FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by Pault

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't anybody else suprised that there are only 2 districts in Massachusetts. Seriously. That ratio of teams to districts in New Hampshire and Conneticut is ~14.5, but in Massachusetts it's 27 (I'm pulling these numbers off the top of my head, so they may be slightly off).There is just no way that this is going to pan out equally. Even assuming that there are no out of state teams coming into Massachusetts, there are no rookie teams, and each event holds a full 40 teams, over half of all Massachusetts teams will be forced out of state.

Im not at all surprised. If you take a look at this map, it shows the distribution of teams, and you can zoom into NE. You can see how heavily weighted the MA teams are to the east, and how the density of teams in general is weighted towards southern NE.

The official breakdown of teams from 2013 is
57 in MA (33 of which are w/in 25mi of Boston - which for a state that is over 150mi wide, thats a pretty heavy concentration)
45 CT
29 NH
14 ME
6 RI
3 VT

For Reference the WPI event is 46 miles from Northeastern. Nashua is 48 miles, and Bryant (RI) is 52mi. WPI to Hartford is 64mi. WPI to Southington is 82mi. You can see that "being forced out of state" is really not a significant difference in travel.

Plus with the number of MA teams that traveled to other events like BAE or Pine Tree or CT, I don't think having teams that want to go out of state for events will be that much of an issue.

And the other thing you need to take into account when you look at where the events are is potential host locations, and potential committees. Trust me, most teams would rather have a well run district event in a good venue that might take an extra 30min to drive to than a really poorly run event in a bad venue that might be 30min closer. Plus with the District Championship in Boston, I would think MA teams could hardly complain...

If you guys want to volunteer to staff a committee to run another Boston area District event & have a good venue available, I'm sure people would be all ears for 2015 .

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by safiq10

I say the most interesting event is going to be the FIRST TECH VALLEY its a mini CMP. You got the best from the Palmetto, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, and Hub city. its the battle of the cardinal directions

Why would people want to make the treck to northern New York?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

For Reference the WPI event is 46 miles from Northeastern. Nashua is 48 miles, and Bryant (RI) is 52mi. WPI to Hartford is 64mi. WPI to Southington is 82mi. You can see that "being forced out of state" is really not a significant difference in travel.

Plus with the number of MA teams that traveled to other events like BAE or Pine Tree or CT, I don't think having teams that want to go out of state for events will be that much of an issue.

And the other thing you need to take into account when you look at where the events are is potential host locations, and potential committees. Trust me, most teams would rather have a well run district event in a good venue that might take an extra 30min to drive to than a really poorly run event in a bad venue that might be 30min closer. Plus with the District Championship in Boston, I would think MA teams could hardly complain...

I am really happy with the New England Districts. Like you said while the events are out of the state distance wise they aren't far. The central group of Boston teams have a nice spread to choose from to the north and south. Hopefully the western part of New Hampshire and Vermont can grow to sustain a Vermont/Lebanon NH district event down the road to give those guys a "home" event. But the list is a great start that works as a base for a strong system down the road.

Really, really excited for the UNH/Durham district event!

[omsahmad]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Is that official? That is, if there are teams in ID and MT they have an option to join PNW?

In seriousness, I am not 100% sure it is official yet. I know there were some troubles with the number of teams and the size of venues...

Originally Posted by EricH

2122 (Boise, Idaho) will probably be more than happy to throw a few dozen disks at you,

But you're right, Idaho has some top notch teams too. Team Tators (2122) and Alpha+ (2130) for example always perform outstandingly.

[Storcky]

Am I reading the Sunday-Monday Hartford and Southington districts correctly? It seems like an odd time span.

[Kusha]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Frank,
I got 3 boxes of macnut chocolates waiting for you at the 2014 Championships!
Or if you plan to come to the Hawaii regional, I'll have them ready for you there.


