Current Districts Map. Who is next?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The point is, if two teams are underperforming because they don't have the manpower and are burning their mentors out it's bad. If the teams are close together it might offset the increased logistical issues to merge them.

Are you merely forgetting about the option for nearby teams to collaborate without actually merging, or did you consider and reject that possibility?

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

A failed team reinforces "STEM is too hard" that we're trying to fight.

You might be trying to fight the phrase "STEM is too hard", but I don't think I've ever heard anyone else give that as a motivation. To the contrary, FIRST is explicitly advertised as "the hardest fun you'll ever have."

I also don't think a team that "fails" is going to make people think that the problem is how difficult STEM is. I only have more than cursory knowledge of a few lapsed teams, but the overwhelming reasons for their "failure" as a team were a lack of funds or mentoring, not a lack of easy tasks.