California Rankings 2014

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by mmaunu

I don't imagine that there are any known dates for when CA is moving to the district model? Do you know if 2015 is likely or is 2016 just as likely?

Last year, I heard 2015... but recently I heard they don't have enough funding so it may get moved back another year to 2016. Hard to say right now. Hopefully they will hold some town hall meetings in May/June to give us an update like they did last year.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Doug G

Last year, I heard 2015... but recently I heard they don't have enough funding so it may get moved back another year to 2016. Hard to say right now. Hopefully they will hold some town hall meetings in May/June to give us an update like they did last year.

At SVR, Jim Beck said that there will be 7 regionals in California for 2015 (new one is in Santa Barbara). And in 2016 we're switching to a new system wbut he would not call it a "district."

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

At SVR, Jim Beck said that there will be 7 regionals in California for 2015 (new one is in Santa Barbara). And in 2016 we're switching to a new system wbut he would not call it a "district."

I also heard that its been tough to find small venues to house a district event. Very few california high schools have an building large enough to house pits. I think a lot of university venues are just too big.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

I also heard that its been tough to find small venues to house a district event. Very few california high schools have an building large enough to house pits. I think a lot of university venues are just too big.

I personally love our university venue for the Sacramento Regional at UC Davis, it's the perfect size, however, we have to go outside and up a ramp two stories to get to the practice field. But that's a small price to pay for having the amount of space that the Pavilion has. When we traveled to SVR a while back, it was small in comparison to Davis, but understandably so because it's a state school and not a UC. The pits and practice field were perfectly fine, but we had difficulty with seating especially with so many large teams there. At CVR, the high school is more than capable of hosting the regional. Sure, the volunteers had to share their room for the practice field, but it worked. Not really many complaints there. A lot of newer high schools are capable of holding events, ours was opened in 2006 and we proved that we can do it. I think the main problem with high school venues is the conflict with school. At CVR, they were lucky enough to convince the school district to declare a holiday in honor of the regional. That won't fly with some other school districts. It's difficult to tell the whole school that there won't be access to either gyms for two days.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

I also heard that its been tough to find small venues to house a district event. Very few california high schools have an building large enough to house pits. I think a lot of university venues are just too big.

I've heard of some folks nosing around for potential offseason sites and coming up with a couple high schools that just might be able to make it work--and both have teams. And a couple other "smallish" venues.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by EricH

I've heard of some folks nosing around for potential offseason sites and coming up with a couple high schools that just might be able to make it work--and both have teams. And a couple other "smallish" venues.

I heard that too, I forget the number of venues we need to find still. 3309 tried to see if any of our 3 high schools can host but none of our facilities are large enough. Servite will be building a new gym in a few years and robotics events are being considered in its design. So we will have to see how that turns out.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

I heard that too, I forget the number of venues we need to find still. 3309 tried to see if any of our 3 high schools can host but none of our facilities are large enough. Servite will be building a new gym in a few years and robotics events are being considered in its design. So we will have to see how that turns out.

Basically two sites for each site we now have

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

At SVR, Jim Beck said that there will be 7 regionals in California for 2015 (new one is in Santa Barbara). And in 2016 we're switching to a new system wbut he would not call it a "district."

Anyone familiar with this new non-"district" system? I'd be interested to hear how it works and what the plan looks like.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

Anyone familiar with this new non-"district" system? I'd be interested to hear how it works and what the plan looks like.

No details yet, but from what I understand, the original idea a few years ago was to have district-sized events and more of them as opposed to a handful of large regionals. CVR was the first example of this. I don't know how much the idea has changed.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

Anyone familiar with this new non-"district" system? I'd be interested to hear how it works and what the plan looks like.

It's just a branding thing... It'd be districts.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

It's just a branding thing... It'd be districts.

This is what I understand too.

Any reason why the pits and the field have to be in the same building? We've really liked the setup at CalGames and MTTD in the past. IMO people really don't care about pushing their robot between buildings in sunny California. The hike up two stories at SAC is much worse. Most high schools have one large basketball court with bleachers plus a different smaller gym/dance room/cafeteria, so could host an event like this.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

This is what I understand too.

Any reason why the pits and the field have to be in the same building? We've really liked the setup at CalGames and MTTD in the past. IMO people really don't care about pushing their robot between buildings in sunny California. The hike up two stories at SAC is much worse. Most high schools have one large basketball court with bleachers plus a different smaller gym/dance room/cafeteria, so could host an event like this.

Except when it rains, I.e., IE this year. I personally like the high school gym setting. Really focuses the energy

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by rsisk

Except when it rains, I.e., IE this year. I personally like the high school gym setting. Really focuses the energy

Despite the rumors of rain at IE, it never rains in California.

[mmaunu]

I feel that having some areas doing regionals and others doing districts is unfair to teams. Teams from districts can compete in regionals and take World Championship slots from the regional event but regional teams can't return the favor It is also inherently more difficult to earn an invitation to the World Championships in a regional system; a team that consistently performs well and makes it to the semifinals in both of their district events is probably favored to earn a bid (assuming that they do similarly well in the District Championship event) but a team that does the same in two regionals is not going to St. Louis unless they win RCA, EI, or RAS (qualifying awards). I really hope that we all get into the same system soon and I really hope that system is the district system.

I think that our school could host a 30 team district event; we have had Battle at the Border here for the last 3 years, an off-season event with 30 teams. We haven't presented the idea of having another event here to the administration yet, but I am sure that they are fine with it

Well...I'm not sure at all, but we'd love to host an event here.

Anywho, I am mostly just curious about when/if and it seems like "not next year" is the answer for now.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Despite the rumors of rain at IE, it never rains in California.

This was the first year that I remember at Davis where it didn't rain...