Official: New England Districts in 2014

[Michael Sperber]

You may have heard the rumors about New England moving to a “District Model” for the FIRST Robotics Competition… Well, we are going to make it official: The six states of New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) have organized into the New England Region and will be implementing the District Model for this coming 2014 FRC season.

We are very excited about this transition and all the great things this brings to our New England FRC teams.

Read more on nefirst.org and follow NE FIRST on Facebook.

[Tetraman]

This is how I sum up this news: http://youtu.be/VbxgYlcNxE8?t=13m59s

Now just waiting on NY....

[Siri]

Congrats, guys! Welcome to the District Model. Paraphrasing Woodie, you're in for a new iteration of the hardest fun you'll ever have.

I'm intrigued by the setup of ingenuityNE vs NE FIRST. I can't tell from the description--is this essentially the FiM/MAR setup, or have you adapted it? If so, how and why so?


Best of luck, NE! Remember you've always got district veterans in reach if you'd like (especially for the sure-to-be-interesting first year).

[Kevin Leonard]

Farewell New England. We hope one day we may once again be able to compete with one another.
But seriously, good luck NE. Come visit the Tech Valley Regional if you get bored of district play!

[Peter Matteson]

I'm glad to hear that this is official now.

Since it isn't mentioned on the nefirst site yet and I can't log in to the site from work I just wanted to ask here has the number of district events had been finalized?

[Pault]

Actually they did say it in an earlier nefirst.org blog post.

Originally Posted by NEFIRST

Currently (2013 FRC Season), New England is home to five Regional Competition events (one each in CT, ME and NH, and two in MA). These five events will be replaced with nine District Events and one District Championship. The locations of these events have not yet been finalized – we currently have a team working to identify the optimal location for each of the Events.

Anyways, I am extremely excited for this transition. There are a lot of this I am going to miss (the big one being the Boston regional), but it is definitely a change for the better.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

I'm glad to hear that this is official now.

Since it isn't mentioned on the nefirst site yet and I can't log in to the site from work I just wanted to ask here has the number of district events had been finalized?

9 District events plus 1 District CMP.

Sites and dates will be released shortly, not all venues are under contract yet.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

9 District events plus 1 District CMP.

Sites and dates will be released shortly, not all venues are under contract yet.

Thanks for the info.

I had a feeling negotiations were still under way so I didn't want to ask location. (I have a good idea of the breakdown by state based on team concentration maps I've seen.)

Knowing the number of events is helpful though.

[Steven Donow]

Can't wait to experience these districts as a college student/my first events in New England!

[Caleb Sykes]

This is how I sum up this news: http://youtu.be/VbxgYlcNxE8?t=13m59s

Now just waiting on NY....

Love this!

[DonRotolo]

To all NEFIRST teams: Be sure to give very serious consideration in your 2014 design to durability and repairability. Now your robot will have to endure at least two events, possibly 3 or, if you make it to STL, 4 and a half. All with more matches than usual.

The robots you used to build might just fall apart, so think Robust.

I think you will really like the district model.

[IKE]

I agree with Don. Plan on making it to Worlds and plan on doing 60+ matches with your bot.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

To all NEFIRST teams: Be sure to give very serious consideration in your 2014 design to durability and repairability. Now your robot will have to endure at least two events, possibly 3 or, if you make it to STL, 4 and a half. All with more matches than usual.

The robots you used to build might just fall apart, so think Robust.

I think you will really like the district model.

Yes - also think about maintenance. Not only are there more matches in districts, there's less time between them. It's not actually true, but think perpetual quarterfinals. It's definitely a change! You do (presumably) get unbag time at home, though.

You'll grow love it, don't worry.

[Niezrecki]

Originally Posted by Tetraman

This is how I sum up this news: http://youtu.be/VbxgYlcNxE8?t=13m59s

Now just waiting on NY....

That must be a summary of excitement. But all that music makes me think of is you overthrowing FIRST V for Vendetta style.

[Steven Donow]

Another calculation I thought of: The number of teams a region sends to championship from the region championship is: the number of teams in that region as compared to the number of overall teams; this percentage is the percentage of teams at championship that are representative of that region(the calculations I ended up with when comparing MAR and FIM were both off by about 4 teams less, so I'm guessing the number of overall teams is incorrect).


Based off last year(team numbers all taken from this map):

There were 2341 teams registered. 400 at championships. With 151 teams in NEFIRST, that's about 6.45% which is about 25 teams(realistically with the data probably a lower number). NEFIRST is replacing 5 district events, so that means 5 Chairman's, also adding on 1 RAS, 1 EI(this could change as MAR did 2 EI's this year), and 3 winning alliance teams means there should be about 10-15 "ranking qualifiers"*


*of course, this is all just me being bored and in a number-crunching mood, and could all change dependent on how the NEFIRST board decided to do their points/ranking/qualifying system