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Unread 15-04-2016, 13:14
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Re: F4 - Episode 7 (Regionals Vs. Districts)

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricLeifermann View Post
I notice that you went to the Orange County Regional this year, which happened to be held at Valencia High School. Do you have any photos of the venue/event, or would you explain how you feel that this regional that was held in a High School was more polished an event than a district held in similar venues? I also see that there were 42 teams present, please elaborate how this event was better than a district that again has similar number of teams.

I am not attacking you personally just trying to understand your point of view, when it seems you went to a district event this year that was disguised as a regional.
I'm interested in Grace's take on it since she attended the Bosie Regional which sort of fell into that District disguised as a Regional category. To be fair it sounds like the Taco Bell arena leans to more of a dual purpose facility since they hold things like concerts there, so they are set up for lighting trusses and other things that make the facility more like a commercial venue than the colleges that we use for District events in the PNW District.

Quote:
Originally Posted by itsjustjon View Post

The things that set apart the OC Regional from many District Events:
- Official FRC Lighting and Display: I've researched the requirements for Districts and it seems that FIRST doesn't provide district events with the lighting truss for the competition field. This lighting truss A) makes many regionals consistently well-lit (barring any vision camera issues) and B) easier for spectators to see the field. That being said, I do not know what districts typically do besides relying on the venue for lighting.
- Minimum Standards: All FIRST Regionals are held to minimum standards in many, many ways. Here's the link for Regional Standards and here's the link for District Standards. I can't make any comments as to how often the standards for District events are met and exceeded, but the quality standards for regionals set by FRC makes the over-all regional experience consistent. Production value is also maintained, as well.
- Practice Day Robot Unbag vs. 6-Hour Unbag: Again, I don't fully understand the rules of districts. However, based on what I believe I know about the 6-Hour Unbag Rule, Regional Teams get around 12 hours to modify their robot if they choose to not participate in practice matches. This is double what District Teams are given in their shops the day before competition starts.
- Practice Matches: Looking at the documentation for District Events on this page, it seems that there is very little time for practice matches. Could you please actually explain to me how practice matches work at District Events?
- Overall Support from FIRST: Based on my research on FIRST's website, the overall documentation support and quality standards that are provided for Regional Events far exceed the ones for District Events. I think this puts Regionals at an advantage (FIRST should provide Districts with the same support, IMO) and that advantage ensures that Regionals are consistently high in quality.

All of my points have been drawn from research on FIRST's website, so my personal understanding of how Districts are run might be completely different to the way things actually are.

Also, my stance on Regionals v. Districts isn't that Districts are a bad system, but that Districts should not be put in place everywhere and the same goes for Regionals. Despite that fact, I think Regionals have some more pros than District events.

My views on this will be further explained on Sunday's show, as well.
Regarding the lighting trusses FIRST does not supply that per se. That is handled by a 3rd party production company that handles the AV as well.

My take is that I prefer the "lights on" that happens at the District events in our area where all of the venue lighting is on. Having been the mentor on the sidelines in the finals I find it very frustrating trying to find and fix problems in the dark with only a flash light.

The majority of the events that we run District events at just don't have the infrastructure for flying lighting and speakers.

Concerning the unbag time vs time at the event. Yes the typical Regional gives you 12hrs to work on the robot and get it inspected at the event. With a District event you typically get 4 or so hours on day 0 and 2 or so on day 1. So the total time is similar between the Regional and District system. Of course with the District system you have the bonus of doing it at your shop and you can set everything out and get prepared before you open the bag. You can also spread it out over 3 sessions. So I feel that there is more usable time to work on the robot with the District's unbag time. The problem comes in when a team shows up with a robot that needs significant work to pass inspection. Despite all of this I've never been at an event where a robot didn't make its first match, though I understand it has happened in our District. Of course in the Regional system I've seen robots miss their first match too.

For practice matches, I can only speak to how it is done in the PNW. Here we do not normally have the scheduled matches and instead do a mainly first come first served method but teams that have not been on the field get to jump to the head of the line to ensure that they connect to the field and get at least one practice match.

The two docs that you linked are not really comparable as the one for the District event is more of a supplement for site selection and it not intended as the only standards for the event, just different ones more suitable for a smaller event with the knowledge that it will be in a HS or smaller college gym and not in a commercial arena or large college gym.

I can not talk for other Districts but in the PNW we do place a high value on the quality of the AV production. Poke around CD and you'll find many people that say the PNW streams are head and shoulders above those that are managed and produced by a 3rd party company. A number of the Districts that came on line after us actually contacted the PNW District to find out what equipment we use and how we do it. IN went so far as to fly out our equipment and a few personnel for IRI one season so that their people could see it first hand and be trained on how to do it.

We do pride ourselves in making all of our events as consistent as possible, again I can't speak to other areas, but I have to believe that they work very hard to ensure that consistency as well.
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All statements made on Chief Delphi by me are my own opinions and are not official FIRST rulings or opinions and should not be construed as such.




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