New York Districts?

[mistersands]

As someone who grew up in Rochester, lives on Long Island and mentored a Long Island team, and now teaches in NYC and coach a NYC team, I can say that the logistics of each are so vastly different. But not overwhelming.

NYC is very hard to travel out of. Virtually none of my students have parents who have cars. Most of the parents don't speak English. In fact, on my team of 20+ students, I've only met the parents of 2. Many would not LET their child travel outside of NYC even on a school trip. A trip to Long Island would be fine, but upstate I might lose a third of my team to parents not wanting their children to travel. If it was overnight, I would lose over half. And NYC teachers are forbidden from transporting students in their own vehicles. I think some of the selected or prestigious schools like Stuyvesant and Townsend Harris have a bit more leeway with things though, as far as money/resources for travel. Schools like John Bowne often can feel a bit of a 'sour grapes' attitude towards those schools, justified or not.

If the competition migrates out of NYC, it would hurt the less established teams a lot more and be a barrier to new teams. I admit, I don't know the logistics of Districts compared to regionals.

Long Islanders are used to traveling. Almost all parents have cars, and in fact many students have cars. There are a few exceptions, Central Islip CI-borgs come to mind. These are the de facto segregated minority districts on Long Island.

Growing up in Rochester, we are used to overnight trips. I went to East High School in the city of Rochester. But we would sell candy, car washes, whatever we had to. We would raise money and go on overnight trips to NYC or DC. And my friends who went to suburban schools went on even more trips.

As for centrally located, what about Binghamton? It's actually somewhat easier to get to than Albany for a lot of places

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Dominick Ferone

While Albany has a nice regional it is a little cramped as it is at RPI. Possibly having district champs in Syracuse at the dome? I'm not to fully sure about the venue but it could be big enough. Or on long island you could use Nassau Coliseum possibly since I know there is an underground tunnel connecting to the Marriott and possibly another center.

Also i just noticed on the map either were not represented,misrepresented or I don't know where Utica is on the map. But it does show just how spread out upper New York is and something that can be fixed in the future.

I think people are proposing having DCMP in the Albany metro area, but not at the RPI venue. Tech Valley would become a district event in this hypothetical scenario. Perhaps the Championship would be in the Times Union Center.

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Personally, I just wish we could get rid of district borders entirely and teams would go to DCMP events located geographically closest to them. Make most regionals into "district" events. Get your points at any event you want. Advance to one of a dozen or so Super-Regionals geographically located around the country.

This would take some work, of course, but I'm tired of trying to draw perfect lines on a map that make everyone happy but wall off areas from outsiders completely. If teams traveling to "easy" districts really is an issue, then require one of the two events to be one of the five events closest to their team location. Can't we just play wherever is best for each individual team's needs...

[dougwilliams]

Originally Posted by mistersands

...

As for centrally located, what about Binghamton? It's actually somewhat easier to get to than Albany for a lot of places

Binghamton? We're still here Binghamton University put in a decently sized events center a few years ago that might be suitable, and I imagine the University cuts deals with non-profit entities; Odyessey of the Mind State Championships are also at Binghamton, and I can't imagine they have any sort of cash outlay.

There's only one team here though - everyone else is at least an hour away. I assume most other teams will have a district event where they don't have to travel and stay overnight: (Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, NYC, LI); I assume we will travel and do overnights at all district events.

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

...
Most of the upstate teams issues
1.travel distance to nyc
2. I don't know what they are doing up there but i haven't heard anyone from upstate say they didn't have enough money to travel

Politely, that's a broad statement on funding. We struggle to get sponsors and fund-raise in this area. We had one of our most successful years, but could only afford one regional this year; having two regional events would have let us iron out everything in the first and do better in the second.

From my understanding of the differences between regionals and districts, the shorter events keep travel costs down, and we could probably afford two district events at about the same burden of a single regional. That still leaves paying for the championship event outstanding. (And paying for Worlds! Or pseudo half-worlds as the case may be...).

