NY Districts - POA

[Jessi Kaestle]

Originally Posted by EmileH

Is it a possibility to continue to host one regional in the NY area alongside a district or possibly in NE/MAR alongside districts (since they are a bit more experienced) to allow for teams that want to travel into the US or from other US cities to compete near NY? Or is there a rule that disallows regional events in district-sanctioned regions?

As far as I am aware there is no hard-set rule against it but I don't think it is feasible. By having both a district model and a regional in the same area that means that you are relying on the same group of sponsors for two very expensive enterprises. If you then take into account that Teams in Districts have last dibs on Regionals then you have an event that has little to no "local" Teams.

If we start asking for sponsorship for a event that caters mostly to international and "visiting" teams, then I think we will lose out on a lot of sponsors for the Regional to the District. One of the selling points that is used to gain sponsors is that these students will be looking for work in 4-8 years and they would be good assets to invest in. If those "assets" are no longer local then is the desire to invest in them still alluring?

[Michael Sperber]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

Depending on the responses we get and what the current status is, it may be valuable to propose a conference call or some town hall meetings this summer so the decision-makers can update the community directly and maybe start some dialogue and receive some feedback.

Originally Posted by Libby K

FIRST Mid-Atlantic (MAR) did this while transitioning into districts, and continues to have update meetings at events throughout the year, in addition to their open Board meetings. It's done wonders for transparency and understanding. 10/10, very helpful.

I strongly encourage ANY area considering a District transition to openly communicate with all stakeholders (including sponsors, teams and volunteers). Town Hall meetings, conference calls, newsletters, emails, etc are all great ways. And don't just communicate once, keep the dialog on going throughout the transition.

As we made the transition in New England, we held a number of Town Hall meetings - some went smoothly, others did not... but we wanted to hear from our teams, and to share with them what we knew (and what we didn't), and what our plans were. Based on the feedback from these meetings, we made some changes to our plans.

And don't forget about the event sponsors. We spent a lot of time talking with our major corporate Regional event sponsors. This went a long way in ensuring they were there to support us during and after the transition to Districts.

[KrazyCarl92]

Originally Posted by Libby K

My question that came up, as I was typing this ... if the NY events are in Districts, where does that leave a lot of the international teams who have traditionally come to East Coast events?

Here's an excerpt from a white paper I published here about this topic. I really don't think the issue is as difficult to solve as many seem to think. We are problem solvers; let's work together to find solutions.

Marginal Impact on Stakeholders: International Teams

A total of 11 teams from outside North America were hosted by New York State Regionals in 2015: 9
at the New York City Regional and 2 at the SBPLI Long Island Regional. Teams from Canada
additionally competed in New York Regionals in 2015, but these teams have other competitions closer
to home where they can compete. The main focus in accommodating international teams in a District
Competition Model in New York State would be those teams without opportunities for local competitions who turn to New York competitions for their FRC experience.

Since 2009, teams from outside the District Competition Model have been unable to compete in events
hosted within the District Competition Model. It has been publicly noted that this was not the intent of
FIRST in Michigan, but rather a restriction imposed by FIRST for the implementation of the District
Competition Model. In 2015, FIRST began allowing teams from one district to compete in another
district for Inter-District play, although not for points. This allows a team from New England to compete
in a district event in the Mid-Atlantic or a team from Indiana to compete in a Michigan district in addition
to their 2 district events in their home district. However, as more and more regions transition to a District Competition Model within FRC, the current policy by FIRST will limit the options for international
teams aiming to compete in FRC.

This restriction is an artificial one imposed by FIRST. We can do better. The downstate New York
FRC events are a very attractive and generally reasonable destination for international teams who
compete in FRC, so we need not impose artificial barriers to participation. There are a few simple
solutions that come to mind for allowing international teams to compete in a prospective New York
State District Competition Model, while only requiring that these teams attend 1 competition in New
York before qualifying for the “World” Championship. One is reserving a certain portion of slots at the
District Championship for teams outside North America that would like to compete in New York. For
advancement to the “World” Championship, these teams could either start from 0 points and
accumulate points at a 5X multiplier or start from the minimum number of points required to qualify for
the District Championship and accumulate points at a 3X multiplier for the District Championship.
These teams would then be included in the rankings for teams in New York and qualify for the “World”
Championship by points in the same way that all other teams in the state qualify by points or awards.

