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.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

[quote=mistersands;1472545]No love for John Bowne High School?
[quote]
I limited my examples to schools I’ve physically been in. Nothing against Bowne (or any number of schools I’ve omitted)

[Kevin Ray]

The possible solution has been touched upon by several posters above and it seems that it is not unrealistic- except potentially, the DCMP (what ever they'll call it). LI contains enough teams locally to easily have a local district event, so too does NYC. If you made them just a bit smaller there could be one in Suffolk County (East end for you out of staters), one in Nassau County (Middle of LI) and one in the city (Manhattan, again for you out of staters).
That would enable teams to select two districts that were within a daily commuting distance for all of the Island and NYC teams. The up state teams could have one to replace the Tech Valley and another for the Finger Lakes region and a third elsewhere in the state.
This gives most teams a choice of 2 out of three events to choose from within commuting distance. This eliminates hotels and other associated costs. Having the DCMP in Albany would be somewhat equidistant for all teams.

Those parents in NYC who forbade their children to go would also forbid them to go to St. Louis, I presume. There will have to be compromises no matter how you look at it.
At the SBPLI regional for the past two years we have been in dire straights financially. FIRST had to directly bail us out last year and who knows how we're paying for it this year. The district model IS cheaper and we have to be realistic about moving towards it--at least on LI. The School to Business Partnership of Long Island (SBPLI) was one of, if not the only outside entity to completely pay for it's own regional for all the years that we had one on LI and it was thought for a while that that was the model that most if not all regionals would move to. --Until the district model emerged. I know that the discussions in this thread have all been had by the "powers that be" and I'm sure that we'll start hearing about those conversations soon. Another problem is that this isn't just a "Let's do it next year" kind of thing. From speaking to several who have helped run districts, it takes years to organize. If that is the direction that we're going to go in, then we'll need to know soon.

But for now...Let's have fun in St. Louis!!!!!!

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

At the SBPLI regional for the past two years we have been in dire straights financially. FIRST had to directly bail us out last year and who knows how we're paying for it this year.

For SBPLI what happened was 2011 or 2012 was the last year they got NYS grants for 150k and so 353 and 3624 were teams helping fund raise as much as possible and they need like 125 thousand a year for all the FLL and FRC events and even more now with FTC tournaments on the island.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by 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.

Ana Martinez had talked to me briefly years ago of doing the New York State championships at the fair in the Hall of Progress (I doubt it would be there. That area looks like it generates alot of revenue for the fair. yeah it's just a big infomercial dump where a FIRST event would show what real progress looks like but it won't make the fair any money so it would probably end up in a tent somewhere if it happened) but it never really went anywhere. Someone with alot of ambition and experience would probably have to take the bull by the horns to get it off the ground, The best bet would be Ruckus committee members and none of us are jumping out of our seats to take the hill. The Ruckus takes up enough of out time as it is.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by EricH

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

And even if they are the same today, how is growth expected to change the team distribution in the future?

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

I suggest using travel time as an appropriate measure of location fitness.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I suggest using travel time as an appropriate measure of location fitness.

I disagree, I think approximating the cost for each team is a better measure. By this I mean that any trip longer than about an hour and a half will send teams to hotels, which costs significantly more than travel. In effect, the cost difference between one hour and two is much greater than the cost difference between six hours and seven.

My this metric, NYC would be much better than Albany (for a NY DCMP) because fewer teams would need hotels. NYC would also probably be the best spot for Eric's entire Northeast district (which, I might add, is a colossally horrible idea).

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I disagree, I think approximating the cost for each team is a better measure. By this I mean that any trip longer than about an hour and a half will send teams to hotels, which costs significantly more than travel. In effect, the cost difference between one hour and two is much greater than the cost difference between six hours and seven.

My this metric, NYC would be much better than Albany because fewer teams would need hotels.

So basically it comes down to NYC matters more than the rest of New York which is not right.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

So basically it comes down to NYC matters more than the rest of New York which is not right.

Would you rather make the ~50 teams in upstate New York gets hotels for their DCMP or the ~100 in NYC and LI? Also remember that with more district events throughout the state many teams that currently need hotels for Finger Lakes or Tech Valley will not for their first two events.

[1493kd]

What about the cost of getting a hotel in NYC... That is almost 2-3 times the cost of anywhere else in the state

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Would you rather make the ~50 teams in upstate New York gets hotels for their DCMP or the ~100 in NYC and LI? Also remember that with more district events throughout the state many teams that currently need hotels for Finger Lakes or Tech Valley will not for their first two events.

It's definitely not that simple, for a few reasons. First, not everybody will make DCMP, and there's no guarantee the same fraction of upstate and downstate teams qualify. Second, if the criteria is total cost, you have to take into account NYC hotel prices, food prices, and the cost of keeping a bus In NYC, which are all higher than they would be upstate.

