Experience promoting districts in Minnesota

[MrRoboSteve]

The availability of event volunteers lags the growth of teams by a couple years. For teams with a few years of experience, all of their volunteer effort (correctly) goes into building the team itself.

When I started, our team had just enough resources to field a robot. We've now grown to the point where we have enough adults and students to offer some people to the event to help out.

If you look at the Duluth events, 2/3 of the teams are newer than ours. They're on the same journey.

I hope the tone of this thread remains civil. The other threads, containing personal attacks on key volunteers who individually spend hundreds of hours a year working both with their team and volunteering at events, could easily hurt our efforts to recruit more volunteers.

[EricLeifermann]

I keep reading and hearing volunteers are the issue, we don't have enough volunteers, we don't have enough volunteers with experience in the key postilions, volunteers volunteers volunteers.

Going to districts is going to be a growing pain no matter how large a region is. I have said this many times of late but Michigan required each team at each of their events to provide at least 2 volunteers for the 1st 2+ years. There goes your argument that we don't have enough volunteers. (40 teams * 2 is 80 people)....

Now the argument of not having enough people trained in key positions, that might be but none of the volunteers positions are so terribly difficult* (except probably FTA) that they can't be trained fairly fast (1 year, 2 max if not going to enough events)

Ask Gary Voshol how many of the district events he Head Reffed back in 2009 and 2010? It was pretty much all of them, and that is what will probably be needed to start. 1 or 2 people who are trained in each position being shadowed/shadowing** the people at each district making sure they are getting trained. In fact if a region had a date set for working towards districts say 2018 for example Minnesota had 4 regionals worth of time to train people this year and those same 4 (maybe more from rumors) next year. That's more than enough time to get the people you need trained trained.

* I am not trying to belittle the amazing efforts all volunteers, especially key volunteer positions give to do what they do. But Head Ref needs to have the rules memorized students and mentors do this every year, LRI needs to know the robot rules front and back, again students and mentors do this every year. Yes I know there is more to it that just knowing the rules, but you'd be surprised how much just knowing the rules and enforcing them properly affects a regional for the positive.

** With the shear number of repeat robot inspectors and repeat refs that I see year after year at the same events, if they are not being trained to take those key volunteer positions should the need arise that is a fault of those in those lead positions. The 7 P's people the 7 P's.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Aren Siekmeier

Yep I wasn't clear about that, we've taken this into account, I should have mentioned that 11/12 events is the minimum. The point was that 3 fields are a necessity. And of course 2 more events need more volunteers.

Hotel availability is an important factor I hadn't considered.

Who is "we"? And where did did you take it into account?

[Jon Stratis]

The difficult part of getting new key volunteers isn't getting them to read the rules. Speaking for inspections, it's very, very easy for someone to be a good inspector without being a good pick for LRI. I've seen it happen before. It goes well beyond technical and rules knowledge - my basic assumption is that any returning inspector has plenty of that. It's a question of how they work with teams, how they handle adverse situations, how they interface with their inspectors and other key volunteers at the event. I have experienced inspectors at my events that I love working with, but that I know wouldn't be a good fit for LRI. And that's fine. I also have experienced inspectors that have turned down the opportunity to become an LRI. It took me 4 years of effort to identify and train enough LRI's to make MN self sufficient.

You have to remember that a bad interaction with a key volunteer can ruin an entire event for an individual or team.

If you think just one more year is enough time to fix all the key volunteer needs for a transition like that, then I have to ask... How many key volunteers have you identified, asked to step up, and trained?

I also really chafe at being told that the existing key volunteers just need to step up for the first year or two of districts to get it going. That is my time you're volunteering. It's time I spend away from family, it's time I spend away from my other hobbies, It's time I spend away from many of my friends, it's time that comes directly from my vacation time at work. and it's not trivial time, either. You're talking probably 30 hours a week for 7 weeks in a row. I'm sorry, but I just can't afford to do that. My hat is truly off to people like Gary who have.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The difficult part of getting new key volunteers isn't getting them to read the rules.

