How do I help my area move to districts?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Re:Tanis see above...
Bryan,
I looked at your list and thought immediately as to what MN actually needs. So if we think about needing to satisfy 208 teams with at least two events plus a district championship, and figuring on 30 teams/district event...
That would require 14 events. Over a six week season, that would be more than 2 events each weekend plus the Champs at the end of the season. Thinking about growth and including Dakota teams, let's bump that to 16 events. So that means MN First has to find a lot of venues/high schools and cover maybe 300 volunteer positions each week. The numbers start to get staggering don't they?
I am not on the MN RCP, I am just brainstorming what it will take because Brian's post started me down this exercise. So going into something I am more familiar with, we would need 15 inspectors on average per week including three LRIs. We certainly cannot ask people to work every week but say they can commit to two events, that makes a need for about 45 inspectors including 9 LRIs. Then there is the need to provide meals. 300 people needing just four meals per weekend (It is actually more than that) adds up to 7600 meals including the Champs. Throw a number at that ($10/plate but likely more) and you get $76,000 just for meals. Add to that venue costs, cleanup, fields, scales, and a need for 900 volunteers, etc. I think people can see this is something that can't be accomplished overnight.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I am making a stand alone post here because I do want to emphasize this statement.

Maturity does not go hand in hand with age. I have had many FIRST Alumni working as Inspectors. I depend on those people to help fill needs at all events including the Championship. I hope that those who have worked with me know how I cherish their involvement. However, inspections are a very difficult volunteer position, as is reffing and judging. (I think tech judging for FLL is harder than FRC inspections) They are hard because of the skills needed and the unique ability to work with students and mentors. These positions are the front line of FIRST events. You want the best possible candidates for these positions because your whole season is on the line. Volunteer Coordinators choose these positions carefully because of the impact on teams. I have team members shadow me at events all the time. The universal response is "I can't keep up with you and I could never do this." Well the truth is many of them can and do. However, for me (parent speaking) family, school, and career are more important that anything else including volunteering at a FIRST event. I would rather you get those parts of your life in order than to work for me as an inspector. You will have more fun and I know you will be a much better inspector.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by CalTran

...the way that the document is written comes across to a younger audience as command laden and aggressive. Granted, college students take most things as "aggressive", but that's a different topic

Maybe we should bring that topic to the front. It seems to me that the angry response of a group of people is based on that perception of aggressiveness. I admit to being completely unfamiliar with that group's context, so I have no way to understand their reaction beyond reading the words presented here. With only those words, I can see this situation as kind of a litmus test -- if you believe Minnesota is trying to push you away from volunteering based on what you read into them, your mindset might make you a poor choice for a Key Volunteer position. If I knew more about the reality of the situation (beyond a laundry list of second-hand comments from an anonymous poster), I might have a different impression of what's going on.

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

It is a very poorly worded document. I wonder if they even ran it past a couple of college aged students to see what they thought about it. You know, like beta-testing.

It looks like that's exactly what happened:

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

The document was emailed to me and another leader on Bison Robotics last year, I believe right around the time (possibly before) the presentation was given to GOFIRST. Feedback on the document was requested and provided,...

But then the original untested version got "leaked":

...and the document was shown to members of Bison Robotics by myself.

The same thing probably happened with the GOFIRST group. The difference is that people there seem to have thought it was an official directive from the MN FIRST leadership, instead of a draft intended for review and comment.

[Ginger Power]

I showed it to Bison Robotics after making the changes and getting it checked out. Nothing was leaked to my knowledge. I worked with the people who made the document because it was requested of me. I sincerely wish the conversation would shift from "offensive" words on a sheet of paper to the real issues. I highly doubt the members of GOFIRST represented here actually care about how that document is worded. They may have found the presentation off putting, but I doubt they really even care about that. I'd be willing to bet that their biggest concerns include being able to volunteer in a role of their choice, *and being able to talk about things freely online without repercussion.

Let's start talking about important issues, and get over the wording of a dead document.

