District Feasibility/Potential

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by IKE

I remember giving Don this exact same advice in 2011 at the Championship...

I was pretty freaked out in 2009. One of the neat things about doing more events are there are more volunteering opportunities. It is always a challenge to get all the folks you need, but I don't know too many FIRSTers that step down from a challenge.

Re-quoted for truth.

If you ASK folks to volunteer, especially alumni and even team members (at events the team isn't competing perhaps) people seem to step up. I found that many team members were "too shy" to volunteer but, when asked, are happy to do so and start doing it year after year.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dodar

Oh wow, I didnt realize that MAR has only had 5 and 6 districts these last 2 years. For some reason I thought it was closer to 10. That does make it seem a little bit more feasible earlier on, but the team density of Florida vs MAR does seem quite a bit larger.

For reference, in 2015 Florida will likely need between 5 and 6 districts based on my predicted growth. Placement of these would, logically, be done based off of team density in area. For reference, this year we would have needed 4 districts. Our Championship would, likely, be held at UCF but would more logically be in south Florida. However, to maintain parity with FiM's Championship on percentage of teams attending it would be (65/213) * 76 = 24 teams... Let's just say 40 teams to be safe... this means it could be held ANYWHERE a district could be held.

As for Florida vs MAR density, MAR is not as large a region as you'd think and they have as many teams as Florida. (source: I've spent a fair bit of time in those areas...also, a map)

Districts in a region is easily computed as CEILING((Teams * 2)/40).

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

For reference, in 2015 Florida will likely need between 5 and 6 districts based on my predicted growth. Placement of these would, logically, be done based off of team density in area. For reference, this year we would have needed 4 districts. Our Championship would, likely, be held at UCF but would more logically be in south Florida. However, to maintain parity with FiM's Championship on percentage of teams attending it would be (65/213) * 76 = 24 teams... Let's just say 40 teams to be safe... this means it could be held ANYWHERE a district could be held.

As for Florida vs MAR density, MAR is not as large a region as you'd think and they have as many teams as Florida. (source: I've spent a fair bit of time in those areas...also, a map)

Districts in a region is easily computed as CEILING((Teams * 2)/40).

How do you figure it would be in South Florida when the bigger amount of teams are in Central Florida?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dodar

How do you figure it would be in South Florida when the bigger amount of teams are in Central Florida?

Last map I saw seemed to have a high density along the south east side of the state. Lemme check again.

Edit:
These are what I was looking at. 2013 FRC teams.
http://d.pr/i/VFfs
http://d.pr/i/6eAj

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Last map I saw seemed to have a high density along the south east side of the state. Lemme check again.

Edit:
These are what I was looking at. 2013 FRC teams.
http://d.pr/i/VFfs
http://d.pr/i/6eAj

Going off the OP's picture, there are 36 in Central Florida vs 23 in South Florida.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dodar

Going off the OP's picture, there are 36 in Central Florida vs 23 in South Florida.

Define Central Florida. If you are counting the entire central corridor you're right. But that'd be silly as it's a much larger area. Of course, nothing looks like SE Michigan, New England, or MAR.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Define Central Florida. If you are counting the entire central corridor you're right. But that'd be silly as it's a much larger area. Of course, nothing looks like SE Michigan, New England, or MAR.

CF: Daytona Beach straight across through Ocala down to Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

SF: Below that line through Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

And why would it be silly to consider the central part of Florida as Central Florida?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dodar

CF: Daytona Beach straight across through Ocala down to Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

SF: Below that line through Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

And why would it be silly to consider the central part of Florida as Central Florida?

Maybe for the reasons I WROTE? I was looking for the optimal location to place a state championship based on number of teams who could comfortably commute to it. As someone who has repeatedly done he Brandon -> Orlando commute that is BARELY reasonable to do round trip in a day. From Sarasota to Orlando... ha no thanks.

[dodar]

1 hour drives are comfortably close. Take away the Central Florida teams with longer than 1 hour drives and you still have 28-30. Thats still more than the total considered in South Florida total; and then you can take out 2-4 teams on the OP's picture that are on the west coast of South Florida. When I was a student on 1592, we drove over from Cocoa and drove home everyday; that was an hour both ways if the traffic was good.

And just saying this as well, I was a mentor on the team the first year the South Florida regional happened and when we saw how expensive hotels in South Florida were, we had to stay like almost an hour away just to keep the hotel costs reasonable. You can find cheaper ones in Orlando(than Miami/Boca Raton/Ft. Lauderdale) and even cheaper ones within 25-30 minutes of Orlando.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by dodar

And just saying this as well, I was a mentor on the team the first year the South Florida regional happened and when we saw how expensive hotels in South Florida were, we had to stay like almost an hour away just to keep the hotel costs reasonable. You can find cheaper ones in Orlando(than Miami/Boca Raton/Ft. Lauderdale) and even cheaper ones within 25-30 minutes of Orlando.

I didn't find the hotels much worse than DC... But that's also an important factor that I couldn't determine at first glance. I'd have to run a few searches.

And, without traffic and doing my usual speeding Brandon -> Orlando is over an hour. If I'm coming from west of me that means I'm on I4 through the 275 junction which takes 20 minutes on the best of days... I'm not seeing your point.

[GaryVoshol]

On a "build it and they will come" theme ...

In Michigan we have only 1 head ref who also was a head ref for the old regionals. The rest of us stepped up over the past 5 years to fill the positions.

We also have many more referees than we had in the past. And now some of them are wondering what it will take to become head refs - the answer basically being, more districts! We had 7 head refs last season to work 11 district events; one of them ended up not being a head ref at all due to an assigning mixup.

I think I saw a different LRI at each of the 3 district events I worked this year.

Where we do overwork the volunteers is the FTA position. We are fortunate to have a very dedicated crew of FTA's and FFTA's who end up working every or almost every week. But they love it!

[BurkeHalderman]

Originally Posted by Siri

OH: Connect

Ohio is also having a state championship this year hosted by 3266 and 1038.

And I believe 1038 has a week zero event that they just started last season.

[Carol]

From what I have seen in MAR, the hardest volunteer position to fill at new district events is judges. Judges are (ideally) not associated with a team but typically come from academia and industry in the local community. And persuading someone to possibly take a day off work to judge at a new event, for a program they may never have heard of before, is difficult. Once an event is established in the community, and hopefully got publicity, you start to build a judge base.

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by Carol

From what I have seen in MAR, the hardest volunteer position to fill at new district events is judges. Judges are (ideally) not associated with a team but typically come from academia and industry in the local community. And persuading someone to possibly take a day off work to judge at a new event, for a program they may never have heard of before, is difficult. Once an event is established in the community, and hopefully got publicity, you start to build a judge base.

Don't several MAR events run Saturday-Sunday? Scheduling an event that way takes up the whole weekend but would prevent judges from missing a day of work. Are more district events not scheduled that way because it would interfere with church or venue availability on Sundays?

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by ZehP

Don't several MAR events run Saturday-Sunday? Scheduling an event that way takes up the whole weekend but would prevent judges from missing a day of work. Are more district events not scheduled that way because it would interfere with church or venue availability on Sundays?

I believe the main reason for Saturday-Sunday so as not to interfere with the school day. This way the only time there is a massive entrance of people is Friday afternoon load-in, and so that there aren't hundreds of people coming and going during the school day.