Yes. This. There is a lot that goes into recruiting and training GREAT Key Volunteers. Some personalities are best fit for certain roles, and that takes time to figure out. Certainly in a crunch, anyone can fill in as a Scorekeeper for an event, but it would be draining on the FTA to have to babysit and train new Scorekeepers at every event they work.

It's been said a few times that the team experience is what matters the most. Key Volunteers can make or break a team experience. An overwhelmed Lead Queuer can lead to rushing teams along and stressing out drive teams, and other volunteers, leading to a bad team experience.

One other thing that I take into consideration when trying to recruit new Key Volunteers is the likelihood that a person will stay in our area for a while. When trying to build up a base of Key Volunteers, you don't want to hinder growth by training someone who may move to a new area in a couple years. It's for this reason why it's sometimes difficult to choose college students as Key Volunteers. Unless they have deep roots in the area, it's likely that they will move somewhere else once they graduate.

This doesn't mean that the lack of volunteers is an issue to STOP pursing Districts. Just that it's an obstacle, that is worth acknowledging. With time, this obstacle will be less of an issue, but it's not a simple problem to have.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Nemo

The biggest problem with the regional system is that so many teams only get to compete in one event. Iterating on the design after seeing it perform on the real field in a real competition is huge. I would argue that improving the robot after the first event is the highest impact engineering experience that FRC offers.

When people are pointing out some of the difficulties involved with creating more events, I hope they will avoid implying that districts can't be done. It can be done.

This a Bazillion times.

In my opinion way too many people who are in support of the District system focus way too much energy on the cost per match advantage of the District system and loosing sight of the biggest advantage and that is that ALL teams get the chance to play twice.

I'd be happy participating in the District system if only allowed for 10 or even 8 matches per event as long as the teams, ALL the teams got to go to 2 events.

As a Senior Mentor I spend a lot of time talking to the Rookie teams throughout the season. Back when we were doing Regionals in the area what I heard from many if not most of the coaches of Rookie teams how much they wished that they were able to go to a second event but couldn't either because of funding or the lack of available space at a somewhat local event. They constantly reported that the students had come up with a number of ideas that they thought would improve their robot's performance. Some may have tried to implement them in the off season but a second event would make upgrading the robot a big focus.

One of the big reasons that I am so vocal in getting more and more areas to make the transition to the district system is so that ALL teams get the advantage of 2 events. I also believe that if all areas have made the transition they we have a good shot at getting FIRST to agree to a greater amount of un-bag time. I envision something in the neighborhood of 15-20hrs of time out of the bag between a team's 1st and 2nd event and also adding time out of the bag before DCMP. It is the Regionals that still exist that stand in the way of making that happen because it would only increase the disadvantage that teams have that are stuck in the Regional system vs those that have the benefits of the District system. I'd still propose that for the first event that the un-bag time be limited to the existing 6 hrs or so.

So yeah I just said it those that cling to the Regional system are hampering giving teams outside of their area from getting a better chance at the full engineering experience of testing their product in the real world of a competition, then building upon the knowledge gained from that real world testing to improve their robot.

I also believe that a complete transition to the District system will encourage FIRST to make the long term goal of the portability of points a reality. A big reason behind the unified District points system was to allow that points portability.

There are certainly people who do more than imply that the transition to the District system would be near impossible and they are often vocal in stating the reasons why it just isn't possible "at this time".

[Al Skierkiewicz]

You know there are several threads talking about Minnesota District events and the more vocal people keep bringing up that volunteers are the issue that is preventing that from happening. They are also ignoring the other posts saying that there are many factors that need to be addressed for a move to districts and volunteers is only one.

1. Money is the biggest issue. Where to get it, how to distribute it, how to keep it coming. You need a 501c3 to get tax status and that takes a long time. You can't really handle money without it.
2. Venues are needed. It has been pointed out that to just handle the teams in MN, perhaps 14 venues plus a district championship is needed. That means 14 locations that have to have hotels, food, and a hardware store or big box (Lowes or Home Depot) within 30 minutes.
3. Infrastructure is needed, trucks, fields, spare parts, storage, etc. See #1 above.
4. You need to prepare the venue, set up the field, clean up the venue (bathrooms included), provide for parking.
5. You need insurance.
6. You need contracts for most of this and that kind of requires #1.
7. You need to continue running the current regional events until the move.
8. When you have all of this, then you have to find volunteers to staff the events. You have to feed them and help them find hotel if they are not with a team.

