FIRST Chesapeake Districts

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Georgia is also going to districts. Highly likely for 2016. Near certainty 2017. This is going to make it extremely difficult for our southeast friends that are not going to the district model to attend 2 events. It also means regional in SC & NC will be sort of land locked surrounded by districts.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

I believe I've heard that NC is in talks to go to districts in a similar fashion to Indiana.

NC is confirmed for an "Indiana style" small district system in 2016. I foresee expanding that district to include SC in the future. From the rumors I've heard, SC was approached early on to join, but resisted...this may or may not be true. GA could also expand, but I'm not close to any of the discussions there.

More toward the original topic - I am liking the thought of two Virginia district events within reasonable driving distance of Northern NC...giving us some potential options for inter-district 3rd events!

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

NC is confirmed for an "Indiana style" small district system in 2016. I foresee expanding that district to include SC in the future. From the rumors I've heard, SC was approached early on to join, but resisted...this may or may not be true. GA could also expand, but I'm not close to any of the discussions there.

More toward the original topic - I am liking the thought of two Virginia district events within reasonable driving distance of Northern NC...giving us some potential options for inter-district 3rd events!

You know what is also within reasonable driving distance to Northern NC?

:cough: Rumble in the Roads :cough:

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe

You know what is also within reasonable driving distance to Northern NC?

:cough: Rumble in the Roads :cough:

I would really love that...but right now, I'm living three hours away from my team, and from the event we host, and after doing THOR I'm exhausted! Too much weekend commuting!

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

I would really love that...but right now, I'm living three hours away from my team, and from the event we host, and after doing THOR I'm exhausted! Too much weekend commuting!

Pssshhhh that is totally a valid reason. 3 hours? Dear lord.

[GaryVoshol]

"Build it and they will come." FiM found this to be true when they created a district event in Traverse City (one of the original district locations). There was growth in teams in the northern Lower Peninsula and in the Upper Peninsula at that time.

Later it turned to, "Since they came, we will build it." There finally is an event in the UP at Escanaba.

Far-flung areas have travel costs - and always have had. But Districts can lessen those costs for teams, because travel may be a shorter distance.

And as was previously noted, a team can choose to attend just one event and thus keep costs the same.

[kjohnson]

If I remember correctly from a Hampton Roads district meeting with VirginiaFIRST staff, VCU was ruled out as host for the 2016 DCMP due to a scheduling conflict, not with the venue, but around the venue. The streets will be closed that Saturday morning for a race (5K or marathon of some kind) and teams would be unable to get to the venue.

For those discussing costs, I worked this spreadsheet up a few months ago. It is estimating registration, travel, and food costs for our small team that typically travels with 15 or less students/mentors total. A few assumptions include event locations, Saturday/Sunday district events, and my knowledge of our costs such as sharing of buses and number of hotel rooms and meals required.

TL;DR: Costs for our small team are approximately $7,800 less for a two district system versus a two regional system. Other teams will of course have varying costs.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

The concentration of 5 events (including the champs) in one small geographic location concerns me. Those teams could attend all their events and not have to travel.

Here is how I see a typical non-NOVA/DC/MD team trying to deal with the districts.
--1 event will be local (not sure if this will be true. They have not confirmed that geography will be a factor in adding teams to events)

--1 event will be a non-local event more than 2 hours away. travel will be required.

-- Champs. will require travel.

-- Worlds. Will require travel.

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

"Build it and they will come." FiM found this to be true when they created a district event in Traverse City (one of the original district locations). There was growth in teams in the northern Lower Peninsula and in the Upper Peninsula at that time.

Later it turned to, "Since they came, we will build it." There finally is an event in the UP at Escanaba.

Far-flung areas have travel costs - and always have had. But Districts can lessen those costs for teams, because travel may be a shorter distance.

And as was previously noted, a team can choose to attend just one event and thus keep costs the same.

From my impression/experience in New England with districts, I think it's better to have the events shifted slightly towards favoring the 'rural' or 'low-density' teams compared to what the 'FRC population density' might indicate.

The teams in high-density areas should all be able to attend one event very close to them (<20-40min travel)... they will then need to travel some amount to get to the second event (30-80min).

The teams in low-density areas should be able to attend one event fairly close to them (20-60min travel). They will then need to travel to get to their second event (45-120min).

Teams in high-density areas are accustomed to needing to drive further to get places; teams in low-density areas are accustomed to shorter distances. BUT low-density areas will need events brought to them in order to start to flourish at all... See Gary's 'If you build it, they will come' quote. As examples from New England, especially note what has happened to Maine since 2012/2013. UMass Dartmouth will hopefully be the beginning of something similar in SE Mass. I hope that NEFIRST and local teams can get something similar happening in VT and Central/Northern NH. Generally to fill up these 'outpost' events, higher-resources teams (perhaps from high-density areas) will need to travel further to them for their 2nd or 3rd plays. Even if official direction hasn't been given, high-resource teams will help fill them up...

The DCMP should approximately follow the population center. The teams that are good enough to qualify for the DCMP will generally be able to make things work to get there (particularly if the region makes an effort to help them and be understanding).

Note, district event or DCMP locations may seem weird at first, but wait a year or two for the district to get its feet underneath itself. Be the change!

