New York Districts?

[Mr V]

The whole idea behind the District system is to have more events closer to where the teams are. In the PNW district we had 4 events in the greater Seattle area so that teams in that area could attend two w/o the need for overnight accommodations. There were 2 events in the greater Portland area that has lower team density so again places for many teams from that area to play their two events without the need to stay in a Hotel.

Now for the other areas it is not as easy that is for certain. We had one event in Central Wa, Eastern Wa, and Central Western Or. That means that the bulk of the other teams have 1 event that they can go to w/o the need to stay in a hotel, but many of those teams would have been staying 2 or 3 nights in a hotel when we were in the Regional system

However both of those situations do not account for all the teams in the district there are those that have significant travel just to get to their closest event. Again those teams would have been traveling under the Regional system but now have to travel twice to attend both events. The can however get away with typically staying only 1 or 2 nights for each event.

So yes the affects are not uniform and those in low density areas do not get the benefits that those teams in the high density areas do.

I see no reason to believe that there would not be enough suitable venues in the NYC area so that teams in that area would not have to travel to their district events. For those teams outside of NYC or Long Island it is likely that they will have at least one event that is as close or closer than the Regionals they have gone to in the past. The teams in the outlying areas of the PNW district have benefited from having one of their events closer to home and the other not any further than the long standing events in our area.

Having been through our second season in the district system I have spent a lot of time talking to students and mentors getting their thoughts on the transition.

For the students the response has overwhelming been that they prefer the District system. Some said they feared that playing in a HS or college gym would not be as special as playing in an arena but after experiencing it said that they liked the more intimate setting where they were closer to the action and got to know a higher percentage of the teams at each event. They also overwhelmingly preferred more playing time. Not only more matches but not having the 1 hour between matches. Teams that had typically only attended a single regional were particularly happy about attending a second event where they could apply what they learned at their first event either by fixing/improving their robot or their strategy.

For the mentors the response was more varied. Many appreciated the greater value it brought to the students. In the past many mentors have told me that they wished they could go to a second event so that the students could apply the knowledge they gained at the first event and they now saw their students grow significantly because of the second event. On the other hand there were a few who two events more burdensome even though they were shorter and didn't express satisfaction with seeing the students apply the knowledge gained at the first event.

As far as the location of the DCMP we have moved ours around and hope to continue to do so in the future so that the same teams are not stuck making a long trip to DCMP every year.


As far as those low resource teams that earn as spot at DCMP goes, yes some do have to decline and some of the students just can't make it which is unfortunate. On the other hand when a team does earn that spot there are many cases where the school and community rally around the team's success and step up to the challenge. In one case there was a rookie team that was caught off guard by their invitation to DCMP and like many did not learn that they had qualified until 4 days before they had to be at the DCMP. They went into fundraising overdrive, supported by their school and superintendent. They did fall short of raising the funds but the school who was impressed by their progress agreed to loan the team funds from the ASB account with the agreement that they would continue to raise funds after the event to cover the shortfall. I know another rookie team that was in a similar situation and again found a way to go to DCMP, though I do not know as much about their fundraising efforts. I do know that I told them after their first event that they had a good shot at DCMP and that it would be a good idea to start looking for funding sooner rather than later.

TL;DR the benefits of the District System far outweigh the negatives. It is the way that first is going and in my opinion it is better to join now and work on overcoming the problems than to sit on the sidelines and say it will never work. Like anything in life if you say it won't work then you will almost certainly be right. If you say this is going to be hard but we can do it you will likely to be able to do it.