New District Events for 2013?

[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).

[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.

[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.

[jblay]

I wonder if after all the regions are put into districts there will be any regionals at all or if teams will only be able to interact across regions at the championship. It would be cool to have a regional in each region kept so that this won't happen this way.

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Better name: New England Robotics District.

That's just awesome. If they don't call it that, I will be upset.

[JimWright949]

Originally Posted by 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.

The NW area would pickup British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan right now there are only 2 teams in those provinces.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by 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.

Not really, at least not if I'm understanding you correctly.

Currently two active (3 total) teams (4334, 1482, [1346]) exist west of Ontario.

They could easily be lumped into a PNW/Midwest region.

The rest of Canada (Ontario and Quebec, plus one team from NS [4147]) is fairly concentrated.

We have 4 regionals right now, and a high percentage of Canadian teams went to 2 or 3 of them this year, and some teams (772, 1241, 188, 781, 610, and more) went south of the border for a regional at least once this season.

We have enough density to make a district model work without help from south of the border.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

Not really, at least not if I'm understanding you correctly.

Currently two active (3 total) teams (4334, 1482, [1346]) exist west of Ontario.

They could easily be lumped into a PNW/Midwest region.

The rest of Canada (Ontario and Quebec, plus one team from NS [4147]) is fairly concentrated.

We have 4 regionals right now, and a high percentage of Canadian teams went to 2 or 3 of them this year, and some teams (772, 1241, 188, 781, 610, and more) went south of the border for a regional at least once this season.

We have enough density to make a district model work without help from south of the border.

Oh, I always thought I heard people saying there was like 20-30 teams in the western half of Canada

[Peter Matteson]

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).

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.

I've heard the reason it won't happen sooner has to do with contracts for the venues that were signed as multi-year as well as not having the venues for the districts nailed down, but don't hold me to that it's second or third hand.

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

FiNE:
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.

When I was considering this I came up with similar districts and suggested locations.
New Haven (Yale)
Springfield (WNEC)
Eastern CT (Norwich area)
Worcester (WPI)
Boston (BU)
Nashua
Concord
Portland

District Championship would rotate between Manchester, Hartford and Worcester or just be in Worcester based on it's central location.

With New England having 5 regionals planned for next year (NH, CT, Boston, WPI, Maine) it will be interesting to see how many slots are allocated to the region.

[AcesJames]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

I've heard the reason it won't happen sooner has to do with contracts for the venues that were signed as multi-year as well as not having the venues for the districts nailed down, but don't hold me to that it's second or third hand.

Sue Glasspeigel told myself and Foss last November at our FLL event that the regional directors in the New England area are planning to implement the district system around 2014.

One of the main reasons she gave for waiting until then, other than venue contracts, was that they wanted the teams of New England to be "ready" to move to the district system. She and others don't want to simply change the system overnight. From what I can tell, the people planning the transition are putting a lot of forethought into it.

[Alpha Beta]

I know somebody has done this out there, but would love to see it again...

Does anyone have a google map prepared with team locations and regionals already mapped.

As new districts are created it makes sense to consider what parts of the country are being left out. Is it possible to divide North America completely into districts and then permit a couple of international regionals in New York LA, and Israel for our overseas & South American members to participate in?

What areas of the country need to build up a volunteer base for this to work? It is my understanding that the transition to a district system is very grass roots driven, not top down from headquarters.

Kansas City has one of the largesr regionals in the country at 64 teams, with some being turned away due to space constraints. I would love to be part of a district system, and am anxious to hear ideas on how our less densly populated area would make this work.

[1986titans]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

I know somebody has done this out there, but would love to see it again...

Does anyone have a google map prepared with team locations and regionals already mapped.

http://team1649.com/witwif/

[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

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

Originally Posted by nukemknight

Just for comparison (and because I was interested to know):

Capital Region
VA: 67 Teams
MD: 36 Teams
DC: 15 Teams
Total Teams: 118
Area: 55,250 sq. mi.
Density: 0.0021 teams/sq. mi.

Just for numbers sake...

In the UP there's only 11 teams leaving 179 in the LP and I calculated the area of just the LP to be 54,000 sq. mi. making the density of the lower half 0.0033 teams/sq. mi.

[Deetman]

There has been a volunteer here at the MAR championships from Minnesota (!!!!) observing and asking teams their opinion on the district system. I have a feeling we're going to start seeing announcements/discussion in various regions about moving to the district model once the off season starts. Whether any will happen in 2013 is beyond my knowledge but I'm sure we will see a few in 2014.