Is there usually this much frustration?

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I've been thinking as to why the District system would be great for a place like Hawaii.

Exactly. 18 months ago, I actually had a long conversation with Ashley, the Hawaii Regional Coordiantor about exactly this. I don't know if anything has been done, but it seems to me that this would be prefect there. Most of the 32 teams in Hawaii do not go to the mainland to play, so most can only do one event. If you could double the amount of playing time, for the same price, does it really matter the same teams would be there both weekends? While a greater population with more mixing would be better, doubling the teams' ROI is still a huge step in the right direction. In time, the mixing issue will solve itself. Look at us, in 2008 we had 3 events with huge population overlap at all 3; now we have 10!

If you want to grow your team population, the #1 thing you can do is to put an event in their backyard. It is easier to get teams to join if you can show them a FIRST competition. The less they have to travel, the more people will see it, and faster it will grow.
If you look at the FRC map, this is obvious. The teams are all clustered geographically around the events. It is a chicken and egg thing.....the teams create the events, but the events also help to create the teams. The more events we have, the more growth we will have.