(Lack of) Value in the Regional Model

[Bruceb]

I for one do not like playing only with my neighbors. I like meeting and competing with teams from around the country and world. That's why we do Midwest, for the international feel.

I've always felt the Wisconsin Regional was very well run. I like the venue floor, the seating and the downtown atmosphere.

As you know, FIRST is more than just building robots. One of the great experiences our kids get involves fundraising and securing sponsors. This allows us to do two regionals. The second one at a location of our choice. This extends the season for our students and enriches the experience. Also gives them twice as many matches. As a side note, doing regionals around the Midwest has taught me just how appreciative I am about the Wisconsin Regional.

Please FIRST, keep both models and let people choose. As a consumer I like choices. I will not choose attending the high school gym. Hate the bleacher environment, FIRST is better than that.[/quote]




I second this completely.!!!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

I for one do not like playing only with my neighbors. I like meeting and competing with teams from around the country and world.

I'm a big fan of meeting teams from faraway places. Now that Indiana is doing District events, I figure I can get my "exotic" fix at IRI. :-) I'm also looking forward to further refinements of the cross-district competition rules, with more teams ranging further afield.

The other big opportunity is the FIRST Championship. If you want to play with world-wide teams, that's an incentive to be a world-class team yourself.

That's why we do Midwest, for the international feel.

The last time the TechnoKats attended the Midwest Regional, I got quite a different "feel". It seemed like a big block of Chicago teams with a few further-away teams struggling to be inspiring against a tide of unexcited local students. That is likely because I spent much of my time there trying to work with some of the most underperforming, underfunded, and undermentored teams there, but it's what I took away from the event.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Bruceb

I for one do not like playing only with my neighbors. I like meeting and competing with teams from around the country and world. That's why we do Midwest, for the international feel.

I volunteer at events far and wide and there isn't really all that many teams that go to the event outside the area (unless you're a destination event like Orlando or NYC and even then there's not a huge number of teams coming from far and away). GTCR was strictly Canadian teams with only one team from Quebec. The show went on fine.
Like Alan said I can get my exotic fix from the off season (and championships, of course).

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by JesseK

For everyone comparing VA to Orlando, there is an external factor here. We have a new head of VA FIRST, and this was his first time running an event on this scale (AFAIK). I wouldn't worry about burdening him with telematics until he's had a chance to digest what it takes to run a successful FRC event. From the webcast, I think he did very well as there weren't any discernible issues.

I've seen several sides to how Regionals are run, including from a corporate sponsor's perspective. Sponsoring of venues for the DC or VCU events brings up the question of relative value every single year. This is especially highlighted by the fact that 1000's of kids over 8 years in local VRC and FTC events got just as much out of their competition events as FRC. Yet FRC itself is a premium program with its specific merits, so they continue to sponsor it.

I don't understand how the tradeoffs to districts in VA are any different from any other area of the country, especially those areas which have overcome the same problems inherent with transitioning to the district system that VA has. I seem to remember a survey about districts a couple of years ago, but I don't remember if the actual results were ever posted from that survey.\


For teams who usually attend 2 Regionals and have a reserve for World Champs, the amount of fundraising will be the roughly same as a team who attends 2 district events, District Champs and has a reserve for World Champs. Thus I think the fundraising argument is somewhat weak.

Also, the kids will get 2 chances to present Chairman's by default at the District events. They'll get another opportunity at District Champs, if they got CA at a District Event.

I don't think Stan set the cycle time at VA. Jeff Wetzel was the FTA at the event and he posts on here frequently so if he catches this he could provide insight. I wouldn't be surprised if the long cycle times were due to the occasional really long delays in connecting on Thursday, but I have no clue what it was.

[Koko Ed]

While it would be nice to do six minute turn around times and give people more matches you also have to realize that there is little margin for error with such a tight window. Often the events will suffer death by a thousand paper cuts. A minute lost here, a minute lost there and next thing you know you are a half hour behind. God forbid something serious happens to the field or a team comes out that is just not connecting at all. It is really hard to make an event run smoothly without losing time. In my personal opinion I think they should at least do seven minute turnaround times for the championships but Ii know they are going to push for six minute turn around times. That's gonna be a tall order to pull off.

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The regional experience can be further improved independent of which areas become districts. FIRST HQ can make outlines to regional planning committees, regional directors, and FTAs more clear on the quantities of matches to be run. FIRST HQ can make outlines to the judges advisors about how to distribute judges. If anything, this sounds like a great place for input by the FRC team advocate*.

While the discussion about regionals vs districts is important, Sean hit the nail on the head. The fact is that districts WILL eventually be universal (for all but a few select locations), but until that happens, most of us are stuck with the regional model. This is not a *BAD* thing, but the regional model needs some refinement, and the areas that Sean hit on is exactly what I'm after.

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

While it would be nice to do six minute turn around times and give people more matches you also have to realize that there is little margin for error with such a tight window. Often the events will suffer death by a thousand paper cuts. A minute lost here, a minute lost there and next thing you know you are a half hour behind. God forbid something serious happens to the field or a team comes out that is just not connecting at all. It is really hard to make an event run smoothly without losing time. In my personal opinion I think they should at least do seven minute turnaround times for the championships but Ii know they are going to push for six minute turn around times. That's gonna be a tall order to pull off.

You're absolutely right. The schedule must be properly crafted to allow for unforeseen circumstances. The answer is not to universally apply 6 minute cycle times, but possibly to allow the cycle to be adjusted on the fly if things are going smoothly. Cycle time is also related to directives given for introductions, load-in/out of robots, and of course, field reset. We were spoiled last year where field reset was a piece of cake compared to this year. '13 wasn't terrible and neither was '12.