To start things off, I reccomend reading Tanis' post. Brilliantly stated and a great response to the original question: "How do I help move my area to districts?". It was brilliant, but didn't cover everything. I'd love to see people continue to add information. Hopefully the RPC will take notice, and the community will be informed, and we can end this argument once and for all.

*Things that are in good taste, but potentially controversial

[pmallikarjun]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Maybe we should bring that topic to the front. It seems to me that the angry response of a group of people is based on that perception of aggressiveness. I admit to being completely unfamiliar with that group's context, so I have no way to understand their reaction beyond reading the words presented here. With only those words, I can see this situation as kind of a litmus test -- if you believe Minnesota is trying to push you away from volunteering based on what you read into them, your mindset might make you a poor choice for a Key Volunteer position. If I knew more about the reality of the situation (beyond a laundry list of second-hand comments from an anonymous poster), I might have a different impression of what's going on.

To re-iterate what Ryan said earlier, the document itself (all on its own) is not by itself off putting to the group. It was the presentation of the document (and the tone of the presentation) at a meeting not intended for that purpose.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

But then the original untested version got "leaked": ...
The same thing probably happened with the GOFIRST group. The difference is that people there seem to have thought it was an official directive from the MN FIRST leadership, instead of a draft intended for review and comment.

The document was never distributed to GOFIRST members by the group's leadership. The only members (FIRST alumni and non-FIRST alumni) who saw the document were given it directly by the speaker at the meeting or were leaders of the group who did not attend the meeting and were emailed a copy of the document. So, the document was never "leaked"

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

I highly doubt the members of GOFIRST represented here actually care about how that document is worded. They may have found the presentation off putting, but I doubt they really even care about that. I'd be willing to bet that their biggest concerns include being able to volunteer in a role of their choice, *and being able to talk about things freely online without repercussion.

*Things that are in good taste, but potentially controversial

YES. YES. YES. This. So much this. Thank you Ryan!! I would really like to have a conversation about how we can bring back the FIRST alumni who feel disillusioned about volunteering in MN and get them involved again. Not even in a key role, but just in a role that makes them feel that their knowledge of FIRST is being utilized and they are able to give back to the program that meant so much to them in high school.

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

Let's start talking about important issues, and get over the wording of a dead document.

To start things off, I reccomend reading Tanis' post. Brilliantly stated and a great response to the original question: "How do I help move my area to districts?". It was brilliant, but didn't cover everything. I'd love to see people continue to add information. Hopefully the RPC will take notice, and the community will be informed, and we can end this argument once and for all.

I agree. To add to this, it would also be great to talk about how college students can play some (maybe small) part in helping move an area to districts. It's true that college students cannot do all of the things Bryan listed on their own, but I think they would be willing to assist with many of them and participate on subcommittees designed for a specific task associated with moving an area to districts and helping an area succeed in districts.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Re:Tanis see above...
Bryan,
I looked at your list and thought immediately as to what MN actually needs. So if we think about needing to satisfy 208 teams with at least two events plus a district championship, and figuring on 30 teams/district event...
That would require 14 events. Over a six week season, that would be more than 2 events each weekend plus the Champs at the end of the season. Thinking about growth and including Dakota teams, let's bump that to 16 events. So that means MN First has to find a lot of venues/high schools and cover maybe 300 volunteer positions each week. The numbers start to get staggering don't they?
I am not on the MN RCP, I am just brainstorming what it will take because Brian's post started me down this exercise. So going into something I am more familiar with, we would need 15 inspectors on average per week including three LRIs. We certainly cannot ask people to work every week but say they can commit to two events, that makes a need for about 45 inspectors including 9 LRIs. Then there is the need to provide meals. 300 people needing just four meals per weekend (It is actually more than that) adds up to 7600 meals including the Champs. Throw a number at that ($10/plate but likely more) and you get $76,000 just for meals. Add to that venue costs, cleanup, fields, scales, and a need for 900 volunteers, etc. I think people can see this is something that can't be accomplished overnight.

You are certainly correct that becoming part of the district system is not something that can be done overnight, there is a lot of leg work that needs to be done to lay the foundation.

