[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by Libby K

My question that came up, as I was typing this ... if the NY events are in Districts, where does that leave a lot of the international teams who have traditionally come to East Coast events?

Here's an excerpt from a white paper I published here about this topic. I really don't think the issue is as difficult to solve as many seem to think. We are problem solvers; let's work together to find solutions.

Marginal Impact on Stakeholders: International Teams

A total of 11 teams from outside North America were hosted by New York State Regionals in 2015: 9
at the New York City Regional and 2 at the SBPLI Long Island Regional. Teams from Canada
additionally competed in New York Regionals in 2015, but these teams have other competitions closer
to home where they can compete. The main focus in accommodating international teams in a District
Competition Model in New York State would be those teams without opportunities for local competitions who turn to New York competitions for their FRC experience.

Since 2009, teams from outside the District Competition Model have been unable to compete in events
hosted within the District Competition Model. It has been publicly noted that this was not the intent of
FIRST in Michigan, but rather a restriction imposed by FIRST for the implementation of the District
Competition Model. In 2015, FIRST began allowing teams from one district to compete in another
district for Inter-District play, although not for points. This allows a team from New England to compete
in a district event in the Mid-Atlantic or a team from Indiana to compete in a Michigan district in addition
to their 2 district events in their home district. However, as more and more regions transition to a District Competition Model within FRC, the current policy by FIRST will limit the options for international
teams aiming to compete in FRC.

This restriction is an artificial one imposed by FIRST. We can do better. The downstate New York
FRC events are a very attractive and generally reasonable destination for international teams who
compete in FRC, so we need not impose artificial barriers to participation. There are a few simple
solutions that come to mind for allowing international teams to compete in a prospective New York
State District Competition Model, while only requiring that these teams attend 1 competition in New
York before qualifying for the “World” Championship. One is reserving a certain portion of slots at the
District Championship for teams outside North America that would like to compete in New York. For
advancement to the “World” Championship, these teams could either start from 0 points and
accumulate points at a 5X multiplier or start from the minimum number of points required to qualify for
the District Championship and accumulate points at a 3X multiplier for the District Championship.
These teams would then be included in the rankings for teams in New York and qualify for the “World”
Championship by points in the same way that all other teams in the state qualify by points or awards.

An alternative would be to allow international teams to sign up for the district events in New York State,
and allow for their direct advancement to the “World” Championship by merit if the team is the Captain
or 1st selection of the winning alliance or wins the District Chairman’s Award. The Captain and 1st
selection of a winning alliance would be likely candidates to qualify by points anyway, and a recipient
of FIRST’s major Culture changing award is deserving of an opportunity to continue pursuing that
award at the highest level. Any teams that would qualify for the “World” Championship by these means
could still count against the District’s slot allocation, but also figure into the proportional calculation for
representation at the “World” Championship. These suggestions would each allow for international
teams to come compete once in New York with an opportunity to qualify for the ‘World” Championship
all the while without travelling to the states more than once beforehand.