Registration 2013

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Don't expect to see it happen too terribly quickly, but I'm sure it will happen. There are potential issues with volunteers in the area if you suddenly have to support a larger number of district events (especially in the key volunteer roles like Lead Robot Inspector or Head Ref).

Next, how do you handle teams that don't easily fall into a region? There are still areas with very low FRC population density. For those areas, teams would need to travel for 2 district events, plus the district champs, plus champs, or find a regional farther away to attend. Today, they are likely traveling to their nearest regional, which could be in an area that could be converted to districts.

Based on the growth maps in the first post to this thread, there are clearly areas of the country where this wouldn't be much of an issue... but there are also areas where it would be.

How FIRST handles less population dense areas will definitely be key to the success of the District system. Having lived in Arizona as FRC got started there and Iowa now I've gotten a front row seat to FRC when there aren't a huge amount of teams or events around. The northern plains (Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, western Kansas) and the mountain west (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) don't have any events or many teams right now and have a substantial amount of distance to travel to the nearest events. Where we're at in Iowa there are about 5 events equal distance from us but all are a 4-5 hour drive to get to so we'd be looking at substantial travel time for a district system. The southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, lumping in Utah since they have a regional) has clusters of teams and a handful of events but they are spaced 6+ hours apart. Assuming teams could not compete in the California district events Vegas and Phoenix are the best off since they are 5 hours apart (though a Tucson, AZ regional has been discussed), Denver is over 7 hours from the closest competition. Eliminating the entry fee for a 2nd event sure helps but I think we could see a lot of "skeleton crews" consisting of the drive team and 1 or 2 mentors attending events when these areas become part of a district due to the substantial travel costs. Either that or teams will just forgo the 2nd event entirely.

Short of "forcing" new events in these areas and hoping new teams start up with them I'm not sure how FIRST is going to effectively move the District system into these areas on their timeline. I think it can happen in the future but 2015 is an ambitious goal for these regions.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

You left Minnesota off your list... 2 events in 2009, 4 events in 2013. I firmly believe we'll move to a district model sometime in the next couple of years. I doubt it'll happen for 2014 though - we need to build up the volunteer base a lot more to support the number of events a district system has. Maybe after we add one or two more regionals!

We could always try to add one in Southern Minnesota/Northern Iowa If only there were teams there...

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Donut

Where we're at in Iowa there are about 5 events equal distance from us but all are a 4-5 hour drive to get to so we'd be looking at substantial travel time for a district system.

Remember that the district system comes with new district events. Perhaps your team could sponsor a district event, so your first event would have distance 0. That happened in MI - the first year we started districts, there was one in Traverse City. There were only 2 teams in town, and another handful within a 1-2 hour drive. Yet it served as a catalyst for growth. In a smaller town, a FRC event is a big media event, and it was well publicized. There are several teams now in NW Lower MI that were started since we went to districts.

Truly remote areas do have travel problems; our friends in the UP can attest to that. Districts are not the perfect solution, but something will have to be done as the number of FRC teams continues to grow. Districts provide capacity, and also provide for growth in areas that have few teams now. Why doesn't Iowa have a dozen or more teams?

[Nemo]

In my estimation, the district system doesn't have a major impact on driving distance from Iowa. We'd probably be going to Kansas City, St. Louis, etc, which are the same places we're going anyway.

I would be pretty happy to get into a district system because of the lower cost per event. I'd be sad to lose some of the current flexibility to travel in any direction to a regional event, but in the end we might retain that if everything goes district.

Originally Posted by Donut

How FIRST handles less population dense areas will definitely be key to the success of the District system. Having lived in Arizona as FRC got started there and Iowa now I've gotten a front row seat to FRC when there aren't a huge amount of teams or events around. The northern plains (Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, western Kansas) and the mountain west (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) don't have any events or many teams right now and have a substantial amount of distance to travel to the nearest events. Where we're at in Iowa there are about 5 events equal distance from us but all are a 4-5 hour drive to get to so we'd be looking at substantial travel time for a district system. The southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, lumping in Utah since they have a regional) has clusters of teams and a handful of events but they are spaced 6+ hours apart. Assuming teams could not compete in the California district events Vegas and Phoenix are the best off since they are 5 hours apart (though a Tucson, AZ regional has been discussed), Denver is over 7 hours from the closest competition. Eliminating the entry fee for a 2nd event sure helps but I think we could see a lot of "skeleton crews" consisting of the drive team and 1 or 2 mentors attending events when these areas become part of a district due to the substantial travel costs. Either that or teams will just forgo the 2nd event entirely.

Short of "forcing" new events in these areas and hoping new teams start up with them I'm not sure how FIRST is going to effectively move the District system into these areas on their timeline. I think it can happen in the future but 2015 is an ambitious goal for these regions.



We could always try to add one in Southern Minnesota/Northern Iowa If only there were teams there...