Official: New England Districts in 2014

[Peter Matteson]

I'm glad to hear that this is official now.

Since it isn't mentioned on the nefirst site yet and I can't log in to the site from work I just wanted to ask here has the number of district events had been finalized?

[Pault]

Actually they did say it in an earlier nefirst.org blog post.

Originally Posted by NEFIRST

Currently (2013 FRC Season), New England is home to five Regional Competition events (one each in CT, ME and NH, and two in MA). These five events will be replaced with nine District Events and one District Championship. The locations of these events have not yet been finalized – we currently have a team working to identify the optimal location for each of the Events.

Anyways, I am extremely excited for this transition. There are a lot of this I am going to miss (the big one being the Boston regional), but it is definitely a change for the better.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

I'm glad to hear that this is official now.

Since it isn't mentioned on the nefirst site yet and I can't log in to the site from work I just wanted to ask here has the number of district events had been finalized?

9 District events plus 1 District CMP.

Sites and dates will be released shortly, not all venues are under contract yet.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

9 District events plus 1 District CMP.

Sites and dates will be released shortly, not all venues are under contract yet.

Thanks for the info.

I had a feeling negotiations were still under way so I didn't want to ask location. (I have a good idea of the breakdown by state based on team concentration maps I've seen.)

Knowing the number of events is helpful though.

[Steven Donow]

Can't wait to experience these districts as a college student/my first events in New England!

[Caleb Sykes]

This is how I sum up this news: http://youtu.be/VbxgYlcNxE8?t=13m59s

Now just waiting on NY....

Love this!

[DonRotolo]

To all NEFIRST teams: Be sure to give very serious consideration in your 2014 design to durability and repairability. Now your robot will have to endure at least two events, possibly 3 or, if you make it to STL, 4 and a half. All with more matches than usual.

The robots you used to build might just fall apart, so think Robust.

I think you will really like the district model.

[IKE]

I agree with Don. Plan on making it to Worlds and plan on doing 60+ matches with your bot.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

To all NEFIRST teams: Be sure to give very serious consideration in your 2014 design to durability and repairability. Now your robot will have to endure at least two events, possibly 3 or, if you make it to STL, 4 and a half. All with more matches than usual.

The robots you used to build might just fall apart, so think Robust.

I think you will really like the district model.

Yes - also think about maintenance. Not only are there more matches in districts, there's less time between them. It's not actually true, but think perpetual quarterfinals. It's definitely a change! You do (presumably) get unbag time at home, though.

You'll grow love it, don't worry.

[MooreteP]

From ingenuityNE (our new Overlords)

There are still many details to be worked out, but this is what we can share right now. We will have a total of 9 District Qualifying Events throughout New England 2 in New Hampshire, 1 in Maine, 2 in Massachusetts, 1 in Rhode Island and 3 in Connecticut. Teams will play in two of these events, collect points from both on- field play as well as awards and the top teams will then have the opportunity to play at the Region Championship to be held at the Agannis Arena in Boston. Teams from the New England Championship will then qualify for the FIRST Championship in St. Louis. We in the process of finalizing contracts and as soon as we do, we will share the locations of the District Qualifying Events.

This is our future.
Let's make it work.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

From ingenuityNE (our new Overlords)

There are still many details to be worked out, but this is what we can share right now. We will have a total of 9 District Qualifying Events throughout New England 2 in New Hampshire, 1 in Maine, 2 in Massachusetts, 1 in Rhode Island and 3 in Connecticut. Teams will play in two of these events, collect points from both on- field play as well as awards and the top teams will then have the opportunity to play at the Region Championship to be held at the Agannis Arena in Boston. Teams from the New England Championship will then qualify for the FIRST Championship in St. Louis. We in the process of finalizing contracts and as soon as we do, we will share the locations of the District Qualifying Events.

This is our future.
Let's make it work.