The sweet spot for district sizing is 36-40 teams based on our experience in the PNW. If MN was to get on this right away they could possibly pull it off in time to do 12 40 team events to provide enough capacity w/o the need for more than 2 events per week. Assuming of course that the venue scheduling can be worked out to make that happen, which is not an easy feat. It does need to be done the school year before the switch due to the fact that it can be difficult to connect with the right people during the summer and by the start of the school year they can already have many events on their schedule.

For inspectors at a district event I try to have 1 inspector for every 3 or 3.5 teams for the load-in and inspection night. That means 12 or 13 inspectors for that day. In the PNW our load in night (day 0) runs 5-9:30 and our goal, which we some times make is to have everyone inspected that night. The reality of course is that some teams have to make significant changes and we usually have a fair number of teams that need to be completed the morning of day 1. Knock on wood but we have always been able to have everyone ready for their 1st match. Because the demand drops off significantly many of those day 0 inspectors transition to other volunteer roles, CSA, Machine Shop, Que, Ref, Field reset are some of the other positions that they fill. Others go back to working with their team. A handful will return for the pre-finals inspections mid Day 2.

With that number of inspectors you have the ability to assign an inspector to a team that needs a lot of work and ensure that they keep moving forward with the deadline in place.

As far as the food for volunteers there are a number of advantages to being in the district which drops the costs significantly. I know for many of the venues we have used for Regionals in the PNW have strict contracts with one or a few catering companies that you are locked into using for any food in the venue. The venue contracts also usually disallow participants from bringing food into the venue.

That changes significantly when the event takes place in a HS or University. A number of the locations that we use have culinary programs. So they will cater the volunteer food and at a much more reasonable cost that the for profit companies. We have also found that many of the host teams are able to find someone in their community that donate some or all of the food, or at least offer it at a serious discount.

For the participants, usually the school's lunch room is open and teams are free to bring in their own food. Most will have their concession stands open and a few invited a food truck or two giving the participants and spectators a wider variety at a much lower cost.

In our first season in the district system it worked out that the direct out of pocket costs for the 10 district events was roughly equal to the cost of the DCMP which was a long time Regional location which was not the most expensive venue that had been used in our area.

Just to reiterate that, 10 yes 10 district events at a similar cost as a Regional at a moderately priced stadium. For most teams that also means 2 District events at a cost similar to the one Regional. For some teams it is less because they can stay at home for one event and only need 2 nights of accommodations vs 3 and the hotels near the suburban events are often much cheaper than the usual down town location of stadiums. Yes some teams see their costs go up because they do have to travel to both events and suddenly some of those traditionally "one and done" team have earned a spot at DCMP.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Mr V

You are certainly correct that becoming part of the district system is not something that can be done overnight, there is a lot of leg work that needs to be done to lay the foundation.

The sweet spot for district sizing is 36-40 teams based on our experience in the PNW. If MN was to get on this right away they could possibly pull it off in time to do 12 40 team events to provide enough capacity w/o the need for more than 2 events per week. Assuming of course that the venue scheduling can be worked out to make that happen, which is not an easy feat. It does need to be done the school year before the switch due to the fact that it can be difficult to connect with the right people during the summer and by the start of the school year they can already have many events on their schedule.

For inspectors at a district event I try to have 1 inspector for every 3 or 3.5 teams for the load-in and inspection night. That means 12 or 13 inspectors for that day. In the PNW our load in night (day 0) runs 5-9:30 and our goal, which we some times make is to have everyone inspected that night. The reality of course is that some teams have to make significant changes and we usually have a fair number of teams that need to be completed the morning of day 1. Knock on wood but we have always been able to have everyone ready for their 1st match. Because the demand drops off significantly many of those day 0 inspectors transition to other volunteer roles, CSA, Machine Shop, Que, Ref, Field reset are some of the other positions that they fill. Others go back to working with their team. A handful will return for the pre-finals inspections mid Day 2.

