New District Events for 2013?

[Andrew Schuetze]

This is an interesting discussion and being a FTC/FLL guy in Texas, I am intrigued but read nothing into that statement about what Texas will do.

What I am seeing so far is interest in multi-state region models. The tricky part then off course is deciding who/how to draw the lines. How does one organize and collect input from a multi-state region to decide such things.

i.e several folks posted positively about a CA region with some adding that including Hawaii would be great and then possibly Nevada. If Washington were then to become a single state district, how do teams in Oregon feel if a district is north and south of them that doesn't include them? Would there need to be a discussion between the Washington and California region organizers to include Oregon? These things get touchy very fast.

I'm just wondering how FIRST folks in the many regions can start to have these kinds of discussions across state/country lines?

[jwfoss]

Word on the street is that New England (CT, RI, VT, NH, MA, ME) has been and is looking to go to districts; but at this point I believe the earliest we'll see it would be 2014. I propose the name FiNE (FIRST in New England).

It's actually fairly surprising to me that the NE area has not gone to districts sooner, as the team density in the area and travel distances make a ton of sense.

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by BigJ

I can see MN going to district, although I don't know what the geographic spread of teams looks like in the state.

Yeah, it would stink. Double if WI and Midwest are same week again, or consecutive weeks like many other times!

Let me preface my comments by stating I do NOT have any inside information on what may be happening in MN. These are my thoughts and ramblings only!! And I'm not awake enough yet this morning for this to be worth a whole $0.02, so consider this my $0.015 worth.

I can see us going district in a couple years, too. 2014 seems like a possibility. We need another regional first just to get more of a volunteer base trained.

The geographic spread of teams in the state is pretty even, except for the northwest portion of the state.

With 150ish teams and growing, we have the teams necessary, or will soon.

My gut preference would be to include the North Dakota teams, and at least northern Iowa and western Wisconsin, if not all of those states. I know the ND teams would hate to have to go back to driving through MN to get to an event.

If we included all of those states in a big district model, then the Milwaukee teams could still go to Midwest if they wanted to as an out-of-district event. There is already good team growth in the LaCrosse area, a district event there would spur even more, and draw teams from southern MN too. An event in Madison would help spur growth in an area that should have more teams than it does, and would draw from both Milwaukee and the western WI / southeast MN area.

We have to do something in MN. The three 60+ team regionals we had this year were too big, too hard on the volunteers, the venues are getting too crowded, and it's just not fair to the teams to ask them to compete against 60 other teams for a chance to win a spot at CMP when there are other regionals with only 40ish teams. If we grow to 175 teams next year it gets even worse. Adding one regional next year and going to ~50 teams per event doesn't really add any spots for new teams, we had about 190 between the three events this year. We really need to add two regionals next year to have any real capacity increase without keeping the number of teams per event higher. I'm not sure we can magically conjure up the funding and the volunteers to add two next year. A lower cost per event district model would sure help in that aspect.

I'd love to see a district model that would still allow say two "non-district" teams per event to come play, maybe at a reduced cost. We love having teams like Wildstang come up here and show us different ideas and ways of doing things, that's the one thing I would hate to lose with the district model.

Again, I am aware (as are a lot of other people) there is ongoing discussion regarding additional regional(s), but I don't know anything more than that. Sorry that this got longer than I intended when I started typing.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

If we included all of those states in a big district model, then the Milwaukee teams could still go to Midwest if they wanted to as an out-of-district event. There is already good team growth in the LaCrosse area, a district event there would spur even more, and draw teams from southern MN too. An event in Madison would help spur growth in an area that should have more teams than it does, and would draw from both Milwaukee and the western WI / southeast MN area.

Yeah, WI would be in an awkward spot for a district system, mainly because of our distribution of teams. I don't think we can justify a Milwaukee district, etc, because it would be "on the edge" of the region. Madison would probably be the central place, but then our second district would be in MN? I don't know exactly how districts work other than that you attend 2.

Then again, there are probably a lot more awkward geographical situations to come as FRC moves to districts.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

It's actually fairly surprising to me that the NE area has not gone to districts sooner, as the team density in the area and travel distances make a ton of sense.

Ditto.

Most of the NE events are almost interchangeable to teams in terms of which ones to attend each year.

Theres about 150 teams total in MA, CT, NH, VT, ME and RI, about the same size as the MAR district. Geographically it would be larger, but still relatively small compared to somewhere like California.

-Brando

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

Word on the street is that New England (CT, RI, VT, NH, MA, ME) has been and is looking to go to districts; but at this point I believe the earliest we'll see it would be 2014. I propose the name FiNE (FIRST in New England).

Better name: New England Robotics District.

[Jacob Paikoff]

Originally Posted by Wing

I see the midwest and California getting districts soon. Texas isn't able to do so yet because they don't have the volunteers for it.

I personally would like to see the Southeast US be a district encompassing Tenessee, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Peachtree this year had 60 teams, and that's with 18 rookie teams. That growth alone would make it so we need another regional in Georgia. South Carolina is experiencing a lot of growth as well, and so are Alabama and Tenessee. But that's a far way off, because there are other regions with more teams than us.

I think Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee(at least the eastern half) would be a good district while North and South Carolina would fit in between that and the Capital District. Right now theres about 75 teams in the Carolina meaning we're about 10-15 teams from having enough for a small district system.

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

I'd love to see a district model that would still allow say two "non-district" teams per event to come play, maybe at a reduced cost. We love having teams like Wildstang come up here and show us different ideas and ways of doing things, that's the one thing I would hate to lose with the district model.

Again, I am aware (as are a lot of other people) there is ongoing discussion regarding additional regional(s), but I don't know anything more than that. Sorry that this got longer than I intended when I started typing.