Interesting choice of Boston for District Champs, How many teams can the Agannis hold? I personally loved Boston when my team went there in 2012 but I'm having trouble remembering how much space there was.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Jay Money 1058

Interesting choice of Boston for District Champs, How many teams can the Agannis hold? I personally loved Boston when my team went there in 2012 but I'm having trouble remembering how much space there was.

Last year's Boston Regional had an open capacity of 52 teams (according to FIRST's website), but the previous years had up to 53 teams.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

Last year's Boston Regional had an open capacity of 52 teams (according to FIRST's website), but the previous years had up to 53 teams.

Hmm... so either they will have to have the District Championship be a fair bit smaller than initial hopes, or they plan to somehow house another 10-20 teams...

Boston seems like a reasonable location. Ideally it'd be closer to Connecticut though... I'm sure there'll be a significant contingent coming from CT who would all be well out of "daily-commute" range. That said, even teams that do live in the 30-60 miles range will have to consider whether or not they want to fight there way into Boston on Thursday and Friday morning...

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Hmm... so either they will have to have the District Championship be a fair bit smaller than initial hopes, or they plan to somehow house another 10-20 teams...

Boston seems like a reasonable location. Ideally it'd be closer to Connecticut though... I'm sure there'll be a significant contingent coming from CT who would all be well out of "daily-commute" range. That said, even teams that do live in the 30-60 miles range will have to consider whether or not they want to fight there way into Boston on Thursday and Friday morning...

MAR Championships this year(and next year) is ~1 hour away for most teams, to put things into comparison.

And in regards to team numbers, in FiM last year, there were 207 teams registered. Of those 207 teams, there were 64 region championship spots, meaning 31% of teams made it the region championship. In MAR last year, there were 110 team registered with a total of 50 teams registered, so 45% of teams making it.

In New England(data taken from this map, there are 151 teams currently in NE, so 53 teams at Region Championship would be 35% of teams making it. (realistically, I assume if 53 is the max capacity it would be bumped up to 54 teams to limit the usage of surrogate matches)This blog says their goal was 60 teams(I believe this was the initial number MAR was going for), so that would be about 40% of all teams. Overall, this provides a fair/similar percentage of teams in comparison to FiM and MAR.

[mdituri]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Odd way of putting it.

Much like the quote from Pogo, the MAR overlords are us. Any person wishing to become a member of MAR becomes one, with voting rights. We control (to a reasonable extent) what happens in MAR.

If you are not 100% totally satisfied with ingenuityNE, join the board and change it. Or don't complain.

Don

Here is the link to join MAR if you are in our district reading this:
http://www.midatlanticrobotics.com/contact-form/

We hold board meetings every month or two except during build season. We hold committee meetings ALL THE TIME. Get on one of them and give your opinion.

I am sure that NE feels the same way. Don't complain, join, and do something about any problems you might see. Don't just give us the problems, propose a solution. MAR runs MAR...and we try to get better each year.

Also, I must agree with the posters on the previous page...build a ROBUST robot. In MAR we play tons of matches and have lots of off season events as well as joint community outreach events. Our robots get beat up. Our robots play DEFENSE. You have time between matches, but it is limited; you must build spare parts to just switch out. I know many budgets don't allow it, but if you have to hunt for a 1/4-20 of a certain size it takes too much time. Your teams really need to take a different mentality when going to district. You may go two or three matches without a huge break. Be prepared to fix during lunch and really plan out your day. It is a big help to look at the entire day. My drive team is not my pit team. They used to be, but now it is better that we have a dedicated pit team like in NASCAR. It is overwhelming for your drive team to be on the go non-stop for 10 hours. They need down time or they get burned out.

And...you are competing more. You need to adjust your homework, project, schedule as well. Discuss it upfront with your teachers. Tell them you are gone the entire weekend. Use the time during the week before your competition wisely. Have your mentors schedule days where you are just doing homework and projects, not robots. I get frustrated when my team tells me they can't come to robots because they didn't do their homework and I find out they were playing videogames for four hours. I don't watch TV from Jan to May. There just isn't time and honestly...you just wasted an hour you can never get back. And really, does Game of Thrones truly affect your life?