All District FIRST?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

2) If you want to get more funding, the show part really is great for going after money. I've seen prospective sponsors turn into actual sponsors much faster at a Regional than a District. It adds to the awe and gives the whole organization a much more professional face. In particular its helpful for raising funding at the event level, regionals wouldn't cost so much if the events were able to fundraise for themselves better.

I guess the best way to summarize my complaint with the current district model/format/presentation is that it lost too much of the professionalism associated with a regional in order to cut costs of events.

How is, "We'll take your $10k and spend it on fancy lights" a more compelling argument than "We'll take your $10k and expose this to hundreds of additional people"?

I understand that donors want something for their donation, but it seems like you get a lot more bang for your buck in the district model. And there will still be a state championship with the production value of a traditional regional, and the robot quality is way, way better. Are the fancy lights and AV crew worth it if the robots struggle to score a single game piece?

I lived a similar experience to Brandon. In the first two years of 1276 we had a kind of adversarial relationship with the school (teachers kept track of when we left printers on, and other fun pedantic things, and we were very thorough about cleaning up after ourselves). In 2006 we invited the principal to come to our regional, and by a happy coincidence we won. After that, we had full run of the schools tools and they paid our registration fee.

Sign me up FIRSTWA.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

^One thing Brandon didn't come right out and say, but I'm sure he thinks is important, is that more teams get recognition for their hard work at the district level than at the regional level.

When 2495 won the Lenape District in Week 4, they earned the same kind of blue banner anyone in any regional would have earned if they won their tournament. Sure, the team did not win MAR Champs, but they won a blue banner. Whether it's a district or a regional, winning an event is no easy feat in the tournament or in the Chairman's room, and their accomplishment was recognized.

There are a lot of really good teams in really dense, strong areas of robot country that may have limitations in funding because they are not providing winning results. I imagine that winning a district is a provides a morale boost for team members and supporters as well as attracts potential sponsors for a team trying to make itself as tough as the established powerhouses.

Adding to this, even though we were the last pick of the winning alliance, the resulting boost in confidence in the students was immediately noticeable, and they worked their butts off to attend MAR Champs.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Qualcomm reps we brought to TCNJ didn't care at all about the venue or anything else, they cared about the robots and the kids. More matches do equal more inspiration. Fancy lights and banners don't.

As I recall, we were on the field and had some downtime. The usual dance party ensued, and I caught our Qualcomm rep dancing with our lead mentor.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

Its about 5 hours from Houghton to Traverse city, its about 7 hours to Flint... a bit more than you think for the western UP... For reference Duluth is 4 hours away.

Michigan has a weird tendency to be divided in half... west vs east. There are way more eastern teams than west so many eastern teams travel to the west side of the state. The west side teams tend to stay on the west coast. It really wouldn't be much different in Florida.

Districts are going to be horrendous for international teams any way you slice it...

If I'm lucky and don't need to eat, I might be able to make it to the bridge in five hours; it's about seven to Traverse and probably eight to nine for Flint. You are correct however regarding Duluth.

[dodar]

Well, should it then really be called the Michigan State Championship, if the UP starts competing with Minnesota and/or Wisconsin teams in a separate district?

[Nate Laverdure]

Were the National Capital Area meetings at VA, DC, or MD recorded? Were meeting minutes taken?

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by dodar

I dont think states themselves will be parted off. I think having it states as a whole would be better.

MAR has already divided a state in half (only the eastern half of PA is included). I think that's a good way to go, IMO. Teams often consider regionals outside of their state to be their "home regionals" because it's closer for them. In another thread about districts, I used the example of South Jersey and Delaware teams attending the Philly regional instead of NJ because it was much closer for them. You see the same thing in other regions (someone pointed out earlier that panhandle teams mostly competed in nola).

Of course, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if they allowed interdistrict play.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Alexa Stott

MAR has already divided a state in half (only the eastern half of PA is included). I think that's a good way to go, IMO. Teams often consider regionals outside of their state to be their "home regionals" because it's closer for them. In another thread about districts, I used the example of South Jersey and Delaware teams attending the Philly regional instead of NJ because it was much closer for them. You see the same thing in other regions (someone pointed out earlier that panhandle teams mostly competed in nola).

Of course, this wouldn't be as much of a problem if they allowed interdistrict play.

Well the main reasoning behind that thought process would be that most states already have organized state championships for other states and so it would be easier to bring FIRST into the mainstream if the setup was easy to understand for normal high school/middle school families.