With a number of regions moving towards districts I'm surprised there hasn't been any discussion about an open districts system. My idea is that everyone would get two district events, one would have to be in there region but the other one could be at any district event in the country that has room. This would fix the problem for low density areas or remote areas like Hawaii and allow them to have a district system without having as many teams as a larger area like New England. They would only need to have one event and then the teams could travel anywhere they want for the second one.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by IndySam

There will be another Midwestern district by 2014.

Perhaps there will be many districts by 2014-2015..............

[Samwaldo]

Apparently the Boston FIRST director said that a new england district is going to be starting very soon, but the only thing is that the regionals in existence are GREAT, and many don't want to ruin that.

A problem I have with the district setup is that although we can compete more it means more travel!

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Minnesota, Texas, and Ontario/Eastern Canada seem like potential areas for the district model, at least from an outside perspective.

I'd feel sorry for Wisconsin teams if Minnesota goes district, though. They'd be wedged between two district systems, and lose a lot of nearby regional options.

I'm not sure if Ontario would go to a District model just yet, seeing that FIRST Canada is pretty set on expanding FIRST across Canada right now. Montreal is going to be a BIG regional next year (their growth has been phenomenal), and I think the focus should be to develop FIRST in Western Canada (one day I could see Calgary as a powerhouse region for FIRST).

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Samwaldo

Apparently the Boston FIRST director said that a new england district is going to be starting very soon, but the only thing is that the regionals in existence are GREAT, and many don't want to ruin that.

A problem I have with the district setup is that although we can compete more it means more travel!

FiNE:
MA: 57
CT: 41
NH: 30
ME: 10
RI: 5
VT: 3
Total: 146 Teams
Area: 72,000 sq. mi.
Density: .00203 Teams/sq. mi.

FiM:
MI: 190
Area: 97,000 sq. mi.
Density: .00196

Although I expected the densities of teams in New England (NE) and in Michigan to be similar, I wasn't expecting New England to be (negligibly) more dense, particularly given how sparse teams in Vermont and Maine are!

Regardless, I'd been expecting that New England would adopt a district system sooner than this... I think many in the nation expected they'd be next; however, I think the primary reason is what was posted above... the existing regionals are all established, well-loved, and well-funded!

The Connecticut Regional (I still think of it as the UTC Regional) has been around for a long time and has been popular and competitive. UTC has taken care of the bulk of the funding for many years (since its beginning?).

The Granite State Regional has been around since 2003 and has also been both popular and competitive. BAE Systems handles the majority of the funding.

I still think of the Boston Regional as being young, but its now celebrated its 7th year! Hosted at Boston University, it has a very nice venue that can be used due to BU's own generosity.

To me Harrington Auditorium will always be the home of BattleCry rather than the WPI Regional, but that event just finished its 3rd year!

Really, I think that New England would support a district system very well... allowing teams from Maine a closer district (Portland area?), for example. It'd free up dollars that BAE Systems has had to put towards the regional to be used directly on the teams.

Given that there'd be about 8 districts (146 teams * 2 events/team / 40 teams/event), I would see there being one in SoMaine (Portland <-> Portsmouth), one in "NoNH" (Lebanon <-> Concord), one in SoNH (Nashua <-> Manchester), one in the Boston area, one in the Worcester area, one in the Springfield area, one in the Hartford area, and one in the Bridgeport area. I'm guessing the FiNE championship would host about 50 teams in the Boston <-> Worcester area.

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by BigJ

Yeah, WI would be in an awkward spot for a district system, mainly because of our distribution of teams. I don't think we can justify a Milwaukee district, etc, because it would be "on the edge" of the region. Madison would probably be the central place, but then our second district would be in MN? I don't know exactly how districts work other than that you attend 2.

Then again, there are probably a lot more awkward geographical situations to come as FRC moves to districts.

Each district event is open to something like 40 teams. Your initial registration fee lets you pick two events. Figure 225-250 teams across the 5 state area (WI, MN, ND, SD, IA). So you need 13-14 events over the 6 week competition season to let everyone have at least 2 slots. Or about 2 events/week.

The first year, have an event in Milwaukee, and another in Madison. Along with events in Duluth, probably 2 or 3 in the Twin Cities area, Rochester, LaCrosse, and then add some in north central WI (Stevens Point?), SW MN, NW MN (Alexandria area?) and one or two more, and you have the option just about anywhere of going to at least one close event and one that is a 2-4 hour drive. Or you can go a little farther if you want.

I have not given the details a lot of though, just kind of thinking into the keyboard right now. Just know we need to do something, and I'd hate to see WI get stuck in between a bunch of district areas and get locked out.

[JimWright949]

This is what I think should happen in the NW, any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental:

I think the NW district would be made up of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Turkey, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Washington.

Three districts would happen centered around Portland, three districts centered around Boise, and three centered around Seattle. The finals will happen in Cheney where the Spokane regional just happened.

We would need to have three fields made, during the off season, one would be stored at Aviation High, the second somewhere in Portland, and the third in Mark Wibbels’s Garage.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

Each district event is open to something like 40 teams. Your initial registration fee lets you pick two events. Figure 225-250 teams across the 5 state area (WI, MN, ND, SD, IA). So you need 13-14 events over the 6 week competition season to let everyone have at least 2 slots. Or about 2 events/week.

I'd suggest that for the proposed district, the boundary be the Missouri River through SD. There aren't currently any active FRC teams in the state, but there is the distinct East River/West River difference--and events in the Rockies are close to West River.

[dodar]

When people along the US/Canada border are talking districts I kind of think you have to include the Canadian teams across the border in with them because if the Ontario and Toronto areas go to districts it leaves the other half of Cananda S.O.L.