New York Districts?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

In my opinion, the only neat way to resolve the DCMP difference is to split New York into two districts. It solves almost every issue with very limited downside.

- Each region is big enough to have its own district
- Downstate can have a NYC DCMP, upstate can have one in Rochester (or another upstate city)
- Even if we made one big district, the downstate teams would play downstate districts, and vice versa for upstate, essentially splitting the region already

How is this different compared to what teams in Districts already experience?

I know New York is split geographically a little more compared to most regions but minus a few teams who travel for the sake of traveling teams in districts for the most part attend events closest to them. We rarely play with teams from Rhode Island or Connecticut until we go to the District Championship which is a 4+ hour drive for some teams to attend. I know many teams in Michigan and Washington/Oregon who drive further to get to their District Championship.

Teams will intermingle if the schedule works better, availability for a third or fourth play, or some teams really like to travel like we have up here.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

How is this different compared to what teams in Districts already experience?

I know New York is split geographically a little more compared to most regions but minus a few teams who travel for the sake of traveling teams in districts for the most part attend events closest to them. We rarely play with teams from Rhode Island or Connecticut until we go to the District Championship which is a 4+ hour drive for some teams to attend. I know many teams in Michigan and Washington/Oregon who drive further to get to their District Championship.

Teams will intermingle if the schedule works better, availability for a third or fourth play, or some teams really like to travel like we have up here.

I guess I was going off of the assumption the most other regions distribution is a little more continuous than New York. So teams from New Hampshire night not play with teams from Rhode Island, but teams from New Hampshire might play with some teams from Massachusetts, who play with some teams from Connecticut, who play with some teams from Rhode Island. There's no clear line, and the distribution is a little more continuous.

For New York, there is an extremely clear line, and it would probably become even more clear for districts.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

I cannot speak for the inner workings of FIRST. I can tell you that when we were in regionals, we spent $5K to get going and it covered the KoP and our first regional. This year, I paid $4K to start and it covered the KoP and two district competitions... It could be that rookie teams still pay the extra $1,000 - so $5K for both events.

I believe that the main reason for this is that renting a venue large enough for a regional competition is quite expensive, but HS gymnasiums are relatively cheap - sometimes free if the event is "hosted" by that high school's FRC team... That savings is passed on to the teams.

The fee is $5000 for a veteran team in the PNW. Well actually it is $8000 for veteran teams but at least $3000 of that is offset by PNW FIRST grants. You must have received one of the other grants if the net on your initial registration bill was $4000.

In the traditional regional system the $5000 doesn't cover the venue. The RD is charged with raising the funds to cover those costs. FIRST does cover the transportation of the field to and from the event location and the cost of the fields ect.

Now PNW FIRST, and all districts, gets to keep $1000 (or in other districts gets $1000 per team from FIRST) of the initial registration fee to offset some of the costs of running the district.

Yes the district events cost less, but there are more of them. There is usually not a rental fee for the venue but there are other venue costs that are passed along to PNW FIRST. For example there is usually a janitorial fee to cover the school staff that unlocks and secures the building and for them to take care of the garbage (they may empty a given can 4 or 5 times per day) and to hopefully insure that the bathrooms are stocked with paper products.

Note the PNW district is unique in its billing system where PNW FIRST bills the teams for the total cost of participating including registration, rather than US FIRST billing for initial registration. PNW FIRST then provides a team grant to bring that cost to teams back down to the $5000 level (or $6000 for rookie teams). This is done because many donors are happy to donate to teams but aren't interested in paying the janitorial fee, forklift rental trucking ect.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

I cannot speak for the inner workings of FIRST. I can tell you that when we were in regionals, we spent $5K to get going and it covered the KoP and our first regional. This year, I paid $4K to start and it covered the KoP and two district competitions... It could be that rookie teams still pay the extra $1,000 - so $5K for both events.

I believe that the main reason for this is that renting a venue large enough for a regional competition is quite expensive, but HS gymnasiums are relatively cheap - sometimes free if the event is "hosted" by that high school's FRC team... That savings is passed on to the teams.

The cost of the venue doesn't factor into your registration fees.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Mr V

The fee is $5000 for a veteran team in the PNW. Well actually it is $8000 for veteran teams but at least $3000 of that is offset by PNW FIRST grants. You must have received one of the other grants if the net on your initial registration bill was $4000.