What I'm hearing a lot of in this thread is that a NYC DCMP would be extremely difficult for upstate teams, and an upstate DCMP would be extremely difficult for NYC teams, almost impossible for most. I'm not sure how to resolve this.

Also for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that at least some of the New York RDs are meeting with FRC staff in St Louis to discuss the plan for New York districts.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Would you rather make the ~50 teams in upstate New York gets hotels for their DCMP or the ~100 in NYC and LI? Also remember that with more district events throughout the state many teams that currently need hotels for Finger Lakes or Tech Valley will not for their first two events.

Except that that isn't quite accurate either. The 100 teams from NYC/LI and the 50 teams from upstate wouldn't need to get hotels for DCMP- only about 50-60 of those teams would need hotels for DCMP if they choose to attend.

Personally I still think the geographic center is the best option (Albany/Binghamton) for a DCMP, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Binghamton does seem to be more centrally located than Albany for many teams:

Buffalo to Binghamton: 3.5 hours
Montauk to Binghamton: 5 hours
NYC to Binghamton: 3 hours
Clarkson to Binghamton: 3.5 hours
Albany to Binghamton: 2.5 hours

Buffalo to Albany: 4.5 hours
Rochester to Albany: 3.5 hours
Montauk to Albany: 4.5 hours
NYC to Albany: 3 hours
Clarkson to Albany: 3.5 hours

Buffalo to NYC: 6 hours
Rochester to NYC: 5 hours
Albany to NYC: 3 hours
Clarkson to NYC: 6 hours
Montauk to NYC: 3 hours

These numbers are all based on driving distances, rather than public transit, which may make them unrepresentative for some teams who rely on public transit to attend events.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by 1493kd

What about the cost of getting a hotel in NYC... That is almost 2-3 times the cost of anywhere else in the state

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

Second, if the criteria is total cost, you have to take into account NYC hotel prices, food prices, and the cost of keeping a bus In NYC, which are all higher than they would be upstate.

Excellent points to consider.
My main point was that 'cost' is a better indicator of where to place the DCMP than 'travel time'. This includes how many teams would need hotels and how much those hotels would cost.

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

First, not everybody will make DCMP, and there's no guarantee the same fraction of upstate and downstate teams qualify.

It's definitely more fair to assume an even distribution of qualifying teams than to assume a skewed one.

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

Personally I still think the geographic center is the best option (Albany/Binghamton) for a DCMP, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

The map doesn't show too many teams in the Albany or Binghamton areas, but maybe some of them are overlapping. How many teams are within an hour and a half drive of Albany? How many within an hour and a half of Binghamton?

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

Buffalo to Binghamton: 3.5 hours
Montauk to Binghamton: 5 hours
NYC to Binghamton: 3 hours
Clarkson to Binghamton: 3.5 hours
Albany to Binghamton: 2.5 hours

Those numbers look pretty reasonable.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

It's definitely not that simple, for a few reasons. First, not everybody will make DCMP, and there's no guarantee the same fraction of upstate and downstate teams qualify.

Here's the thing: Since district points are based on event performance, and for the most part, upstate teams and downstate teams won't attend the same events- there's a good chance a similar percentage of upstate teams and downstate teams will qualify for DCMP. However, based on the location of DCMP, I think a number of teams will decline to attend the event based on cost.

Originally Posted by AGPapa

Excellent points to consider.
My main point was that 'cost' is a better indicator of where to place the DCMP than 'travel time'. This includes how many teams would need hotels and how much those hotels would cost.


It's definitely more fair to assume an even distribution of qualifying teams than to assume a skewed one.




The map doesn't show too many teams in the Albany or Binghamton areas, but maybe some of them are overlapping. How many teams are within an hour and a half drive of Albany? How many within an hour and a half of Binghamton?

I want to say there are about 15 current FRC teams within 1.5 hours of Albany or Binghamton.

And I agree about the cost/travel time point for the most part. I guess I didn't understand what you meant at first.

Meaning we'd need to consider how many teams would need hotels, how much each hotel would cost, how will those teams get there (for some teams that means "is there public transit that connects that DCMP location"), and a number of other factors.

[Sperkowsky]

This thread is becoming a repeated argument but whatever.

It Comes down to does everyone suffer or do 1/3 of the teams suffer.

I admit upstate teams get screwed but they are only 1/3 of the teams and as a minority that's someone that has to be done.

If dcmp was in the geographic center Albany (binghamton is a 4 and a half hour drive from li i don't care what Google maps says)

Only about 5 teams would actually benefit from it being in Albany. So the rest of the 150ish would have to all travel. Yea it's a little cheaper for upstate teams but that doesn't account for saved money by not having to have cars or buses accessible.. In a place like Albany you need a bus or a car to go to eat back to the hotel and to and from the venue. In nyc everything is so close that you can usually walk through all those if not taking the the subway which is affordable.

With that in mind it will most likely cost the same for upstate teams to come down to the city regardless of the added hotel costs.