[FRC Blog] New Districts, Frank Answers Fridays, and More!

[logank013]

Originally Posted by meg

I'm not sure what you mean by "close" travel. Based on what we've heard so far from NC FIRST, it's closer for us to go to Palmetto than 2 of the 3 locations she's planning for district events, and the third is about the same as Palmetto. There has been no comments so far about DCMP, but I'm not holding my breath. It could very easily go from 1 x "close" and 1x "Far" to 3 x "far".

I see what you're saying. Event placement is key. In Indiana, our district event placements were pretty well placed. We had 1 event in Indianapolis and 2 events that were about an hour north of Indianapolis with the CMPS in Indianapolis. I know that a few teams never stayed at a hotel all season. Now of course, Indiana is a small state and has many highways making travel easy. I think the hope for the district system is as more teams join the district, more events get added. I know as districts get populated, getting to two district events within drivable distance for each day becomes easier. So to start out, districts might seem bad but the whole point of disticts is to populate the area with FRC teams like in Michigan. From where Cyber Blue is in Indiana, 2 of the events were a 30 minute drive and 2 were 1.5 hours. Where a team like ElkLogics up in Elkhart Indiana, 2 events would have been 2.5 hours and 2 were 1.5 hours. I'm guessing that a lot of the district placement has to do with where most of the FRC teams are in the state. So as the whole state becomes populated with FRC teams, there should be more events causing hopefully, closer events to each team. Does that make sense? Hopefully it did Thanks for reading.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by logank013

I see what you're saying. Event placement is key. In Indiana, our district event placements were pretty well placed. We had 1 event in Indianapolis and 2 events that were about an hour north of Indianapolis with the CMPS in Indianapolis. I know that a few teams never stayed at a hotel all season. Now of course, Indiana is a small state and has many highways making travel easy. I think the hope for the district system is as more teams join the district, more events get added. I know as districts get populated, getting to two district events within drivable distance for each day becomes easier. So to start out, districts might seem bad but the whole point of disticts is to populate the area with FRC teams like in Michigan. From where Cyber Blue is in Indiana, 2 of the events were a 30 minute drive and 2 were 1.5 hours. Where a team like ElkLogics up in Elkhart Indiana, 2 events would have been 2.5 hours and 2 were 1.5 hours. I'm guessing that a lot of the district placement has to do with where most of the FRC teams are in the state. So as the whole state becomes populated with FRC teams, there should be more events causing hopefully, closer events to each team. Does that make sense? Hopefully it did Thanks for reading.

It's a long process. Indiana needs to see a ~20% growth in teams before we hit the mark where we need a 4th district event. Given our growth rate over the past few years, that's a huge jump. While districts do provide more incentive to start teams, it's not the only issue to overcome.

[logank013]

Definitely true. I'm thinking that in order to have 2 events really close to a team, that would need near tripling the teams in the district. That is the hope for down the line. That was what I was trying to explain for the SC District

[Munchskull]

I have to say that seeing three more regions move to a District model is promising. It has been my team's observation that here in PNW the quality of competition has risen alot since 2014 when districts were implemented in PNW. In addition to more competitive play I would say that the local FRC community has improved in quality. I certainly remember more of the Washington teams than I used to (but maybe that is becuase I have played with them more).

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

I have to say that seeing three more regions move to a District model is promising. It has been my team's observation that here in PNW the quality of competition has risen alot since 2014 when districts were implemented in PNW. In addition to more competitive play I would say that the local FRC community has improved in quality. I certainly remember more of the Washington teams than I used to (but maybe that is becuase I have played with them more).

How many teams did PNW have when it went to the district model?

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by marshall

How many teams did PNW have when it went to the district model?

I don't have exact numbers but I believe that it was around 140ish.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by marshall

How many teams did PNW have when it went to the district model?

As Long as TBA isint wrong, every team from 4900 on started in 2014, and looking at the PNW district 18 teams above 4900 have been in the district. If im not wrong there was 134 teams at the end of the 2013 season, or when the PNW model was implemented.

[Mark McLeod]

According to https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso

2013
WA=113, OR=43, Total=156

2015
WA=109, OR=43, Total=152