In the traditional regional system the $5000 doesn't cover the venue. The RD is charged with raising the funds to cover those costs. FIRST does cover the transportation of the field to and from the event location and the cost of the fields ect.

Now PNW FIRST, and all districts, gets to keep $1000 (or in other districts gets $1000 per team from FIRST) of the initial registration fee to offset some of the costs of running the district.

Yes the district events cost less, but there are more of them. There is usually not a rental fee for the venue but there are other venue costs that are passed along to PNW FIRST. For example there is usually a janitorial fee to cover the school staff that unlocks and secures the building and for them to take care of the garbage (they may empty a given can 4 or 5 times per day) and to hopefully insure that the bathrooms are stocked with paper products.

Note the PNW district is unique in its billing system where PNW FIRST bills the teams for the total cost of participating including registration, rather than US FIRST billing for initial registration. PNW FIRST then provides a team grant to bring that cost to teams back down to the $5000 level (or $6000 for rookie teams). This is done because many donors are happy to donate to teams but aren't interested in paying the janitorial fee, forklift rental trucking ect.

Very interesting.

Along with RD's the local planning committees are tasked with raising the funds for the Regional's. Currently none of the registration fees go towards the cost of the event. Regional's are tasked with raising the funds for the entirety of their event.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

I guess I was going off of the assumption the most other regions distribution is a little more continuous than New York. So teams from New Hampshire night not play with teams from Rhode Island, but teams from New Hampshire might play with some teams from Massachusetts, who play with some teams from Connecticut, who play with some teams from Rhode Island. There's no clear line, and the distribution is a little more continuous.

For New York, there is an extremely clear line, and it would probably become even more clear for districts.

That is all true I guess you could call it "Trickle Down Coopertition"?

New England teams are pretty good at intermingling together but there is a reality that we just don't see certain teams minus 1-2 who decide to travel. At our past four district events we've only seen 3 teams from Rhode Island/Connecticut (events 2x MA, and 2x NH).

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I want to specifically emphasize the last point here. A point earned in Long Island and a point earned in Rochester would not really even mean the same thing. I don't think it's unfair to say Finger Lakes is typically a more competitive event than Long Island. In other districts, teams can travel / be reassigned to help even things out, but due to the geographic constraints here, few teams will travel from one to the other (and the teams that would are already good enough to qualify for DCMP).

I really think that two districts, or one district and one region merged into the other, is the way to go here. I would even be fine if NYC / LI teams could opt to get real district points from events in the surrounding 3 districts.

A point is a point no matter where it was earned. Either way the distribution of points is pretty much equivalent to the relative performance of the teams at a given event. Yes some events are more competitive than others but it does average out a bit because teams attend two events and there is a different mix of teams. Yes because of geography you will find a number of teams that attend the same two district events but there are also unique teams at those two events. For some teams different weeks work out better and for others they do want to travel and provide that experience to the students that may not get it otherwise. All told the points system does a good job of sending the best teams to the DCMP. Having a larger district does a better job of this.

If you want to talk about the distances being restrictive see the PNW district and my post near the beginning of this thread showing how much greater of an area we cover out here. I know that many parents in NYC may not have cars but how do other teams travel to their state championships? Does a football/basketball/baseball ect team decline their invitation to their respective state championships because parents do not have cars or does the team take a school bus?

For the fun of it I looked up the NYSPHSAA's championships.

For basketball it was located in Glen Falls this year. According to Google maps it is a 3:30 drive from NYC or a 4:30 by public transportation. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/New+...7837!1m0?hl=en Yes I know that there are problems with google maps and their times but for someone outside of the area they are the best available info.

For Football it was in Syracuse https://www.google.com/maps/dir/New+...3.036187?hl=en even further away in both distance and time from NYC yet still with a public transportation option, though it seems to me a school bus would be how a football team would get there.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Nichols

Each district receives $1000 as a re-grant from FIRST for every team that registers. I assume PNW must tell FIRST to apply that $1000 towards the teams registration fees vs. sending it to the District. That would be a choice that the district makes given that they have the funds to support their annual expenses. Otherwise all teams pay $5K per FIRST's website. I don't have any contacts in PNW to confirm this, but since I'm involved in both Regional planning and District conversations with FIRST, this is my educated assumption.

Just trying to prevent mis-information about the fees from getting out there.

See above for how the billing works in PNW FIRST it is unique among the current Districts though the net is the same in that the initial registration fee for veteran teams is still $5000 and for rookie teams it is still $6000.