With all that said, I'm not at all sold on districts being the right thing. As noted above, I think people in more team-dense areas will make out better in saving money and getting more game-play. More importantly, from what I've seen (which is a few regionals and never a district in person - but some video), I'm highly underwhelmed with what I've seen and read about districts, I don't think it's as engaging/inspiring an atmosphere for the students. The story that you can still attend a extra-regional events by choice doesn't hold water when FIRST has forced us to spend all of our budget on attending the district events we would belong in.

Not that anyone would ask me or that it isn't inevitable anyway, but I adamantly don't want districts in NY.

[cmrnpizzo14]

I would like to try to clear some things up about NY here as many people I see aren't from NY and seem to have some things messed up. (Personally I feel that NYC and Long Island would be able to make their own state quite successfully)

1.) Rochester and NYC are in no way close.

Whatever Google maps says, add a significant amount of time to get in and out of the city. I know several people that park outside of the city and then take the train in because they feel that it is faster than simply trying to drive in.

2.)Albany, geographically, is in the middle (roughly).

Albany is geographically as close as it comes to the center of NY while still being in a city. Also would like to point out that Albany is the capital of NY, not NYC as some new college friends seem to have thought. This is a 4 hour drive away from teams in Rochester. Add an hour for Buffalo area, subtract one for Syracuse. 1 highway the entire way, easy drive. Easy to do with parents/bus.

I don't know what the NYC mindset is about sending their children to the upstate farmland but as it has been shown before it would be less than $150 to send 1 student up to Albany just based off of transportation and hotel. I don't know why a team would consider commuting from the city up to Albany and back in a day, hotels are the way to go. This cost is more than anyone wants but definitely doable. There are enough businesses in NYC that would be willing to sponsor teams if you ask.

3.)It is much harder for upstate teams to go to the city than for the city teams to go upstate.

Yes, upstate teams have more parent support in terms of transportation as well as high budgets (cannot confirm, never actually worked with a NYC team. Just going off what people have said). A trip to Albany though is significantly cheaper than a trip down to the city. 8-9 hour bus ride, city hotels, transportation once your there, and general cost of being in the city all adds up. Relying on parents for driving also adds the cost of parking. I live in Boston now, I imagine that NYC parking costs are similar. I can say that parking on campus here can get up to $45/day. Albany or Troy would be much cheaper.

I understand that parents in NYC don't have cars but honestly for moving an entire team a bus is honestly easier anyways. Not sure about the cost but between thruway tolls in NY, and gas money, I don't think that a bus would even cost that much more per person.

TL;DR, I think NY should be one district, championships should be in/around Albany, upstate teams have problems too.

[KosmicKhaos]

From this thread what I'm seeing is that it's going to be very hard to include NYC with the rest of NY in a district. There's just to many issues for it to happen. Someone mentioned this earlier and i feel it is a very valid idea to incorporate districts in NY as well as surrounding states.

Originally Posted by Insanity000

Because of such a dense population of teams in NYC i would propose NYC being their own district, or maybe even combine with New Jersey. This solves many issues for the NYC Long Island teams like travel cost, distance etc. For venues though I'm not quite sure how well that would work out but I'm sure it could be figured out.

As for upstate teams, why not have them join with a smaller state/state with less teams to create a district. For example i don't believe upstate alone has enough teams to be a district and neither do many of the surrounding team. If upstate combined with Pennsylvania, Ohio, or west Virginia that would be enough for a district.

I would agree with this or even as stated above. Anther possibility would be if upstate joins with Pennsylvania, Ohio, or WV and to completely leave NYC out of the district model for now. As i said above i think it's just too difficult at the time for NYC to be in a district with upstate. Also by leaving them out of the district model and keeping the NYC regional international teams still have an easily accessible regional.

[MikLast]

Referencing the PNW district, the Seattle area has about 3 district events, Maybe NYC can have a couple, then have some in the upstate area for the other teams, then have the DCMP in a central area (Albany?) or have it switch every year, from NYC to Albany (and i think PNW is doing that, Portland to Cheney, or is that just random?)

[mistersands]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

There are enough businesses in NYC that would be willing to sponsor teams if you ask.

This is surprisingly untrue in my experience. I, and my students, have been desperately contacting businesses, big and small, and nobody is biting. What you usually hear is 'We don't give to after school clubs, only charities' or 'We can only support programs in schools that are attended by our employees' children'. And that's great for the well known schools where the engineers send their kids (Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science) but not so much for our school. We're still working on it though.