No doubt its a tough thing to figure out - if it were easy, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by Nemo

FIRST HQ makes the teams do their fundraising for them. We raise something like $20 million each year in the form of registration fees to pay for the cost of running FIRST HQ and whatever else it pays for.

FIRST doesn't tell us where this money goes. Their annual report has one line that says "XY million: FRC expenses," and that's all we get to see.

It took me two minutes to find the audited financial statements and the form 990, which have a lot more data than "XY million: FRC expenses."

[Alyssa]

I am very much so excited for California to transfer to the district model soon. I think it will lead to more play time and more opportunities for teams to attend Champs. However, as many have said, there are a lot of tradeoffs. I for one am not looking forward to missing even more school than I already do for robotics. Of course, I love competition and I will continue to do anything possible to compete as much as possible. But I know my teachers and many other teachers on campus are not happy when the same group of 50+ students on my team are gone for the last part of the week multiple weeks in a row.

That being said, I love competition and am glad more teams will be given the ability to go on in competition in the district model.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by alyssa2485

I am very much so excited for California to transfer to the district model soon. I think it will lead to more play time and more opportunities for teams to attend Champs. However, as many have said, there are a lot of tradeoffs. I for one am not looking forward to missing even more school than I already do for robotics. Of course, I love competition and I will continue to do anything possible to compete as much as possible. But I know my teachers and many other teachers on campus are not happy when the same group of 50+ students on my team are gone for the last part of the week multiple weeks in a row.

That being said, I love competition and am glad more teams will be given the ability to go on in competition in the district model.

More often than not district events take place on Saturdays and Sundays so you won't be missing any more school time than before. You may be missing even less.

[Lil' Lavery]

While I didn't run the numbers, I wouldn't automatically characterize it as "more often than not" districts are Sat/Sun affairs. I'd say it's a fairly even split between the two schedules.

This season, Dawgma students are going to miss 2-3 days of school for all three of our events combined (depending if they're part of the crew we bring Thursday to MAR Champs). We had one season where they didn't miss any school at all.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

While I didn't run the numbers, I wouldn't automatically characterize it as "more often than not" districts are Sat/Sun affairs. I'd say it's a fairly even split between the two schedules.

This season, Dawgma students are going to miss 2-3 days of school for all three of our events combined (depending if they're part of the crew we bring Thursday to MAR Champs). We had one season where they didn't miss any school at all.

A quick TBA scan tells me it is indeed still leaning Fri-Sat rather than Sat-Sun.

That said, another good thing about Districts is how responsive they are. That is, if you respond. (District events and the district model itself happen because the people in the district make them happen.) Have enough people concerned enough about missing Friday that they're willing to work on a Sat-Sun option (or the other way around)? You can make it happen, particularly in a place that's as FRC-dense as San Diego. Disclaimer: I know nothing about San Diego; I just typed the first zip code Google gave me into the FRC team search engine.

MAR leans very heavily Sat-Sun while FIM leans heavily the other way. PNW and NE seem more split.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

While I didn't run the numbers, I wouldn't automatically characterize it as "more often than not" districts are Sat/Sun affairs. I'd say it's a fairly even split between the two schedules.

This season, Dawgma students are going to miss 2-3 days of school for all three of our events combined (depending if they're part of the crew we bring Thursday to MAR Champs). We had one season where they didn't miss any school at all.

I said S/S because I know MAR leans heavily S/S and with Cali's frequent Fri-Sun regionals they might have more S/S events when they go to districts in 2022 or whenever. I do know that MI has a LOT of Fri-Sun and last year I know NE had a T/F and S/S event one week because IIRC Andy Grady worked both events.

Originally Posted by Siri

A quick TBA scan tells me it is indeed still leaning Fri-Sat rather than Sat-Sun.

That said, another good thing about Districts is how responsive they are. That is, if you respond. (District events and the district model itself happen because the people in the district make them happen.) Have enough people concerned enough about missing Friday that they're willing to work on a Sat-Sun option (or the other way around)? You can make it happen...

Always a salient point.

[brrian27]

I've never personally competed in districts, so I may be a bit biased. However, I loved the regional model when I competed in high school. My first year we only went to the Orlando Regional and did not make eliminations. The great venue in Orlando helps make it a special and inspiring event. It made it seem like a big deal and helped inspire me to want to be a big part of our team and perform on big stages.

Having smaller events may make sense economically or logistically, but they need to retain their inspiration, or else we're missing the point.

[George Nishimura]

Honestly if I was in the US/Canada I would agree that the value proposition from Districts (from the outside, never experienced it myself) seems higher.

However I (and like a growing handful of other teams) am not, and while I predict that districts are indeed the future, I hope you find a space for the outlier teams. We love competing in the US.

As an aside, we send ~35-40 people every year to a regional and there was only 8 guaranteed matches at NYC. Luckily I don't do any team finances, but I am definitely a proponent of more matches at events!

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

It took me two minutes to find the audited financial statements and the form 990, which have a lot more data than "XY million: FRC expenses."

Ok, I stand corrected. Thank you for pointing me to the IRS 990 form. It lists some expenses broken down by categories like salaries, information technology, and travel. It also has an $11M category called "additional robot expenses."

The first form you linked is what I was thinking of. It has FRC reduced to a single line item as you can see in the copied section below from page 6 of the pdf:



This is the form that is available on FIRST's "Annual Report and Financials" page. That is why I came under the impression that they aren't disclosing a whole lot about their expenses.