Indiana going to Districts for 2015

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Doesn't it make sense to compare teams per capita instead?

For travel to multiple events to be feasible for a large number of teams, we'd like to have a decent number of them in a certain area. You could have a team at every high school, but if each high school is 200 miles apart, districts might not work so well.

But the teams per square mile number can be skewed as well. Michigan's number is fairly high, but it would be even higher if you took into account the fact that the majority of the teams are from the southern part of the LP. Something similar could be said about Ontario.

[M. Lillis]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

This confusion is coming from FIRST's website's inability to consistently and accurately report data.

If the FIRST website cannot report accurate numbers, then it should not be reporting numbers at all.

I will go back tonight and redo my calculations using frclinks

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Doesn't it make sense to compare teams per capita instead?

Per Capita Numbers

Texas: 132 teams/ 26,448,193 people= 4.99088 * 10^-6 teams per capita
Indiana: 52 teams/ 6,570,902 people= 7.91367 * 10^-6 teams per capita
Michigan: 277 teams/ 9,895,622 people= 2.799217 * 10^-5 teams per capita

Data from 2013 US Census Bureau population estimates.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Rather than the local organization continuing to run high cost regionals, they are running more cost effective districts.

Which begs the question, why can't we ALL run more cost effective events? If we accept the premise that the decrease in pizzaz at districts is an acceptable loss given the increase in availability why do traditional regionals have to cost so much money?

[who716]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Indiana had 52 teams last year: http://frclinks.frclinks.com/t/IN-USA

For simplicity's sake, assume net growth of zero teams. 52 teams each need 2 plays, meaning the district needs to generate 104 plays. 3 events at 35 gives you 105 plays. Then have 36 teams advance to a state championship and you're set. Yes the events are smaller than normal, but it's definitely a workable model, which is easily scaled for growth.

I understand and agree that downsizing at the event will increase play time for teams, and also leaves room to grow, I find it hard to grasp that only 52 plus new team will be in this district, knowing that you still have 60 teams competing at a single events, personally 52 teams would be nice as there will be many more qualifying matches to play if there are less teams at a curtain event, which is always nice.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by who716

I understand and agree that downsizing at the event will increase play time for teams, and also leaves room to grow, I find it hard to grasp that only 52 plus new team will be in this district, knowing that you still have 60 teams competing at a single events, personally 52 teams would be nice as there will be many more qualifying matches to play if there are less teams at a curtain event, which is always nice.

What Karthik is saying, and what will (more than likely) be the case is that there WON'T be events with 50+ teams and around 35 teams per event. And then the state championship will be around 32 teams.


For reference, the current Indiana State Championship has 24 teams competing.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Which begs the question, why can't we ALL run more cost effective events? If we accept the premise that the decrease in pizzaz at districts is an acceptable loss given the increase in availability why do traditional regionals have to cost so much money?

I could be wrong, but I believe the AV and a few other things essentially have a mandated cost floor due to what FIRST requires for regionals. Someone please correct this if not.

California is doing their best to run cheap events, with half of our events essentially run as close to a district as they can be under the regional model.

The bummer of all this though is even that it's great for the events to save money, since none of our fees go to the events, teams don't save any money.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I could be wrong, but I believe the AV and a few other things essentially have a mandated cost floor due to what FIRST requires for regionals. Someone please correct this if not.

California is doing their best to run cheap events, with half of our events essentially run as close to a district as they can be under the regional model.

The bummer of all this though is even that it's great for the events to save money, since none of our fees go to the events, teams don't save any money.

That jives with what I've been hearing. I question if all of those things actually have some value or if they are simply wasted money.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

For reference, the current Indiana State Championship has 24 teams competing.

The post-season "Indiana State Championship" this year was designed as a single-day event with only elimination rounds and no qualifying matches. It wasn't intended to be anything like a competition for World Championship slots.

[Chris Hibner]

BTW, the teams/mi^2 calculation has a 0 missing from it for Indiana. The previous calculations show 0.01758, which it should be 0.001758. Actually, I calculate 0.001428 for Indiana. (52 / 36418)

[Alan Anderson]

All these numbers would be a lot easier to deal with if they were teams per 1000 square miles. Alternatively, square miles per team might be a better measure, depending on what you're trying to show.

[M. Lillis]

I updated my spreadsheet with the frclinks data and added a teams/capita section, which is based off of 2010 census data.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

The teams from MAR who can afford regionals have to work just as hard as you do to find other events to attend.

Not to mention the attitude/reception from their district friends about 'stealing' a St. Louis points spot away from those who attend the DCMP, and/or from the teams at the regional for 'stealing' one of their CMP spots.

(Saying this as a team occasionally guilty of that attitude - but it's out of jealousy, I promise. If we could afford to travel out of district in addition to our absolutely ridiculous in-district travel expenses, we would.)

[Chris Fultz]

we expect to run 3 events at 40 teams per event. This likely means some teams will have the opportunity to play 3 district events. We will probably adopt the lottery model used by other districts to allocate those slots. given the low cost for this 3rd event, and the ease of travel around the state, i think they will fill to 40.

our current "state championship" is run more like an off-season event. 24 teams, a few practice rounds, then a draft based on in-season points. we invite 24 teams so all can play - it is just a one day event.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

Doesn't this happen now in districts when teams get a 3rd event. Only the first two count towards district ranking points. Has it been a problem thus far?

PS. What was the biggest factor in getting FIRST to approve districts for such a small FRC population base?

My guess would be the dedication of the volunteers that run the offseason events as well as the two regionals.

Good luck, we're rooting for you to make this a success.

There were some discussions of the choices behind the new compact district model being piloted by IN for next season at the FIRST World Conference this week. There was not a single reason given as the main driving force. Some of the reasons quoted was that they have proven they have the volunteer base to pull it off partially based on their ability to run off-season events. Their Regionals were also ones that have struggled to come up with sufficient funding in the past. So a big part of the case they made was that they really needed to make the transition to districts to ensure the long term sustainability of FRC in the area. Since they will end up with only 3 district events they will have lower infrastructure capital spending that could lower the costs in the initial season and certainly over the long term. In the PNW the need for 2 fields worth of equipment meant that there was not any cost savings for the initial season though there certainly will be this upcoming and future seasons.

Part of it was desire on FIRST's part to try a different District model that if successful could open up the viability of more areas joining the District System sooner as well as making the transition easier. It can also potentially be the pilot of district events weeks 1-4 and DCMP week 6, if they can align the dates which is one of the things FIRST has thrown out as something for other districts to potentially try in future seasons.