has larger length x width dimensions than FL, so straight-line distances aren't as bad either. As long as the DCMP is centrally located (i.e. Orlando or Tampa), travel should be better than what the PNW (or especially Upper Peninsula MI!) has. The districts can follow the team density so that few team will have more than 4 hours of travel for their two district events.
FIRST is sufficiently dense in a fair number of regions to enable a transition on that count... but there are other factors at play, most notably motivation to transition to districts. That motivation can overcome many other factors (i.e. younger region, fewer current volunteers, large geographic region)... just look at the PNW for that.
I have heard incredibly few complaints from district-regions saying they wish they could go back to regionals...