Indiana going to Districts for 2015

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

This is Indiana alone.

The State CHP will be a smaller event than the other larger districts.

We are excited that FIRST has agreed to this model for smaller Districts and will be working with FIRST to make it successful.

Michigan may have been the first state, and MAR the first region, but I suspect that the "Indiana Model" may be the most replicated in the future.

[DonRotolo]

Good news folks. More plays for everyone!

And for anyone not really excited and happy about this, I only ask you to wait until next season is over before offering your judgement. Despite the several imagined problems, the reality is so much better than what you are used to. Trust me.

[Nick Lawrence]

This is fantastic. There's a good network of people in Indiana to make this work. Happy to have a much more cost-effective way for our students to be inspired.

-Nick

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

The State CHP will be a smaller event than the other larger districts.

We are excited that FIRST has agreed to this model for smaller Districts and will be working with FIRST to make it successful.

This is a game changer for FIRST. Having a model in place for a region of ~50 teams to go to districts, along with the existing models for larger regions, will make the eventual transition to all district play that much easier. A lot of the initial apprehension over districts was that it couldn't work in Region X because Region X had too few teams, or that Region X would have to combine with Region Y & Z to make sure they had enough teams, but X, Y, & Z was too large of a geographic area to be feasible. This smaller model makes districts much for feasible for both smaller and isolated regions.

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

There's a good network of people in Indiana to make this work. Happy to have a much more cost-effective way for our students to be inspired.

Seconded on both counts here. Everything I've learned about districts points to the level of the team experience strongly correlating to the level of passion and dedication from the volunteers. Indiana has no shortage of this. (Hence why Indianapolis was such a popular choice for Champs within the community.) As for cost, the more teams that are paying $5000 for two events instead of one event, the better. Almost makes the rest of us in non district land look like suckers.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Karthik

This is a game changer for FIRST. Having a model in place for a region of ~50 teams to go to districts, along with the existing models for larger regions, will make the eventual transition to all district play that much easier. A lot of the initial apprehension over districts was that it couldn't work in Region X because Region X had too few teams, or that Region X would have to combine with Region Y & Z to make sure they had enough teams, but X, Y, & Z was too large of a geographic area to be feasible. This smaller model makes districts much for feasible for both smaller and isolated regions.

I think anyone who understands what the model is trying to accomplish can see that it is, in theory, scalable from a region with 40-400 teams. I'm pretty sure the progenitors of the model even said as much. I think up until this point the creation of multi-state areas operating under a district model have been part necessity, part common sense, and part fear of breaking up an area or trying something far different with the same system others are using. I think there are enough WF(F)A winners and years of experience who wanted this in Indiana that FIRST was willing to let them try a smaller-sized district model in practice.

This could potentially flip a number of single-regional states. After this the only remaining things to try are giant districts in terms of team count, multiple district systems in a state, and a district system that doesn't lead to a R/S CMP.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Good news folks. More plays for everyone!

And for anyone not really excited and happy about this, I only ask you to wait until next season is over before offering your judgement. Despite the several imagined problems, the reality is so much better than what you are used to. Trust me.

Important to echo this statement. Give it a chance, you really won't regret it.

[BigJ]

Here's to hoping for Wisconsin/Illinois District in 2016

[thatprogrammer]

Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. If this model works, a lot more states that currently follow the traditional system might make the switch..