With that number of inspectors you have the ability to assign an inspector to a team that needs a lot of work and ensure that they keep moving forward with the deadline in place.

As far as the food for volunteers there are a number of advantages to being in the district which drops the costs significantly. I know for many of the venues we have used for Regionals in the PNW have strict contracts with one or a few catering companies that you are locked into using for any food in the venue. The venue contracts also usually disallow participants from bringing food into the venue.

That changes significantly when the event takes place in a HS or University. A number of the locations that we use have culinary programs. So they will cater the volunteer food and at a much more reasonable cost that the for profit companies. We have also found that many of the host teams are able to find someone in their community that donate some or all of the food, or at least offer it at a serious discount.

For the participants, usually the school's lunch room is open and teams are free to bring in their own food. Most will have their concession stands open and a few invited a food truck or two giving the participants and spectators a wider variety at a much lower cost.

In our first season in the district system it worked out that the direct out of pocket costs for the 10 district events was roughly equal to the cost of the DCMP which was a long time Regional location which was not the most expensive venue that had been used in our area.

Just to reiterate that, 10 yes 10 district events at a similar cost as a Regional at a moderately priced stadium. For most teams that also means 2 District events at a cost similar to the one Regional. For some teams it is less because they can stay at home for one event and only need 2 nights of accommodations vs 3 and the hotels near the suburban events are often much cheaper than the usual down town location of stadiums. Yes some teams see their costs go up because they do have to travel to both events and suddenly some of those traditionally "one and done" team have earned a spot at DCMP.

Could you share with us how you handle the movement of fields throughout the season? Do you rent a semi truck each week or do you have some means of transportation donated?

[gblake]

Originally Posted by pmallikarjun

...

The document was never distributed to GOFIRST members by the group's leadership. The only members (FIRST alumni and non-FIRST alumni) who saw the document were given it directly by the speaker at the meeting or were leaders of the group who did not attend the meeting and were emailed a copy of the document. So, the document was never "leaked".
...

The leak Alan was referring to *might* have been the one that happened at the start of this thread. And, even if he wasn't referring to the start of this thread, I will.

Let's be 100% clear: Regardless of whether the document was or wasn't "leaked" before this thread began, it certainly is "leaked" now. It was used as an important point in message that started this thread.

If that was a misstep, someone should own it. If it wasn't a misstep, progress in some areas is going to be harder.

Blake

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by ehochstein

Could you share with us how you handle the movement of fields throughout the season? Do you rent a semi truck each week or do you have some means of transportation donated?

I won't speak for the PNW, but I know New England has a warehouse where they store fields during the offseason. During the season, they use PODS storage units to transport the field (one field fits in four PODS) between events. Also note that New England uses a full set of road cases and ships all the carpet to be used in a season in the PODS, which not every district does, and this increases the shipping requirements.

The PODS usually get dropped off at the venue school a few days before the event and sit in the parking lot until they get unpacked and set up. After the field gets torn down, the PODS get loaded, and the company takes them to the next venue.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by gblake

The leak Alan was referring to *might* have been the one that happened at the start of this thread. And, even if he wasn't referring to the start of this thread, I will.

Let's be 100% clear: Regardless of whether the document was or wasn't "leaked" before this thread began, it certainly is "leaked" now. It was used as an important point in message that started this thread.

If that was a misstep, someone should own it. If it wasn't a misstep, progress in some areas is going to be harder.

Blake

While this is not the topic of the thread, I feel the need to post and respectfully disagree with you on this one.

Based off of what I have read from Ryan, Prath and Nick, it seems this document was handed out into the public domain to FIRST students and non-FIRST students at a "Meet an Engineer" type meeting hosted for all students at their University. You can't "leak" a document in the public domain. As to why it wasn't posted here earlier and when it was, it was done from an anonymous account? I would like to point at a previous post of mine in this thread.

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

I won't speak for the PNW, but I know New England has a warehouse where they store fields during the offseason. During the season, they use PODS storage units to transport the field (one field fits in four PODS) between events. Also note that New England uses a full set of road cases and ships all the carpet to be used in a season in the PODS, which not every district does, and this increases the shipping requirements.