#8 is way down the list. So how about we stopping wasting electrons talking about volunteer needs when there are so many other issues that need to be in place first.

BTW, all of FIRST will go to districts/states/sub-states at some point, it is inevitable.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Ask Gary Voshol how many of the district events he Head Reffed back in 2009 and 2010? It was pretty much all of them, and that is what will probably be needed to start.

Well thank you for your support, but I am hardly the most active ref in FiM. Most years most of us are head ref at 2 events, and may ref at one or two more. A few do more. (When I was off work in 2010 I did more events.)

You want to see the crazies, look at the FTA's. They work almost every weekend.

Back in 2009 we only had 7 districts. 3 head refs did 2 each, and the 7th was covered by Andy Baker. Something similar in 2010, but we covered all 7 events with refs from Michigan.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The difficult part of getting new key volunteers isn't getting them to read the rules. Speaking for inspections, it's very, very easy for someone to be a good inspector without being a good pick for LRI. I've seen it happen before. It goes well beyond technical and rules knowledge - my basic assumption is that any returning inspector has plenty of that. It's a question of how they work with teams, how they handle adverse situations, how they interface with their inspectors and other key volunteers at the event. I have experienced inspectors at my events that I love working with, but that I know wouldn't be a good fit for LRI. And that's fine. I also have experienced inspectors that have turned down the opportunity to become an LRI. It took me 4 years of effort to identify and train enough LRI's to make MN self sufficient.

You have to remember that a bad interaction with a key volunteer can ruin an entire event for an individual or team.

If you think just one more year is enough time to fix all the key volunteer needs for a transition like that, then I have to ask... How many key volunteers have you identified, asked to step up, and trained?

Jon,

I agree with everything you have said here. Key volunteers can affect the team's opinion of the event and they need to be chosen carefully.

Some of the things you list are not only beneficial traits of key volunteers, but volunteers in general. I want inspectors to be able to make a good call without pulling the LRI over and I want them to be able to do it in a way that makes the team feel good, I know that won't happen 100%. Have you talked to the people that you feel would not make a good LRI about why you feel that way? Have you asked if they want to become an LRI?

I have rarely received feedback from volunteers about how I could improve in my key volunteer roles and I would hate to find out that they thought some of my actions weren't up to snuff and they didn't talk to me about it, even more if it prevented me from taking on a higher profile position. The most feedback I get is being placed in the position again at another event, which makes me believe I am doing well.

While this post is directed at Jon in a thread about districts in Minnesota, I encourage any key volunteers (or VCs) to provide feedback about how someone can improve their performance.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Have you talked to the people that you feel would not make a good LRI about why you feel that way? Have you asked if they want to become an LRI?

For the most part, it isn't about something specific they've done (when there is an issue like that, I address it with the volunteer face to face). It's more a question of personality and mannerisms - they just don't quite feel right for the role. I can't really provide a reason why.

We get plenty of returning inspectors each year, I'm not going to ask every one of them if they want to be an LRI, so long as I already have one or two in training. It's a different story if they ask to be trained as an LRI.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

For the most part, it isn't about something specific they've done (when there is an issue like that, I address it with the volunteer face to face). It's more a question of personality and mannerisms - they just don't quite feel right for the role. I can't really provide a reason why.

We get plenty of returning inspectors each year, I'm not going to ask every one of them if they want to be an LRI, so long as I already have one or two in training. It's a different story if they ask to be trained as an LRI.

Some may misconstrue that as, "If I don't like them, they won't become a LRI because I say so."

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

• You need a venue
• You need a full crew of volunteers and to feed them for a weekend.
• You need an A/V setup
• All the media the goes along with an event (webcast, website, social accounts, etc.)
• Find money/sponsorship to pay for all of the above

A few notes on this:

First, I'm not sure how other Districts run, but in Michigan most events are run out high schools and, as far as I am aware, have no "rental cost" to FiM or the event planing committee (maybe this was just our event, but I was pretty sure it had been a FiM prerequisite at one point). That cuts roughly $10k off the cost of each event right there. Obviously this requires enough High Schools with the necessary facilities and I'm not sure how MN compares to other states in this regard.

