Pacific NW District (Official)

[craigboez]

There was a very good EWCP podcast from last year that had an in depth discussion about the districts. I'd recommend anyone who wants to hear a lot of district system "inside baseball" give it a listen.

The Jim Zondag whitepaper referenced above is also a great read.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I believe I've read that the FiM folks did not intend to close themselves off from civilization either, but that it was a requirement levied by FIRST. Can't find it off hand, can someone confirm or tell me that I'm making stuff up?

Thanks for summing this up Navid, I accidentally slept through it.

FiNE was also unable to include teams outside the geographic borders of its region. Like it or not (I hate it), FIRST has decreed that districts must stay within FIRST's pre-defined borders, regardless of how much practical geographic sense they make.

Now, if both Ontario and the PNW go to districts, I feel quite bad for 4334.

[KevinRo]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

If anyone from FIRST Washington reads this MAR came into existence in 2012 season not 2013

Thanks for the correction, I put in the wrong date.

Kevin

[KevinRo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

As mentioned by others, FiM and MAR triple the point values of any achievements at the FiM/MAR championship events, creating a "60/40" split in points between the championship and districts. The logic behind this is that, while district performance still plays a factor in advancing to the FRC Championship event, it's mathematically impossible to advance to the FRC Championship without attending (and doing well at) the FiM/MAR Championship.

As we start adopting the model, we are going to work with the other regions to settle some key details that really should be uniform across the country. Since PNW and New England represent the next two going into this model, I believe there is enough critical thinking and experience that FiM,MAR,NE, and PNW should be able to settle a thoughtful and well reasoned set of guidelines. What we don't want is for each district that comes into existence to form their own rules. That isn't good for the FRC eco system. There will differences of opinions on some details, but I think a mass of 4 groups will be able to come to a solution.

My overall goal is for all of us doing the District Model to adopt a common point system so that the advancement is uniform across the country. There will be talks on this over the next month. I think all of the district regions have a similar idea, so we will make this happen. There will be a few points that will have to be negotiated, but honestly I think we can get this close.

My hope is that if we share a common point system that somehow we can derive a way to share teams in the future so our FRC community can start travelling between districts and still maintain a rational way to score. This will be part of the discussion.

I am open to well reasoned and helpful suggestions on things we should consider during such discussions.

Kevin

[rsisk]

Link to EWCP podcast on districts with Jim Zondag....

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-98466/TS-569023.mp3

[IKE]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

I have a great deal of faith in the PNW organizers... they have always been gracious, welcoming and inclusive. I don't think a district system will change that.

Jason

Crossing my fingers and hoping beyond hoping that this works out.

Michigan may have set the model, but MAR showed how it can be applied to a broader group in the US. I really hope that PNW can show how this can work for the world...

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by rsisk

Link to EWCP podcast on districts with Jim Zondag....

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-98466/TS-569023.mp3

Listening to this is well worth the time.

My personal favorite is between 41:00 and 42:30, when Jim goes into high-passion mode on how to really achieve the culture-changing mission of FIRST -- through what he terms "conquest sales"; i.e., getting high-potential students who might have done any of several other activities requiring significant commitment to forgo those, and be part of the FRC team instead. I completely agree with Jim -- this is what really success in the FRC mission will look like. The FRC will be a sport, and not just any sport, but THE sport that society respects and models itself after. I did not believe that before coming to Michigan several years ago, but I do now, because I have seen it beginning to work.

Originally Posted by IKE

Michigan may have set the model, but MAR showed how it can be applied to a broader group in the US. I really hope that PNW can show how this can work for the world...

Amen.

[Clem1640]

Good luck, folks. The district model is great for us Mid-Atlanticans. Hope it works as well for the left coast.

[SciBorg Dave]

You can get an advantage with in NW District.
The team can go to a Regional in some other state then come back and play 2 district events. This would gave any team a big advantage.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

You can get an advantage with in NW District.
The team can go to a Regional in some other state then come back and play 2 district events. This would gave any team a big advantage.

I don't follow. How is this different from going to a far away regional before going to your local one?

[DELurker]

1) Has PacNW District moved forward any? I heard that NE was officially announced as a done deal, but nothing that sealed the fate up in PacNW.

2)

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

You can get an advantage with in NW District.
The team can go to a Regional in some other state then come back and play 2 district events. This would gave any team a big advantage.

The penalty to get this advantage is an additional 4-5k, another weekend of time lost, more travel expenses, etc. It has been done successfully in MAR (and probably FiM, too), but it takes a definite toll on everybody involved. In 7 weeks, you have 1 Regional, 2 Districts, and (you hope) 1 District Championship. This gives you 3 weekends without competitions. And, of course, the ultimate goal is to get to World's in week 9. It would make for a brutal schedule.

Our team has chosen (subject to change) to instead spend a little extra effort and build a proto-bot during build season so that we can test everything out when we inevitably run out of Build Season. That way, we can still test, program, develop, and train without worrying about the bag time.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

I don't follow. How is this different from going to a far away regional before going to your local one?

At a regional event you are given three days with your robot including one full day of practice whereas at district competitions you need to show up ready to play. Therefore you could go to a regional mainly to spend three days with it fine tuning it and getting up to competition par before going into district system (2+ district events & DCMP) before going to WCMP.

Or you could go to an outside regional in an attempt to qualify for the World Championship and completely avoid playing at your DCMP and save $4000 in registration fees. You would then have DCMP as fall-back plan in case you didn't qualify at your regional.

Our team tore our robot down to just its drivebase and completely rebuilt twice this season during both Thursdays at The Granite State Regional and The Pine Tree Regional. The second time we were done and fully inspected by lunch time. Thinking about it, if Pine Tree were our "outside regional" and our team then took that robot into a district season it would have been very scary. Our team went from having a robot that did 10-30 hang points in a match at GSR to 90-108 on average.

As it has been mentioned it is very expensive and exhausting. Our team would have to travel 6-10 hours to get to a regional since the 5 closest to us are turning into NEFIRST. But it is nice to get out of your comfort zone and compete with new teams every once and a while!

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

At a regional event you are given three days with your robot including one full day of practice whereas at district competitions you need to show up ready to play. Therefore you could go to a regional mainly to spend three days with it fine tuning it and getting up to competition par before going into district system (2+ district events & DCMP) before going to WCMP.

One minor point: For districts, you get unbag time in the week before your competition, which basically makes up for the Thursday of a regional.

It's an advantage, but no more of an advantage than going to multiple regionals is under the current system.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

You can get an advantage with in NW District.
The team can go to a Regional in some other state then come back and play 2 district events. This would gave any team a big advantage.

This feels like a non-sequitur. Was there new information provided recently about the development of the system in the NW that would warrant new thought about this subject?

The situation you've described has been available to all teams competing in districts since their inception.

[nicholsjj]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Or you could go to an outside regional in an attempt to qualify for the World Championship and completely avoid playing at your DCMP and save $4000 in registration fees. You would then have DCMP as fall-back plan in case you didn't qualify at your regional.

The team doesn't save money because the team still has to pay the regional registration fee, but if the team qualifies for Worlds at a far away regional you can then choose not to attend the DCMP to open up a spot for another team from your district to qualify. 341 did this this year for MAR.