The PODS usually get dropped off at the venue school a few days before the event and sit in the parking lot until they get unpacked and set up. After the field gets torn down, the PODS get loaded, and the company takes them to the next venue.

That certainly is a unique way to do it that I hadn't thought of! I plan on doing a little research to see how much that costs, however do you know how much New England spends over an entire season on PODS?

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by ehochstein

Could you share with us how you handle the movement of fields throughout the season? Do you rent a semi truck each week or do you have some means of transportation donated?

We use a 53' semi trailer. For our first two seasons the use of a shipping container and trailer was donated via a parent of a student participant who works for a shipping company that just so happens to do a lot of their business shipping to AK, that means that during the winter they have lots and lots of containers and trailers that are unused. They also arranged to connect us with owner/operators to two said trailers which the PNW district payed for.

For some reason this year he was not able to make that happen so we went for plan B. Plan B was to rent traditional 53' trailers we were able to get a good deal because of an Alumni who now owns a company that does stage lighting and AV production and has connections and accounts that allow him to get a good price. I'm not sure if he arranged the truck or not this season.

Note we seem to be unique in using this approach. One of the reasons that we do it this way is that we own all the production equipment, we don't rent things like pipe and drape or sanctions and we do all of our own AV. So we manage to fill that 53' trailer to within a couple of feet from the end, and that is with many cases double stacked. The trailers come back to our Fieldhouse between events where they are partially unloaded to restock the consumables and occasionally do some repairs.

I know that some other areas use PODS. The PODS are delivered to the warehouse that accepts the shipments from FIRST where they are packed for the current season's game, then the company picks them up and transports them to the venues. I don't know what they do about consumables, whether they pack it all from the begining like FIRST does with their trucks, whether they are transported by volunteers, or if the PODS are returned to a central location for restock. PODS then stores the fields during the off-season.

The trailers work for us because we have the Fieldhouse where everything is stored in the off season and much of that equipment like floor coverings, pipe and drape, power cord protectors and AV is used for FLL and FTC events. The Fields are also used for off season events, they have been used for both the OR and WA Girl's Generation events, Comicon in Salt Lake, the AZ state CMP and Chezy Champs. So it is nice to have it all at our facility for the common carrier of the user's choice to pickup at our loading dock.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by ehochstein

That certainly is a unique way to do it that I hadn't thought of! I plan on doing a little research to see how much that costs, however do you know how much New England spends over an entire season on PODS?

I do not know what NE spends on PODS costs, unfortunately.

I would guess that using PODS is one of the more common shipping methods used by districts. I know MAR also stores their fields in PODS during the season (I don't know any more about their arrangements, though) and that the Chesapeake events probably use them as well (I've seen PODS in the parking lot which I assume is for the field, but I haven't set up one of their fields yet, so I can't say for sure).

It's a big advantage that loading/unloading PODS does not require a loading dock (something most high schools don't have) - you can just roll cases directly out of the POD and in the door to the school. For the PNW people in this thread - how are you dealing with not having loading docks at all your venues (or do you)?

Plus, the PODS moving trucks are super cool.

[iVanDuzer]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Maybe we should bring that topic to the front. It seems to me that the angry response of a group of people is based on that perception of aggressiveness. I admit to being completely unfamiliar with that group's context, so I have no way to understand their reaction beyond reading the words presented here. With only those words, I can see this situation as kind of a litmus test -- if you believe Minnesota is trying to push you away from volunteering based on what you read into them, your mindset might make you a poor choice for a Key Volunteer position. If I knew more about the reality of the situation (beyond a laundry list of second-hand comments from an anonymous poster), I might have a different impression of what's going on.

Marshall McLuhan famously said that "The medium is the message." Not that "the medium influences the message." He says that the way we present things changes what the message actually is, and by-and-large, he's right. As media creators, we ask ourselves all the time "what form should this take?" In some cases we're talking format (TV vs Billboard vs Newspaper vs Virus-laden Popup), but we're also talking tone, word choice, format, aesthetics.

