Georgia District Location Speculation

[Ginger Bread]

Since the announcement of Georgia switching to the districts format, my team's electrical captain and I have been trying to figure out how this thing works, but we are wondering where the 4 district events will be located. Any Ideas?

We think that there will be 1 in Macon, 1 in Atlanta, 1 near Columbus, and 1 either in Savannah or in North GA.

[kristinweiss]

From what I heard the district events are going to be held at KSU, Mercer, Albany Tech, and possibly Northwest Georgia Technical College and Georgia Tech, with the District Championship at UGA.

[Ginger Bread]

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

From what I heard the district events are going to be held at KSU, Mercer, Albany Tech, and possibly Northwest Georgia Technical College and Georgia Tech, with the District Championship at UGA.

I wouldn't have thought for all of them to be at colleges/universities but that sounds good to me.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

From what I heard the district events are going to be held at KSU, Mercer, Albany Tech, and possibly Northwest Georgia Technical College and Georgia Tech, with the District Championship at UGA.

I'm not a huge fan of this. District events should be centered around team population areas. It makes sense for there to be multiple in the metro atlanta area. I'm not sure there are any teams near Northwest Georgia Technical College or Mercer. I think an event in Columbus, KSU, a larger high school near Suwanee, GT, and maybe in Macon makes sense. District Champs at UGA seems fine, but I'd definitely prefer it to be held at an engineering school

[Ginger Bread]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I'm not a huge fan of this. District events should be centered around team population areas. It makes sense for there to be multiple in the metro atlanta area. I'm not sure there are any teams near Northwest Georgia Technical College or Mercer. I think an event in Columbus, KSU, a larger high school near Suwanee, GT, and maybe in Macon makes sense. District Champs at UGA seems fine, but I'd definitely prefer it to be held at an engineering school

I think that there is one team in Rome where Northwest Georgia Technical College is, and my team (4941) is in Macon and Mercer is just downtown so if this is so that'd be very convenient for us.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I'm not a huge fan of this. District events should be centered around team population areas. It makes sense for there to be multiple in the metro atlanta area. I'm not sure there are any teams near Northwest Georgia Technical College or Mercer. I think an event in Columbus, KSU, a larger high school near Suwanee, GT, and maybe in Macon makes sense. District Champs at UGA seems fine, but I'd definitely prefer it to be held at an engineering school

District Champs will reportedly be at UGA (Athens Ga) which now offers engineering degrees. No word on rather or not they are going to remove the column from the center of their arch.

[kristinweiss]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I'm not a huge fan of this. District events should be centered around team population areas. It makes sense for there to be multiple in the metro atlanta area. I'm not sure there are any teams near Northwest Georgia Technical College or Mercer. I think an event in Columbus, KSU, a larger high school near Suwanee, GT, and maybe in Macon makes sense. District Champs at UGA seems fine, but I'd definitely prefer it to be held at an engineering school

I'd love to see a district event held at GT, although I highly doubt that it will happen considering we don't really have anywhere to host it. As for the district champs being held at u[sic]ga, my understanding is that it is being hosted by the college of engineering.

[DonShaw]

GT does not need to showcase themselves as they get the cream of the crop of students and UGA needs to showcase themselves to get students in their Engineering program.

I bet KSU, Albany Coliseum (X-bots venue) and Mercer for districts and UGA for State.

If this happens a majority of teams will need to greatly increase their travel expenses.

State will make 99% of the teams travel. If the prediction for locations above happens many more teams will have to travel to go to two district events.

Still waiting to see more out of GAFIRST on details. They must still be in the planning/negotiation stages.

[kristinweiss]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

If this happens a majority of teams will need to greatly increase their travel expenses.

Not necessarily. With districts spread out all over the state, most teams will probably have a "home" event and an "away" event meaning they will really only have to travel to one additional event. Most "successful" teams in Georgia already do this when they go to a second regional, so if anything, it will probably be cheaper for many teams.

As for traveling to the state event, I agree that it is not an ideal location (I go to GT so trust me that I wasn't thrilled when I heard the news), but they did step up and are willing to host the district champs, and I think that most people would prefer to travel a little bit farther then compete at GWCC again.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

Not necessarily. With districts spread out all over the state, most teams will probably have a "home" event and an "away" event meaning they will really only have to travel to one additional event. Most "successful" teams in Georgia already do this when they go to a second regional, so if anything, it will probably be cheaper for many teams.

As long as they host the events around concentrated areas of teams. I'm not sure there are more than a couple of teams in Albany. I feel that having 2 of the 4 district events in the Metro Atlanta area would be better just because of the team density. In the early stages of the Michigan system, most of the district events were around the Metro Detroit area.

As for traveling to the state event, I agree that it is not an ideal location (I go to GT so trust me that I wasn't thrilled when I heard the news), but they did step up and are willing to host the district champs, and I think that most people would prefer to travel a little bit farther then compete at GWCC again

.

I'd rather compete at the GWCC again. It was a great venue in 2014. In 2015 they kind of screwed it up, but with less teams it should be great. I also don't see why we can't go back to the Gwinnett Center, now that states is going to have less teams. The Gwinnett Center was a great venue for less than 50 teams and many teams were able to commute there.

I'm also wondering why we have to be special about our events and can't just host them at the larger high schools (e.g. Walton, Kell). Everywhere else in districts hosts at high schools or community centers. I'd imagine renting out a university facility costs a lot more.

[kristinweiss]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I'm also wondering why we have to be special about our events and can't just host them at the larger high schools (e.g. Walton, Kell).

I know that many of the "larger high schools" are not as supportive of robotics as you may think which is why so many "high school teams" are not actually affiliated with their schools. Also, most schools use their gyms during the school week and you can't ask schools to let several hundred students from around the state take over part of their school during the school day. Even if the event is only on the weekends, there is a large amount of setup and load in required which would would most likely cause a disruption to the school day.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

Also, most schools use their gyms during the school week and you can't ask schools to let several hundred students from around the state take over part of their school during the school day.

FiM does it - about 16 venues at HS last year, 2 at colleges.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

Also, most schools use their gyms during the school week and you can't ask schools to let several hundred students from around the state take over part of their school during the school day. Even if the event is only on the weekends, there is a large amount of setup and load in required which would would most likely cause a disruption to the school day.

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

FiM does it - about 16 venues at HS last year, 2 at colleges.

and 9/11 of the PNW District Events, 3/4 of the Indiana District Events (one of which is their District Championship), 7/8 of the MAR District Events, and 4/11 of the NEFIRST District Events are hosted at High Schools.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

State will make 99% of the teams travel.

That depends on how you define "travel". If we speculate that the State Championship (GACMP) is at GWCC, how is that different from attending Peachtree?

Originally Posted by NorthernTaco

you can't ask schools to let several hundred students from around the state take over part of their school during the school day.

Oh, sure you can! They might say no, but asking is free.

MOST district events are Friday load-in/inspection/practice (starting at 4 pm), Saturday & Sunday competition. School boards love this, no missed school time. Mentors love this, no vacation days needed. Students have fun anyway. And those who attend church on Sunday can still do so - just early.

Georgia Teams, if you run an off-season event, you can run a District competition. And even if you don't (why not?) you can still do this. And, if you work the concession stand right, it can even be a major fund-raiser for you: 1000 people for breakfast & lunch - twice - means how much $$? Just raise your hand to the committee.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

MOST district events are Friday load-in/inspection/practice (starting at 4 pm), Saturday & Sunday competition. School boards love this, no missed school time.

Well, there is some missed school time for the gym(s) and maybe cafeteria of the host school on Friday, the field and pits have to be set up sometime.