FiM largely solved the volunteer issue by requiring all teams to provide two volunteers for each event they participate in (though the volunteers do not necessarily have to go to the specific event the team does). Many key roles are still filled by a few "regulars" in the state who generally go to multiple events over the course of the competition season, but basically everything else is from the teams. It's certainly not perfect, and some events are sometimes a bit shorthanded, but all the events manage to get pulled off.

A simple solution to AV is to find a company that does AV productions for events and simply rent the expensive components of an AV system (projector, sound system, ect.) and supplement it with inexpensive video recording like the "GoPro on a Stick" method FiM has used for a number of years. When districts get more established it's possible to buy more of the expensive equipment to defray rental costs over the long term or to simply have a more elaborate AV presentation.

Media, while nice, and expected these days, is technically optional. There are still events that do not have live webcasts, an event website can consist of a well formatted google doc if done right (though it is a good idea to have event information on a website for the state organization), and social accounts are a nice feature to have but totally unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, money is still, obviously the biggest hurdle, but as I mentioned above, if you're not paying venue costs, your event costs can drop to closer to $15k - $8k (and generally get cheaper over time). Bigger corporate sponsors are of course good places too look (we've actually found that some local companies that were not interested in sponsoring local teams, were interested in sponsoring an event), but there's also a lot that can be done in terms of in-kind donations from smaller local sponsors for events.


[/2cents]

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

A few notes on this:

First, I'm not sure how other Districts run, but in Michigan most events are run out high schools and, as far as I am aware, have no "rental cost" to FiM or the event planing committee (maybe this was just our event, but I was pretty sure it had been a FiM prerequisite at one point). That cuts roughly $10k off the cost of each event right there. Obviously this requires enough High Schools with the necessary facilities and I'm not sure how MN compares to other states in this regard.

FiM largely solved the volunteer issue by requiring all teams to provide two volunteers for each event they participate in (though the volunteers do not necessarily have to go to the specific event the team does). Many key roles are still filled by a few "regulars" in the state who generally go to multiple events over the course of the competition season, but basically everything else is from the teams. It's certainly not perfect, and some events are sometimes a bit shorthanded, but all the events manage to get pulled off.

A simple solution to AV is to find a company that does AV productions for events and simply rent the expensive components of an AV system (projector, sound system, ect.) and supplement it with inexpensive video recording like the "GoPro on a Stick" method FiM has used for a number of years. When districts get more established it's possible to buy more of the expensive equipment to defray rental costs over the long term or to simply have a more elaborate AV presentation.

Media, while nice, and expected these days, is technically optional. There are still events that do not have live webcasts, an event website can consist of a well formatted google doc if done right (though it is a good idea to have event information on a website for the state organization), and social accounts are a nice feature to have but totally unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, money is still, obviously the biggest hurdle, but as I mentioned above, if you're not paying venue costs, your event costs can drop to closer to $15k - $8k (and generally get cheaper over time). Bigger corporate sponsors are of course good places too look (we've actually found that some local companies that were not interested in sponsoring local teams, were interested in sponsoring an event), but there's also a lot that can be done in terms of in-kind donations from smaller local sponsors for events.


[/2cents]

This might seem like a weird question, but when I think of available venues in Minnesota, I think of ice hockey... do school systems own hockey arenas in the state?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by ehochstein

Some may misconstrue that as, "If I don't like them, they won't become a LRI because I say so."

It has nothing to do with liking someone. And as I said in a part you didn't bother quoting, it's a completely different question if they express an interest in becoming an LRI. I have yet to deny anyone that opportunity to train.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Chris,
While there may be no direct cost for the venue (that may not be true of every venue), there are other costs that are not obvious to participants. By the by, there are more robot teams in Minnesota these days then boys hockey teams. Pretty cool for the state where the highest number of NHL players comes from in the US.