Quote:
Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay
The map looks pretty well distributed for me. The locations of districts are entirely dependent on the locations of venues capable of hosting a district (within the price model of a district) and those venues almost entirely exist in areas populated enough to warrant one. It looks like the density of teams and the locations of the venues follow the population density of NE pretty closely. It would make sense that most of the teams and most of the events are within an 1-2 hours of Boston.
I wouldn't call the lack of an event in VT a "gaping" hole. There are 4 teams on that map in VT and there were definitely more than 4 ME teams (even if you adjust for state / population size) before the Pine Tree event started.
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I don't want to make a particularly big deal of my VT comment in the context of this years' event schedule... it's not a real criticism of anyone, and not the NE District planning team(s). But I do disagree that VT has anything close to a reasonable representation of teams.
I wasn't saying "gee, the fact that VT doesn't have a district is a crying shame!" I was more saying "man, I wish there was more FRC (teams and events) in VT!" and that I think having more/closer events would be a big help, similar to both the help and support provided by individuals and groups in Maine over the last ~5 years. In 2010, Maine had 6 teams, including 2648 who was competing in their 3rd season. In 2011, Maine had 8 teams, when the Mainely Spirit off-season event was first started. In 2012, the year after teams had their first off-season nearby to attend (which I believe 2648 and co actively recruited other seed teams to attend) there were 10 teams. In 2013, when the Pine Tree regional had its first season, there were 13 teams. In 2014, with the first year of districts and the second year of the Pine Tree, there 18 teams in Maine. There were 24 teams competing in Maine in 2016... I don't know how many there will be in Maine in 2017, but I'm guessing they're adding a few more.
I definitely wouldn't say that VT's FRC representation comes close to following its population density. VT has a population of 626k over about the same area that NH has 1,300k people... NH had 32 teams in 2016, while VT had 4 (and that includes 95, which is based right on the border of the two states and moved their meeting space from NH to VT last year). Additionally, VT doesn't have any teams in the Greater Burlington area, which comprises almost 1/3 of the state's population. I'm sure this largely has to do with no events being within a 2.5 hour drive. If anyone did approach a school board about starting a team in VT, I'm sure (well, our first event is over 2.5 hours away, and we're supposed to attend at least two... if we succeed the Championship is even further away in New England) is a tough sell, particularly when there's little supporting infrastructure.
All that to say, I'm not blaming anyone for VT's under-representation in FRC, but I'm sure with enough concerted effort it could be "fixed." I'm not in a good position (geographically, particularly) to spark it, but I would certainly be willing to support it from a planning or technical support standpoint.