An alternative would be to allow international teams to sign up for the district events in New York State,
and allow for their direct advancement to the “World” Championship by merit if the team is the Captain
or 1st selection of the winning alliance or wins the District Chairman’s Award. The Captain and 1st
selection of a winning alliance would be likely candidates to qualify by points anyway, and a recipient
of FIRST’s major Culture changing award is deserving of an opportunity to continue pursuing that
award at the highest level. Any teams that would qualify for the “World” Championship by these means
could still count against the District’s slot allocation, but also figure into the proportional calculation for
representation at the “World” Championship. These suggestions would each allow for international
teams to come compete once in New York with an opportunity to qualify for the ‘World” Championship
all the while without travelling to the states more than once beforehand.

[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.

[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.

[rpaulsen]

Hey Sam, thank you for bringing this topic up again. As a team administrator, the value add of the district model is certainly appealing. That being said, this has been a subject that I have kept tabs on for the last few years, and I do not expect NY to go District any time soon and am unsure if it even should. You are 100% correct that the hardest part of being a NY Metro team is the difficulty in participating in more than 1 event without travelling a great distance. While travel is not uncommon for many teams, it is particularly difficult in the NY Metro area as teams often struggle to find funding, and frankly it is impractical considering we have one of the densest concentrations of teams all of FIRST (something like 127 teams in a 35mi radius).

Honestly, at this point a 3 Regional event makes the most sense for the NY Metro area. Yes, it is unfortunate that this means that NY Metro teams will be spending $4000 more dollars to participate in two events than in a district model, but there extenuating circumstances that limit our ability to make that transition. KrazyCarl hits the nail on the head with one of Metro NY's most important considerations, we are one of the most popular regional events for international teams to attend. For example, we had the honor of hosting 12 international teams this year. This is an important opportunity for our students to interact with their peers from the world over, and it should be something that the NY Metro teams work to maintain.

Moving to a district model in the Metro NY area complicates this matter though there are a couple options. The simplest option in this situation would be to reserve a number of slots in the NY Metro Championship for international teams, though to my knowledge this is unprecedented and I think would create issues if not discontent among teams on the cusp of qualification.
A second idea could be to have a separate NY Metro district, while maintaining the NYC Regional. In this situation teams could choose to compete in either the standard NYC Regional at the Javits Center, the district events with a smaller district championship held separately from the Javits event, or both if they so choose. Oddly this actually becomes even more expensive, totalling a full $14000 for a team that participates in both the District, District Championship, and NYC Regional for a total of 4 events. I expect that in this situation, the NYC Regional would become more of a travel event, expanding its international and out-of-state participation. The Regional would probably lose some of its New Yorkness as lower funded NY Metro teams moved into the District. The problem here would be finding space, as there are few buildings with rooms large enough to host events. Furthermore, the district events would want to focus on spaces that have bleachers pre-installed, as their rental and assembly is one of the most onerous costs of an event.

Frankly, a third Regional Event would be the easiest option at this point, and preferably one north of the City. We are slowly building interest here in Westchester County, but to my knowledge there are no NY teams between Ossining and Hudson, NY, a distance of 85 miles. This means that there is only 1 team in the 9 counties between Albany and Westchester. Luckily, this as been taken into account with the work that is being done to bring a 3rd Regional event to the NY Metro Region. Yonkers, has just announced the first area offseason event, and Ossining and we here at New Rochelle have been talking with the RD's on more concrete ideas. As mentioned before, the Westchester County Center was considered, but recent research has shown that it cannot fit our needs.

[Sperkowsky]

You raise some good points however I should add Districts in NY is happening.

At this point its a matter of how soon. The regional directors are already working on it as First continues to push districts and cycle out of the regional system.

[Dominick Ferone]

A lot of these points were covered last year in the other New York Districts thread.

