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

[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.

[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)

[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!

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

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)

I'm not critical of Saturday-Sunday events as a whole... just surprised that there are only two Friday-Saturday districts in New England. The Saturday-Monday does seem odd; however, I highly doubt it's a typo... that is within the realm of possibility for sure though.

My comment on the webcast viewership had little to do with there being Saturday-Sunday events... having the elims nationwide spread out over two days is actually kind of nice. I more meant the fact that - at least in New England - we now have Thursday-Friday and Sunday-Monday events! It seems to me that having three or four different days that elims are on starts getting too spread out...

[EricH]

On the other hand... what about the ability to get both of your districts in on the same weekend, if there's a Thursday-Friday and a Sunday-Monday both within range of you? Or is that just too much?

[Storcky]

It looks like Sunday-Monday was a typo. Those 2 district events have been changed to be Saturday-Sunday events. I think 2 districts in a weekend might be a little much but I'd give it a shot though!

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Storcky

It looks like Sunday-Monday was a typo. Those 2 district events have been changed to be Saturday-Sunday events. I think 2 districts in a weekend might be a little much but I'd give it a shot though!

Looks like either there were a bunch of typos with the New England District events or several of the dates changed... Now there are no Sunday-Monday districts. There are only three Saturday-Sunday districts (the three in CT), while there are now two Thursday-Friday districts (UNH Durham and WPI).

This definitely opens things up a fair bit for our team... WPI or Northeastern are big possibilities.

Originally Posted by Deetman

I'm sure it could be done, but it would be exhausting for the team. The biggest problem with this is earning points towards your district championship. There are lots of lessons learned from your first event that can be applied towards improving your on field performance. Forsaking the 8 hour unbagged window at your shop as well as any fill-in practice you get at your second event could leave you at a severe disadvantage points wise if your performance at the first event was average.

Yeah, it does seem like losing the 8 hours of unbagged time between your two districts would be a huge loss, along with any practice time. Additionally, just running into the second event without the first would cut out really almost any time to sit back and reflect on it.

I suppose it's feasible, but it definitely seems like it'd come at some costs... not the least of which being how tired you'd be on Monday morning! :-)

[Racer26]

I'm really liking how theres now 7 (i think) regionals within a not completely stupid driving distance for me.

North Bay: 238km, 2:29 travel time
Oshawa: 70km, 1:04 travel time
Mississauga: 130km, 1:32 travel time
Waterloo: 201km, 2:11 travel time
Montreal: 556km, 5:37 travel time
Windsor: 455km, 4:30 travel time
Rochester: 383km, 3:50 travel time.

Cleveland clocks in around the same as Montreal, and Pittsburgh is 6:01 travel time, too.

[Gary Dillard]

So after looking at the schedule a dozen times, it just clicked in my brain that the Peachtree regional has moved from the Gwinnett Center in Duluth to the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. Also the new home of GRITS. Next stop, the Georgia Dome baby.

[Mr V]

Concerning the teams in ID joining the PNW district from what I understand ID was originally intended to be part of the PNW district. However it didn't make sense for the southern ID teams to join and the northern ID teams were asked if they wanted to be part of the district some time ago. I guess that there were not enough of them that said they wanted to join or FIRST wanted to stick to state boundaries for districts.

I am quite sad that we won't be seeing some of our friends from ID or MT unless it is at CMP.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I guess that there were not enough of them that said they wanted to join or FIRST wanted to stick to state boundaries for districts.

MAR didn't stick to state boundaries in Pennsylvania.