Indiana going to Districts for 2015

[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.

[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

[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.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

That's excellent for you guys. Now someone with a little clout needs to work out inter-district play so we can start seeing all the great teams from Indiana up here in Michigan again!

I agree on this. With two districts adjacent to each other for the first time, it's more imperative than before that somebody figure out an inter-district play model.

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

The PNW district covers about 150 teams and 170,000 square miles, giving about .0009 teams per square mile. This is about equal to each team claiming an area of land that is 33 miles by 33 miles.

The teams/square mile metric does not tell very much about a states ability feasibility for running districts. It doesn't matter how many teams there are, what matters is how the teams are distributed throughout the area. In pnw there are definate areas with a greater density of teams, namely the Seattle area. What matters is that the district has areas of higher density.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

That's excellent for you guys. Now someone with a little clout needs to work out inter-district play so we can start seeing all the great teams from Indiana up here in Michigan again!

Originally Posted by IKE

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.

Originally Posted by EricH

I agree on this. With two districts adjacent to each other for the first time, it's more imperative than before that somebody figure out an inter-district play model.

Here in Michiana, we have been dreaming of interdistrict play for several years. Our neighbors to the south creating a district system of their own will bring that dream a step closer.

Indiana's success will be FIRST's success.

[BigBen]

I can't wait to see the details of the district events. The district model was covered during a roundtable discussion at the IN State Championship. I may be relatively new to this wonderful world of FRC, but I think this is definitely the way to go.

[gurellia53]

Does anyone know the details of why Illinois was not included in this? Last fall, Dan Green, the Executive Director of Illinois FIRST, was confident that we would have an Illinois-Indiana district for 2015.

[mklinker]

This is GREAT news! Thanks to all that made this happen so fast. Looking forward to the implementation of inter district play with Michigan which was a component of the proposal from IndianaFIRST.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by mklinker

This is GREAT news! Thanks to all that made this happen so fast. Looking forward to the implementation of inter district play with Michigan which was a component of the proposal from IndianaFIRST.

Hopefully in the future! Our first year will just be Indiana, but we are all eager to open doors as soon as it would be successful.

I do know that our large cache of dedicated volunteers have a lot to do with our success as a state. Thank you to all of our Indiana FIRST volunteers! Being a transplant, it's safe to say I'm not too biased when I say that you're the greatest. It's wonderful working with all of you.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

Hopefully in the future! Our first year will just be Indiana, but we are all eager to open doors as soon as it would be successful.

Are you sure about this? I remember Frank putting out a blog post a while back that suggested we might be getting interdistrict play between all of the districts for 2015. That's part of the reason why they standardized the points system.


Also, congratulations Indiana! This is a huge step in the right direction for FIRST's push towards districts. The next step is to figure out the volunteer problem.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Pault

Are you sure about this? I remember Frank putting out a blog post a while back that suggested we might be getting interdistrict play between all of the districts for 2015. That's part of the reason why they standardized the points system.

Suggesting it might not happen means that it might not happen.

And if the "Indiana model" is different(aside from points) FIRST might not want to have "outsiders" there. Also there might be an eventual rule of "no interdistricts in a new system"

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

And if the "Indiana model" is different(aside from points) FIRST might not want to have "outsiders" there.

This makes sense--if you're trying something out with a "small" area, you probably don't want to artificially inflate your numbers. Such an experiment would be affected by using the "wrong" number of teams. I would guess that the experiment, if successful, would eventually open the door to "outsiders" playing.

Also there might be an eventual rule of "no interdistricts in a new system"

Also a good idea here. Get the teams inside the system used to the system for 1 year, maybe two, and then they're more apt to want to go interdistrict. I could see a Hammond district attracting a bunch of SW MI teams and vice versa in a couple of years.