California Districts

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

There would be a NorCal/SoCal district split for California to go to a district system. The details of the split has been announced already by regional director Jim Beck at the CalGames offseason competition in the fall of 2014.

Really? I was there and I don't remember hearing this. He did also say that we'd have districts in 2016 and that seems unlikely, and usually before an area goes to districts they get some input from various different mentors, volunteers, and active members which I don't believe they have as of yet. Also, they probably would have been talking to prospective venues by now and I don't believe that has happened yet either. (If somebody has more information, feel free to correct me on this).

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

There would be a NorCal/SoCal district split for California to go to a district system. The details of the split has been announced already by regional director Jim Beck at the CalGames offseason competition in the fall of 2014.

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

Really... (If somebody has more information, feel free to correct me on this).

Several conversations I have had this year about the Districts in California all point the same way:

Not going to happen in 2016, though that was the original goal.
NCal/SCal Championships held separately. No "official" State Champion, though an unofficial head to head may be held after Worlds, just for bragging rights

The rumor I heard is what would have been the Silicon Valley Regional would become the NCAL CMP, and San Diego would be the SCAL CMP.

Again, none of this is official, it is just what I have gathered in conversations this year.

[steelerborn]

How about a Central Valley District Championship

Originally Posted by steelerborn

How about a Central Valley District Championship

You're more than welcome to attend it. Madtown Throwdown happens every year in early November.

[steelerborn]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

You're more than welcome to attend it. Madtown Throwdown happens every year in early November.

Been there a couple times already, even the very first one.

I used to work at JBT FoodTech too, right down the street from the HS.

I was just saying that the Central Valley is right in the middle of California so fair traveling for both Northern and Southern teams. Might need a better location though, if only the Savemart center was available.

[Mr V]

The PNW did have one of the CA RDs come up see what an event looks like and check out our Fieldhouse the center of PNW FRC operations. So they are exploring what it would look like but 2016 sounds unlikely because things need to start happening now to have everything in place in time.

Personally with the number of teams I'd say that CA should really be two separate districts as trying to start up with that many would be a huge amount of work. Yes FiM has a similar amount of teams but the worked up to that level over a number of years.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Mr V

The PNW did have one of the CA RDs come up see what an event looks like and check out our Fieldhouse the center of PNW FRC operations. So they are exploring what it would look like but 2016 sounds unlikely because things need to start happening now to have everything in place in time.

Personally with the number of teams I'd say that CA should really be two separate districts as trying to start up with that many would be a huge amount of work. Yes FiM has a similar amount of teams but the worked up to that level over a number of years.

Not to mention FiM teams have a lot less traveling distance.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

Not to mention FiM teams have a lot less traveling distance.

I don't know about that. The team from Houghton had to travel over 500 miles to get to MSC in Grand Rapids. That's longer than the distance from San Diego to San Jose, for example.

[dcarr]

Comments from FIRST leadership during the town hall meeting definitely made it sound like Districts in CA are far from being finalized.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by dcarr

Comments from FIRST leadership during the town hall meeting definitely made it sound like Districts in CA are far from being finalized.

Between leadership changes, a growing number of teams, and less funds available to teams this year, I would imagine we're still quite a ways away.

[Rachel Lim]

Since I was curious about how it would look, I created a map with dots for all the FRC teams in California. Using the data from here, I used google fusion tables to create this map:

Each red dot represents a city with at least one team (I'm not sure how to force google not to stack dots), and each yellow arrow is a current regional location. You can see the map and data here: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/...OZ0v 9E73XKuU

Drawing a horizontal line slightly above Bakersfield (through Las Vegas or so) would split most teams fairly cleanly. In terms of current regionals, it would be Northern/Central California with CVR, Sacramento, and SVR and Southern California with Inland Empire, LA, Ventura, and San Diego.

In terms of location, having two separate districts seems to make more sense. It would mean that most, if not all teams would be able to drive to their district champs in a reasonable amount of time (my family has driven down to LA from the bay area in a day several times before, and although definitely doable, it's not much fun). It would, however, mean that the teams that you can see at district champs will be pretty much the same ones that you've seen at district events.

It would solve the issue of finding a place that could have a large event though. There are 238 teams in California, so each of the district champs would be about the size of a current regional, possibly smaller. There were 57 teams at SVR this year, and having two events that size would mean 47.9% qualify for district champs.

For the number of events, at 35 teams per events that would come out to 13-14 events. Putting 3 of the new ones in Northern California and 3-4 in Southern California seems to be the most logical solution. (Note: I couldn't find an easy way to figure out how many teams would be in each area so I guessed) I have no idea about venues that would be willing to hold events though.

I'd guess that the current setback would be finding the volunteer base followed by getting venues. I am hoping they find a way to solve this soon...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Rachel Lim

I'd guess that the current setback would be finding the volunteer base followed by getting venues. I am hoping they find a way to solve this soon...

I might go the other way, but those are the top two, I think. It's hard to find a location in CA that fits for a district/small regional without having to deal with "larger" (read: non-school) venues. I can't think of more than about half a dozen "near" L.A. (read: within a couple of hours) that would work for that, though I could probably come up with a few more if we were talking "offseason". BTW, most of the ones I can think of have hosted an event in the past.

And then you get the volunteers...I worked 3 events this year; I know some of the other volunteers worked at least that many. And the only reason I did a third was because I knew that event was short-handed. Many of the volunteers have been doing this since I was competing...

It's not an easy problem to solve, though, particularly for some key positions.