Champs on long island or the city would be more expensive than say an area just north of the city. Say poughkeepsie (im not sure if it has an actual venue that would work) as it is not far by Amtrak. Teams in the city can go home at night and its just far enough out of the city teams can get good rates on hotels.

The big thing hurting teams in downstate NY is they never really have to travel much for competition. Upstate has been used to traveling because before Tech Valley, to attend a second regional you had to head to Canada, Ohio, Pittsburgh.

With that being said it obviously would be in everyones benefit to have the least amount of travel possible. But some teams will get screwed over. I'm pretty sure 229 has come to terms with always having to travel.

Another problem as others have said is venue costs. As I noted with Champs maybe even some schools just outside the city can be used to host districts.
Cost and Volunteers is the biggest factor stopping NY from going to districts.

As it is currently SBPLI is having trouble still continuing. It's lost some big sponsors over the years and as i recently learned, they get a huge discount when it comes to running the event. It in one of the cheapest regionals in terms of set up and running costs.

[jblay]

My feeling has always been simple, I want districts for my team as soon as possible. The reason FIRST exists is for students to learn, if you play 8 matches a year, you aren't going to learn much and that unfortunately is the case for so many New York City teams.
For my team, we pay more than teams in districts for less matches even though we attend 2 regionals. Something about that feels wrong to me. The fact of the matter is that if tomorrow you told me that 694 was folded into MAR and that we had to take a 2-3 hour bus ride to our events, I would be ecstatic, because it would mean all the advantages of being in districts including unbag time, getting to attend 3 district events at a lower cost, getting to have a district championship, weekend events so that more students and mentors could attend, and much more that I am currently forgetting.
We don't even need to have that many events in NYC for districts to be worth it for our teams, 1 or 2 districts and teams have to travel a bit for the other ones they attend and they are already getting way more matches, way more experience, and way more learning.
As for the international teams, there are still plenty of regionals for them to attend, NYC just happens to do a good job getting them to come. If they did do a different event that is more inland the expense would probably be less because hotels in NYC are a nightmare and they would probably get a better experience from being exposed to fiercer competition.
I don't have all the answers, but I think the main issue is that not enough people want this yet. Once enough people want it, I think it will be easier to make happen.

[plnyyanks]

There's been a lot of talk about venues (one of the more difficult aspects), either for a new regional, district events, or a district CMP. I'm going to quote a few aspects from the Official Regional/District Planning Guides, as a set of minimum requirements (notwithstanding scheduling).

• The suggested venue cost is $10,000 (district planning guide, page 19), so this is the ballpark we're operating in. For a regional or district championship, the average is about $37,000 (regional planning guide, section 4, page 4)
• General space recommendations for a district event:
  

  Originally Posted by District Planning Guide, page 21

  Competition area: The designated playing area must be at least 80’ x 100’ with a ceiling height of 25’ minimum and un-obstructed viewing for an average of 50 spectators per team (so for a 36 team event, that's about 1,800 seats)
  Pit area: A space of approximately 100 sq. ft. per team is needed in the pit area, preferably in the form of a 10’ x 10’ square. Additional space is needed for aisles and pit administration/robot inspection facilities. Each team pit will require 110 VAC drop and a 72”x30” table. Access between the pit area and the playing field should be short, level, at least 6’ wide and preferably is not also utilized by spectators. The pit area should have direct street loading access (so for a 36 team event, that's at least 4,000-5,000 square feet for pits).
  Judges’ meeting room: The judges meeting room should encompass 500-750 sq. ft. and be within easy walking distance of the field
  Chairman’s Award interview area: approx. 300 sq.ft. for interviews. This area should be quiet and free from distractions
  Dean’s List interview area: approx.. 300 sq. ft. for interviews. This area should be quiet and free from distractions
  Volunteer dining area: The volunteer dining area should provide seating for 50 and space for food buffet service
  First aid area: The first aid area should be within convenient walking distance of the pit and competition field
  Machine shop: The inclusion of a machine shop is optional
  Parking: The site should have access to as much free parking as possible and plans should be made for overflow parking
  VIP lounge: If the District Leadership Entity decides to actively engage VIPs at district events, a VIP lounge with an unobstructed view of the field is recommended
  Media/Press Room: Optional

• Read the District Venue Selection Checklist for a brief overview of all the things required. For a Regional/DCMP, there are even more requirements.
• This doesn't even get into the logistics of planning district events and the manpower required. There's a nice flowchart on page 14 of the District Planning Guide that illustrates many of the positions that are involved.

