NY Districts - POA

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

Just going to echo some problems that we might encounter when trying to organize a shift of New York to the district model.
1) Hosting district events in NYC would be hard.

On the other thread about NY districts, there was a lot of talk about how NYC has really large schools, citing Townsend Harris, Stuyvesant, and Brooklyn Tech as examples. As a student at Stuyvesant, I can testify that the population numbers are deceiving. Even though our school has over 3500 students, the building is 10 stories tall. Unlike large schools outside the city, our school is not really a suitable venue for a robotics competition. I have also talked to members of team 2601 from Townsend Harris who have said about the same. Brooklyn Tech is probably the largest school building in the city and might be able to host a district event but that would probably not be enough.

2) New York is the go-to regional for international teams

Due to a myriad of reasons, NYC regional has become a regional with a high international attendance. It's part of what makes the regional so special. While many people say that international teams could just get automatically invited to DCMP, this places them at a severe disadvantage to teams that have gotten practice at their district events. It would be an unpleasant experience for teams that are often already at a resource disadvantage.

3) DCMP would probably be in NYC.

This is a more controversial point, but the NYC regional is a large publicity, helping NYCFIRST pick up sponsors, as well as hold robot demonstrations for sponsors. NYC regional has lots of competition tours as well as special robot demos for the sponsors. Having a big show event in the city is pretty important. This issue is easier to work around, because it is possible to hold the district champs in NYC, however, staying in NYC can be really expensive, and a lot of the teams that are pushing to shift to districts, want DCMP to be held upstate. Obviously this isn't make or break, but it does take away from one of the primary incentives for the district model: saving money.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket but a lot of people on this thread seem to have their head in the clouds. These problems need to be addressed before NYC can shift to districts.

1. I agree schools like stuy and thhs can not host an event. THHS in particular has a gym that is way too small and no real place for pits. However, the schools hosting district events will probably not be the bigger schools and may be smaller ones in less populated areas of NYC. Francis Lewis comes to mind immediately. There are plenty of schools in Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island have room for events. Not to mention it would not be too hard for teams in the city to come to Long island Events as long as there is easy LIRR access.

2. The First International scene will continue to evolve. Eventually people like the ASL teams will have regionals in their home countries where they will compete. Once NY goes into districts (I have talked to some RD's now it is happening) they will have to either compete at another international competition (Israel, Australia, ect) or start their own. Countries like Brazil, China, and Turkey are probably not too far from stating their own regional (Although you would probably know more about China). Many of these teams already only do a single event so it is not too big of an issue. I do enjoy the international teams but we can not treat them as our responsibility.

3. DCMP would be cool in NYC. It very clearly has the infrastructure to allow it but, its expensive.

There are not too many obvious places to host an event other then the Javits center which is too expensive. Theres the Manhatten center which may be big enough, and of course places like MSG and Barclays both which probably will never happen. A long island DCMP however would not be too hard and would allow NYC to attend easier then a more centralized DCMP. The Nassau Colliseum comes to mind with it being vacant often now that the Islanders are gone. And, that would be a very cool place for a DCMP.

NYC definitely presents challenges but I do not think they are as big as challenges like finding more volunteers.