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

And these are the main reasons that two smaller district regions is emerging as the best option in my mind.

This year, Indiana proved that the district system could be successful with 50 teams. So we split NYC+LI into one district, and everything north of Westchester-ish into another. Each would require maybe 4 events + DCMP, and having them stay "local" would really minimize travel costs.

Plus, if inter-district play gets sorted out, then teams could still intermingle if they want, NYC+LI teams can compete in MAR, and upstate teams can go to New England events. That seems like the "everybody wins" scenario, even though it bring a new host of problems surrounding inter-district play.

I don't know that the dust has settled enough to say that the IN district was successful in all aspects of the reasons for the move to the District system.

As far as the running of the events and the fact that many teams got to play more matches and travel less then yes by all indications it certainly was a success.

The other reason for the switch to the District system is financial, running Regionals is very expensive and unsustainable as growth continues. So the question is was the IN district able to lower the total cost of the events vs what it was for the Regional it replaced. How does in-kind donations from AndyMark play into the total costs. For example I know that in the past AndyMark has stored and shipped fields for off-season events. So is AndyMark providing the receiving, storage and shipping functions for the IN district? Will a NYC district be able to find a company willing to do the same for them? Will they need to rent a warehouse like PNW does or use a company like Pods to handle the storage like MAR does. Do not get me wrong I'm not knocking anything that AndyMark may have done to make the IN district happen, just questioning if another mini-district could be financially successful without a company like AndyMark stepping up. There are economies of scale.

I know that the unified district points system was designed to allow the portability of district points for the long term. I suspect that in a few years teams will be able to travel to another district and bring the points earned there back home with them, assuming that it is not the 3rd play chronologically.

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by 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.

I just wanted to clear up a bit of a misconception here, it seems you have a total of 6 district events in this scenario. Assuming a typical district size of 40 teams, this would limit New York to 120 teams. A quick search tells me that 171 teams competed from New York this season, which would require nine 40 team events to give everyone two plays. My guess would be two of those go in the NYC/LI area and the other goes upstate somewhere.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mr V

A point is a point no matter where it was earned.

Technically correct. I'd argue that it SHOULDN'T be correct but certain policies based on political correctness force it to be correct.

A point earned at a crappy event shouldn't equal a point earned at an event where you're competing with 67/254 caliber teams. By having heavily modal distribution of teams attending events (read as very little intermingling of the teams) you are actually hurting teams in the more competitive grouping. Simple example:

I'm going to assign each team a triple, it consists of number, points earned, overall skill relative to district. (blah blah, teams are just who I pulled as teams from the region at a quick glance, numbers are random)

Group A (call it upstate NY):
(20 146 1)
(2971 110 3)
(1507 109 2)
(340 109 9)
(1126 98 7)

Group B (downstate):
(263 130 4)
(334 120 6)
(694 108 5)


So, if I take my top 5 (mostly because I got tired of coming up with teams, this expands to top 24/40/60/N) by points I get:

20, 263, 334, 2971, 1507

But if I were to take them based on actual skill (how they SHOULD rank approximately)
20, 1507, 2971, 263, 694

Notice that there's very different teams? That's because the two groups scores aren't linked in any way. This is what happens when you have low intermingling, because a top group actually hurts itself by competing against themselves.

Basically, a point is a point but it shouldn't be that way.

Button for red dots is in the top corner.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I don't know that the dust has settled enough to say that the IN district was successful in all aspects of the reasons for the move to the District system.

As far as the running of the events and the fact that many teams got to play more matches and travel less then yes by all indications it certainly was a success.

Yeah, that's what I was going by. I'm not knowledgeable enough with their specifics to comment any more deeply on the situation.

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Technically correct. I'd argue that it SHOULDN'T be correct but certain policies based on political correctness force it to be correct.

A point earned at a crappy event shouldn't equal a point earned at an event where you're competing with 67/254 caliber teams. By having heavily modal distribution of teams attending events (read as very little intermingling of the teams) you are actually hurting teams in the more competitive grouping. Simple example:

I'm going to assign each team a triple, it consists of number, points earned, overall skill relative to district. (blah blah, teams are just who I pulled as teams from the region at a quick glance, numbers are random)

Group A (call it upstate NY):
(20 146 1)
(2971 110 3)
(1507 109 2)
(340 109 9)
(1126 98 7)

Group B (downstate):
(263 130 4)
(334 120 6)
(694 108 5)


So, if I take my top 5 (mostly because I got tired of coming up with teams, this expands to top 24/40/60/N) by points I get:

20, 263, 334, 2971, 1507

But if I were to take them based on actual skill (how they SHOULD rank approximately)
20, 1507, 2971, 263, 694

Notice that there's very different teams? That's because the two groups scores aren't linked in any way. This is what happens when you have low intermingling, because a top group actually hurts itself by competing against themselves.