Overall, these requirements can be pretty tough to meet, especially for high schools in NYC because it's not just the size of the school that matters, but also the physical layout of its space. And it's often difficult to find enough pit space that's an easy walk to the field, since many schools in the area don't have a second gym.

The most likely venues then are basketball/hockey arenas (for completeness, the parent category), and I'm willing to bet that even many of those don't fit the requirements.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

There's been a lot of talk about venues (one of the more difficult aspects), either for a new regional, district events, or a district CMP. I'm going to quote a few aspects from the Official Regional/District Planning Guides, as a set of minimum requirements (notwithstanding scheduling).

• The suggested venue cost is $10,000 (district planning guide, page 19), so this is the ballpark we're operating in. For a regional or district championship, the average is about $37,000 (regional planning guide, section 4, page 4)
• General space recommendations for a district event:
  
  
• Read the District Venue Selection Checklist for a brief overview of all the things required. For a Regional/DCMP, there are even more requirements.
• This doesn't even get into the logistics of planning district events and the manpower required. There's a nice flowchart on page 14 of the District Planning Guide that illustrates many of the positions that are involved.

Overall, these requirements can be pretty tough to meet, especially for high schools in NYC because it's not just the size of the school that matters, but also the physical layout of its space. And it's often difficult to find enough pit space that's an easy walk to the field, since many schools in the area don't have a second gym.

The most likely venues then are basketball/hockey arenas (for completeness, the parent category), and I'm willing to bet that even many of those don't fit the requirements.

Over this week I am going to go through every NYC team, find their High school and figure out if they have space. The scenario I feel as if we will see the most is the event in the gym with pits in the cafeteria but they have to on the same floor and decently close.

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Over this week I am going to go through every NYC team, find their High school and figure out if they have space. The scenario I feel as if we will see the most is the event in the gym with pits in the cafeteria but they have to on the same floor and decently close.

I think the point people are trying to make. This is only one step of the matter. But honestly this isn't the lead to take right now. Right now should be focused on trying to get more people wanting the district model. As it is volunteers can be hard to come by. Most rents have a lot of volunteers coming from teams but with districts it might need more volunteers. Tech valley and Flr share a lot of there volunteers, refs and judges. Adding more events would mean they have more tiring work to do. Not everyone would be available for every event

[bdaroz]

(Apologies for a bit of thread Necromancy)

Now that the season is over, I've posted an updated FRC team map for NY state teams:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Hg...PU&usp=sharing

Note: The map is 1 pin per location and for locations with multiple teams (eg "New York, NY") the label is prefaced with the number of teams in parenthesis. This is culled from the TBA data for 2016 events, so only "active" teams are listed. (I believe "active" in this case is registered, but if a team did not play despite being registered, they are listed... but I don't think it applies to any teams here.)

Some stats on this data:

• 150 Teams in NYS for 2016
• 53 of those are Upstate (North of Kingston)
• 97 Downstate (furthest northern team is 5943 Carmel)

Of the upstate teams:

• 21 are within 30mi of the Finger Lakes Regional
• 10 are within 30mi of the Tech Valley Regional
• Only 9 teams are beyond 30mi away from I-90/NYS Thruway. (Sorry Clarkson teams.)

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

The most confusing thing I take from this is why do we need more regionals? TVR and FLR are both already pretty small and we have enough teams to make IMO a perfect sized district. Creating more smaller regionals just sounds like a very expensive district.

I have never been part of this transition (and have never been to a district event), so this is just supposition, but it seems to me that even a small district requires at least as much volunteer time as three regionals.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I have no basis for this opinion but I'm going to state it anyway.

FTFY. Maybe let's let folks who have actually been to/run districts share their experiences and not post garbage?