For our team,
Northern Lights/Lake Superior Week 2. Pretty happy about that. *snowboarding*
Dallas Week 3. Looking very much a possibility given that Hawaii-Dallas airfares are relatively cheaper on AA than other areas. We love those Texas teams.

YOU GUYS ARE COMING TO DALLAS?


nice.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Storcky

Am I reading the Sunday-Monday Hartford and Southington districts correctly? It seems like an odd time span.

Does seem odd to me... best explanation I have is that there was some holiday or teacher workshop that gives schools that Monday off. Since the district event does start on Saturday evening anyway, it doesn't seem like there being a conflict at the school with another Saturday event would force the FRC district to Saturday-Monday.

While I do appreciate that the "leave Sundays available!" voice was heard - as there are three events scheduled away from Sundays - I am a little disappointed that there are only 3 of 9 New England district not on Sundays. Fortunately for 1519, two of them are the closest events to us. I'm guessing there are other teams in New England that would at the very least prefer not to compete on Sundays for either religious or personal/practical reasons (being wiped out to start the work/school-week)... unfortunately for them the only events closest to them involve a Sunday.

With there being 4 different "schedules" for district events in New England (1 Thursday-Friday, 2 Friday-Saturday, 4 Saturday-Sunday, and 2 Sunday-Monday), do you think webcast viewership will be affected? My Saturdays afternoons (if not at a meeting) in March and April are usually spent in front of a bunch of webcasts. With elimination matches being spread across as many as 3 or 4 days each weekend, may average webcast viewership suffer? I don't mean anything like "no one will be watching webcasts!" but I'm pretty sure I'll be less likely to see as many webcasts if fewer are happening simultaneously. Thoughts?

[MARS_James]

I am interested in the Orlando Regional date, every time i have attended the event it has been during UCF spring break. I wonder why there has been a change

[Racer26]

@Gregor:

2014 will also mark the first year that FIRST has added >1 event in Canada.

2002 - Canadian Regional
2005 - add Waterloo Regional / rename Canadian Regional to Greater Toronto Regional
2011 - add GTR East colocated with GTRWest, rename GTR to GTRWest (also, 04/06 GTRs were dual field regionals)
2012 - move GTREast to Oshawa, add Montreal
2013 - add Calgary
2014 - add Windsor and North Bay.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Does seem odd to me... best explanation I have is that there was some holiday or teacher workshop that gives schools that Monday off. Since the district event does start on Saturday evening anyway, it doesn't seem like there being a conflict at the school with another Saturday event would force the FRC district to Saturday-Monday.

While I do appreciate that the "leave Sundays available!" voice was heard - as there are three events scheduled away from Sundays - I am a little disappointed that there are only 3 of 9 New England district not on Sundays. Fortunately for 1519, two of them are the closest events to us. I'm guessing there are other teams in New England that would at the very least prefer not to compete on Sundays for either religious or personal/practical reasons (being wiped out to start the work/school-week)... unfortunately for them the only events closest to them involve a Sunday.

With there being 4 different "schedules" for district events in New England (1 Thursday-Friday, 2 Friday-Saturday, 4 Saturday-Sunday, and 2 Sunday-Monday), do you think webcast viewership will be affected? My Saturdays afternoons (if not at a meeting) in March and April are usually spent in front of a bunch of webcasts. With elimination matches being spread across as many as 3 or 4 days each weekend, may average webcast viewership suffer? I don't mean anything like "no one will be watching webcasts!" but I'm pretty sure I'll be less likely to see as many webcasts if fewer are happening simultaneously. Thoughts?

Sunday-Monday events are weird, maybe it was just a typo/error on FIRST's part?

In regards to the shift to Saturday-Sunday, with the shift to districts, it's kind of an inevitability, as it's much easier to have events at a HS without having to worry about interfering with the Friday school day(all that directly coincides with it is setup for the field, so all the school really has to do is just move gym classes/restrict parking).