FIRST is an organization that is chock-full of engineers. Engineers are often very, very good at talking to other engineers. That's the major strength of technical writing: hard to misunderstand clearly-written instructions with no extra fluff. However, they are also pretty good at putting feet in mouths (this is basically half of the drama I ever see on CD). Case study: Al's posts in this thread. We all know Al. We know he's the LRI. We know he's on a Hall of Fame team. We know he knows incredible, mature, inspiring students. But he was torn apart for a bit there because his post conveyed a message that he didn't want to convey (and he had to clarify his point in later posts).

The Minnesota doc just reeks of Engineer-speak to me. You can look at it, and say "it concisely conveys the information we want it to." And that's it. It really makes no attempt to draw the reader in, to provide information in a conversational way. You might think "well, that's not necessary," except half of the posts in this thread have shown that, yes, it is necessary. Because while it's all well and good to have a manual written in technical talk, volunteers are not robots. Volunteers are built around passion and relationships. You know what technical writing is rubbish at conveying? Passion.

A volunteer that wants to donate huge chunks of their time doesn't want to be treated like a cog in the machine. That's not how healthy FRC teams treat their students or mentors, and that shouldn't be the way RPCs (Minnesota, or any other) treat their volunteers. People like to be individually recognized. Look at the GuamFIRST copy: they have a joke about Lunacy! That's awesome! I actually chuckled to myself when I read that! That joke makes me feel connected to the author, and as a result, that makes me more interested in volunteering. I know from the get-go that this organization puts in an effort to include me, and that inclusion translates into feeling like those major volunteer roles with the prestige are actually within grasp. I feel like the organization is going to build me up.

The Minnesota copy sounds like a job ad. The GuamFIRST copy sounds like a non-profit organization looking for passionate people to help out. Which does its job more effectively? (heck, what is the job??? he effectiveness answer hinges on the job the document is trying to do.) Again, same information, slightly different approaches (so slightly that there's trouble in this very thread identifying them). Different meaning.

The Medium is the Message. We all know to be careful about what we write, but being wary of how we write something is often forgotten.

I know I'm sounding a little condescending here. However, this goes both ways. I like to think that I'm decent at inter-personal communications. But ask me to write a lab report, and I cannot do it. I haven't learned how to. That's why figures like Karthik are so cool - they are ideal communicators, able to effectively get their points across to anyone, regardless of their background.

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by Mr V

I know that some other areas use PODS. The PODS are delivered to the warehouse that accepts the shipments from FIRST where they are packed for the current season's game, then the company picks them up and transports them to the venues. I don't know what they do about consumables, whether they pack it all from the begining like FIRST does with their trucks, whether they are transported by volunteers, or if the PODS are returned to a central location for restock. PODS then stores the fields during the off-season.

In NE at least, we stock all consumables at the beginning of the season, labeled and allocated out to events, just as FIRST does on regional fields. (We also ship all carpets, something FIRST does not do). Since we have pretty much the full set of cases regional trucks have, (with a few cases being combined), we can do this. Once the PODS and fields leave the NE FIRST warehouse, they won't roll back through until after DCMP week 7.

While we try to not do consumable restocking, obviously things happen. In that case, we'll overnight extra materials, or have a volunteer/staff member bring them, depending on the situation.

We actually no longer use PODS for off-season storage. The fields stay in our warehouse, and off-seasons are responsible for arranging their own logistics to borrow fields.

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

I do not know what NE spends on PODS costs, unfortunately.
l[/url].

It costs more than trucking, I can say that. It's certainly not a cheaper alternative to trucks, and we're always evaluating whether the extra expense is worth it or not. As Phil mentioned, we mainly stick with PODS because it allows us to easily unload equipment at venues that don't have loading docks. Currently the majority of our venues fall into this situation.

If most of your venues have loading docks, then unless you can't find warehouse space, there is no reason to not use a truck. It's cheaper, and easier. Once you start dealing with lift gates and fork lifts, it's a different story.