Basically, a point is a point but it shouldn't be that way.

Button for red dots is in the top corner.

To build on this maybe after an event do a multiplier to the district points they earn based on the overall opr divided by the number of teams or something like that. Some regionals when the top 2 teams banned together, the winner is already know at this point. Where other regionals have the upsets come from a lower alliance like FLR had the 7th seed win.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Technically correct. I'd argue that it SHOULDN'T be correct but certain policies based on political correctness force it to be correct.

A point earned at a crappy event shouldn't equal a point earned at an event where you're competing with 67/254 caliber teams. By having heavily modal distribution of teams attending events (read as very little intermingling of the teams) you are actually hurting teams in the more competitive grouping. Simple example:

I'm going to assign each team a triple, it consists of number, points earned, overall skill relative to district. (blah blah, teams are just who I pulled as teams from the region at a quick glance, numbers are random)

Group A (call it upstate NY):
(20 146 1)
(2971 110 3)
(1507 109 2)
(340 109 9)
(1126 98 7)

Group B (downstate):
(263 130 4)
(334 120 6)
(694 108 5)


So, if I take my top 5 (mostly because I got tired of coming up with teams, this expands to top 24/40/60/N) by points I get:

20, 263, 334, 2971, 1507

But if I were to take them based on actual skill (how they SHOULD rank approximately)
20, 1507, 2971, 263, 694

Notice that there's very different teams? That's because the two groups scores aren't linked in any way. This is what happens when you have low intermingling, because a top group actually hurts itself by competing against themselves.

Basically, a point is a point but it shouldn't be that way.

Button for red dots is in the top corner.

It seems to me that they are not very different teams. In the two lists I see 4 of the same teams on both lists and 1 unique team per list.

With the way the district points system is set up the points earned at DCMP are multiplied by 3 to determine who moves on to CMP. That means that the effects of the relative competitiveness of the district events are lessened to a degree.

I believe a greater number of smaller district events should lessen the difference in competitiveness between the district events. It certainly won't eliminate it though.

Combined with the way DCMP points work it should still result in the top teams moving on, but not eliminate the variability caused near the cutoff points line for the mid range teams.

No it certainly isn't a perfect system but I believe that it is pretty good based on my experiences in the PNW district. In our district we have one highly dense area, two minor areas and the rest of the teams spread pretty wide.

For reference here is a map of the distribution of teams. http://batchgeo.com/map/70d940e318d9...b583b66cde4d5c

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mr V

It seems to me that they are not very different teams. In the two lists I see 4 of the same teams on both lists and 1 unique team per list.

With the way the district points system is set up the points earned at DCMP are multiplied by 3 to determine who moves on to CMP. That means that the effects of the relative competitiveness of the district events are lessened to a degree.

So, seeing 20% difference between lists is fine? So, in NE that'd be 12 teams that probably deserve to be at DCMP that wouldn't make it because other teams competed at weaker events and earned more points.

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

So, seeing 20% difference between lists is fine? So, in NE that'd be 12 teams that probably deserve to be at DCMP that wouldn't make it because other teams competed at weaker events and earned more points.

So Andrew, I see your point that having two isolated groups within a district has an effect on whether the best teams make it to the DCMP. My question is, if you were in charge of a New York District involving the whole state, how would you propose accounting for this?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by PVCpirate

So Andrew, I see your point that having two isolated groups within a district has an effect on whether the best teams make it to the DCMP. My question is, if you were in charge of a New York District involving the whole state, how would you propose accounting for this?

Hadn't thought of how to fix it. NE is less of an issue, there seems to be a fair bit of intermingling and I know FIM has similar intermingling. Fairly certain MAR is decent too. PNW/IN I haven't looked at in enough detail.

The obvious would be apply a correction fact to points earned at a district. How to compute that? Idk, I've been poking around with the Simple Rating System that's fairly popular in the NFL. That might be a solution. The other option would be give an incentive to attend events with more diversity. However, both of these are nonstarters for various reasons. (SRS is more difficult than a numeric sort, and incentivizing other events is nonstarter for political reasons)