And in regards to webcast viewership, personally, I find it much easier to pay attention to more elimination matches, mainly the Sunday afternoon ones, as it's less events overall and easier to pay attention than "ten regionals on one screen"(as well as being able to get other work, ie. homework, especially if your team is meeting all day saturday)

[avanboekel]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

Does anyone have any insight on if the Southern Illinois Regional will be in Edwardsville or Carbondale? I know SIUE hosts botball but thats not excatly an indicator or pre-req. to hosting an FRC regional.

I've heard of Champaign, and Peoria as possible venues. There may be a little bias here, but I'm pulling for Champaign.

[dag0620]

Awesome! Glad to see this is released so early. Once again thanks to Frank and the FRC Teams staff for getting it right and doing it for us!

I'm very happy with the schedule in New England, for various reasons. Thanks to all our friends over at ingenuityNE for making it happen!

It's looking to be a good competition season. Can't wait!

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by avanboekel

I've heard of Champaign, and Peoria as possible venues. There may be a little bias here, but I'm pulling for Champaign.

Not sure how Champaign and Peoria qualify as Southern Illinois*, but I've heard those two locations as well.

Related topic: I notice on the FRC calendar, January 4 is listed as Kickoff, but there is no Ship/BnT Day. Huh.

*some say anything south of I-80 is Southern Illinois

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Im not at all surprised. If you take a look at this map, it shows the distribution of teams, and you can zoom into NE. You can see how heavily weighted the MA teams are to the east, and how the density of teams in general is weighted towards southern NE.

The official breakdown of teams from 2013 is
57 in MA (33 of which are w/in 25mi of Boston - which for a state that is over 150mi wide, thats a pretty heavy concentration)
45 CT
29 NH
14 ME
6 RI
3 VT

For Reference the WPI event is 46 miles from Northeastern. Nashua is 48 miles, and Bryant (RI) is 52mi. WPI to Hartford is 64mi. WPI to Southington is 82mi. You can see that "being forced out of state" is really not a significant difference in travel.

Plus with the number of MA teams that traveled to other events like BAE or Pine Tree or CT, I don't think having teams that want to go out of state for events will be that much of an issue.

And the other thing you need to take into account when you look at where the events are is potential host locations, and potential committees. Trust me, most teams would rather have a well run district event in a good venue that might take an extra 30min to drive to than a really poorly run event in a bad venue that might be 30min closer. Plus with the District Championship in Boston, I would think MA teams could hardly complain...

If you guys want to volunteer to staff a committee to run another Boston area District event & have a good venue available, I'm sure people would be all ears for 2015 .

After mapping out the events, I realized that it isn't actually that bad. Although I still believe that there should be a second Boston area event, because like you said there are 33 teams within 25mi. Although your right that I can't complain that much with the Championship here.

Regarding the Saturday-Sunday events, I am really not liking them, considering my team's situation. We are a Catholic school, so there will be moral conflicts with events and a big red flag will be raised with the school administration (I doubt they will stop us from going, but I don't think they will be very happy, and I understand why). Also, students at our school get a lot of homework, and the 3rd quarter ends around this time for us, so its going to be a nightmare to try and get homework done (especially for the people who have to help load in on Friday night, are drivers and need plenty of rest on both nights, and/or are going to be creating a picklist on Saturday night).

Well, I guess sometimes life gives you lemons. Time to make lemonade.

[Roger]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

In regards to the shift to Saturday-Sunday, with the shift to districts, it's kind of an inevitability, as it's much easier to have events at a HS without having to worry about interfering with the Friday school day(all that directly coincides with it is setup for the field, so all the school really has to do is just move gym classes/restrict parking).

Field can be installed starting at the closing bell, including laying down the floor protection sheets, and still be done by evening. Well, except for those durn electronics boxes. Did that for Mainely SPIRIT.

Speaking of which (in a very round-about way), do the District teams (specifically the NE district) get to go in the night before to unpack/get inspected? Or is first morning a mad house adventure? How are the existing districts schedules set up, and what can we look forward to?