[Lil' Lavery]

What Nathan suggested appears to be what the Cheapeake District has done with their tentative district placement. They have events tentatively placed in southeast and southwest Virginia, despite a lower proportion of teams in those areas. There are still a couple corners of Virginia where teams will have to travel, but getting an event near the Tennessee/Kentucky borders would be unrealistic and unnecessary.

The DCMP is near the population center of the district.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

The teams in low-density areas should be able to attend one event fairly close to them (20-60min travel). They will then need to travel to get to their second event (45-120min).

Well, not quite. Houghton still is 3 hours from their nearest event at Escanaba. Then it's 7 hours (in good weather) to the next closest at Traverse City. (Michigan is a BIG state. It's farther from Detroit to Houghton than it is from Detroit to Baltimore, MD.)

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Well, not quite. Houghton still is 3 hours from their nearest event at Escanaba. Then it's 7 hours (in good weather) to the next closest at Traverse City. (Michigan is a BIG state. It's farther from Detroit to Houghton than it is from Detroit to Baltimore, MD.)

Yeah, unfortunately Michigan and the PNW (being broader geographical areas) have a harder time keeping districts close to teams...

Even in New England (which collectively is about 75% as large by area as Michigan, and obviously lacks the isolated effect of the UP) there are tough situations for teams... The most remote team in Vermont (2370 from Rutland) currently has to drive 2hr, 18min and 2hr, 35min to get to their two closest districts. The most remote team in Maine (5122 from Old Town) has to drive 1hr, 53min and 3hr, 8min to their two closest districts.

That obviously doesn't even include teams that don't even exist in the most remote large population centers (let alone more remote areas). A team in Caribou, ME would have to drive 4.5hr and 6hr to get to two districts... Teams in Burlington, VT (the center of the most populous region in VT) would have to travel 3hr to get to their first two districts.

Unfortunately, FRC still hasn't reached far enough into the rural areas of the country... Note though, that this gets better with districts (not worse!) because expensive, large Regionals aren't even feasible in a lot of the regions we can legitimately discuss hosting a district event.

[Mr V]

The unfortunate fact of moving to the district system is that it is not financially fair to all teams. The most remote teams, particularly those who have traditionally only attended one Regional will most likely have their budget impacted negatively. It is even worse if they move on to the DCMP and the fact is that their chances of doing so are pretty good.

For teams that have traditionally attended two Regionals, particularly those from the team dense areas their costs can go down if they don't move on to DCMP or stay about the same if they do.

Keep in mind that District events are two day events and they usually have a load-in inspection day preceding the actual event days. Because nothing other than inspection and maybe the driver's meeting happens the first evening you can get away with less than the full team attending. That means that you can get away with only 1 night of hotels for part of the team in some cases and 2 for some of the team, so the hotel budget per event should go down purely based on the number of nights. Also note that in general the hotels are less expensive in the outlying areas than in the larger cities where Regionals have been traditionally held. In some cases the cost has been half of what I paid for a room at the Regional I used to travel to.

So yes the cost of transportation will almost certainly go up but between the fewer days and often less expensive hotels the cost of accommodations is not necessarily going to go up for attending two district events that require travel vs one travel regional. However the likelihood is that a large percentage of teams will be able to attend one District event w/o having to travel.

The other factor is that depending on the events in your area the net time away from school or work will stay the same or go down, 2 District events vs 1 Regional. The typical Regional was Thur-Sat meaning two missed days while District events are Fri-Sat or some times Sat-Sun meaning a total of 2 missed days or less.

Overall however the benefit of the District system is huge. Teams that have traditionally only been able to attend a single event now get to answer that question of "if we make these changes how will it perform" or they will finally be prompted to say "what can we do to improve our performance" when they never sat down and had that conversation before. I call it getting the full engineering experience. In real engineering there is usually some sort of ongoing testing and refining until the product/solution if finalized. With FRC the real world testing is the event, yes practice and testing at your shop is beneficial but the fact is none of us really, truly knows how the game will play out overall until we get to an event. This impact is usually greater on those teams from the outlying areas because they typically do not have access to a practice field or teams that they can do at least some form of scrimmage with.

The other thing to consider is that far more teams have a chance to move on to a higher level. I've seen many cases where a community, particularly those outlying areas, have really rallied behind a team when they come to the community and say "we've qualified for the next level". I've heard of teams raising most of the cost of the DCMP entry fee in one night and on very short notice in a very small school in a very small town. Hopefully that is something that will have a lasting impact on the community and the team's finances.

Tl/DR: Yes the financial impact can hit the teams from outlying areas harder but the teams from the outlying areas typically see a greater benefit from the district system.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Mr V

The unfortunate fact of moving to the district system is that it is not financially fair to all teams.

The regional system isn't fair either.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Well, not quite. Houghton still is 3 hours from their nearest event at Escanaba. Then it's 7 hours (in good weather) to the next closest at Traverse City. (Michigan is a BIG state. It's farther from Detroit to Houghton than it is from Detroit to Baltimore, MD.)

And for Calumet (2586), add like another 20 minutes.

[bearbot]

Cant wait for Chesapeake District events going to miss the team that come from overseas.

[ehfeinberg]

I just thought I would post the slide in the presentation showing the driving distance to the district championship overlayed with the 2015 team map.

http://i.imgur.com/BteVQoa.jpg?1

Each ring is apparently 1 hour out from the district championship at UMD.