We also are based in Flushing, Queens. So the businesses in our area tend to be very different than Manhattan or Brooklyn. And the businesses in Manhattan and Brooklyn seem to only sponsor teams in their Burroughs.

Yes, upstate teams have more parent support in terms of transportation as well as high budgets (cannot confirm, never actually worked with a NYC team. Just going off what people have said).

For reference, our budget this year was approximately $8000. That was from two big sponsors last year, Pershing Square Foundation and Port Authority of the NY and NJ. We had NASA last year to cover our entry fee and banked most of the other sponsor money for this year. We also had some fundraisers, but they don't go very well.

So after NYC Regional fee, we had about $3000 to work with. Pershing Square sponsored us again this year, so we can bank that for next year's regional.

TL;DR, I think NY should be one district, championships should be in/around Albany, upstate teams have problems too.

I don't necessarily disagree. I might argue for Binghamton instead of Albany. And as long as there are enough district events that we can attend downstate (Maybe one in the Bronx, one on Long Island, one in Queens)

But the NYC regional has a lot of international teams and it would be a shame to lose them.

[Sperkowsky]

Just figured i would add going to Pennsylvania and new Jersey is easier for a nyc team to do then going upstate sometimes.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Just figured i would add going to Pennsylvania and new Jersey is easier for a nyc team to do then going upstate sometimes.

Just a thought, going along with Chris's sentiment earlier:

If NY State was in districts, NE was in districts, and MAR was in districts, (and oh why not, the Ohio Valley was also in districts) and (the important part) nobody cared which two district events any given team went to as long as they went to two, where would NYC, Upstate, and Albany area teams tend to go, given current team distribution and current/theoretically proposed event locations?

Now, just to add more factors: Assume that each District system had its own championship, no combining. Where do you put the DCMP? Conversely, assume that NY State, NE, and MAR combined for one DCMP (or whatever you want to call it). Where do you put that one?

Just a fun, semirandom thought experiment.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by EricH

Just a thought, going along with Chris's sentiment earlier:

If NY State was in districts, NE was in districts, and MAR was in districts, (and oh why not, the Ohio Valley was also in districts) and (the important part) nobody cared which two district events any given team went to as long as they went to two, where would NYC, Upstate, and Albany area teams tend to go, given current team distribution and current/theoretically proposed event locations?

Now, just to add more factors: Assume that each District system had its own championship, no combining. Where do you put the DCMP? Conversely, assume that NY State, NE, and MAR combined for one DCMP (or whatever you want to call it). Where do you put that one?

Just a fun, semirandom thought experiment.

That would work. A lot of Rochester and Ontario teams. Would probably go to Ohio valley. Albany teams would either go to Mar or ny and nyc would go to ny

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by EricH

Now, just to add more factors: Assume that each District system had its own championship, no combining. Where do you put the DCMP? Conversely, assume that NY State, NE, and MAR combined for one DCMP (or whatever you want to call it). Where do you put that one?

Logically, in the center.

Not saying its possible though, i don't know the east coast.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by MikLast

Logically, in the center.

Which center, might I ask? The geographic center, or the center of the team distribution? Or are they the same?

See, just another minor wrinkle in "how to set up a district system"...

[1493kd]

[quote=Chris is me;1473160]

Personally, I just wish we could get rid of district borders entirely and teams would go to DCMP events located geographically closest to them. Make most regionals into "district" events. Get your points at any event you want. Advance to one of a dozen or so Super-Regionals geographically located around the country.
/QUOTE]

I agree 1000% with this....

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by EricH

Which center, might I ask? The geographic center, or the center of the team distribution? Or are they the same?

You would hope they were the same, but theyre not.

Ideally, you would try to find an area that is around the same drive time for all teams, or most at least. The geographic center would be a good place to start, then find the best area.

[Conor Ryan]

There has been no movement towards a NY State championship in the off season.

So why not just split upstate and NYC+LI, into 2 separate districts? If upstate breaks away into districts they win, southern state teams already are too far to travel, it will step up pressure for them to find a way.