pic: Districts in Minnesota Flyer

[SoMe_DuDe904]

Originally Posted by bduddy

What is with this sentiment here? Just because two people disagree is not a reason to close an entire topic. This is a discussion forum, people are having a discussion. Nothing has gone even close to flaming, etc.

I would agree, point and counter point is the basis of discussion.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

No one from Minnesota is arguing against the fact that districts offer teams more plays. 12 instead of 8 is quite the increase in overall plays. What teams sacrifice over regionals is the consistency between all events and the scale in which the event is put on. Having your season end after only one district event in some schools gymnasium compared to having gone to a full event with 60+ teams, I would rather choose the latter.
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Locations are not the issue. What others have mentioned, that you might be misconstruing as lack of locations, is the quality of the event. To go from Marrucci arena or the DECC to a high school gym while still having to pay a $5,000 entry fee kinda makes teams and event planners squirm.

All districts (including Minnesota if/when that happens) get two district events for the price of one regional.

I think this shows how important these discussions and grass-roots efforts are in making sure everyone (including key event volunteers) understands the basics of districts and are on the same page.

[northstardon]

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

NWe have more FIRST teams than varsity hockey teams in the state of hockey!

That might be true if you are counting all FIRST teams in Minnesota (FLL+FTC+FRC), but if you meant just the FRC teams then you'll need to be more specific....Minnesota's girls play varsity hockey too.

[SoMe_DuDe904]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

All districts (including Minnesota if/when that happens) get two district events for the price of one regional.

I think this shows how important these discussions and grass-roots efforts are in making sure everyone (including key event volunteers) understands the basics of districts and are on the same page.

Honest mistake.

So my team would get 2 gymnasiums for the price of 1 arena.

Then why are we comparing 12 matches to 8 matches? Shouldn't we be talking about 24 matches vs 8 matches? And my totals would be wrong for the events, we would need at least 13 (which is what someone said on the first page) not 11.

So while were still talking about how awesome playing a full district event is, my point on the key volunteers is still valid.

Edit: I edited my post to reflect what I learned today.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

All districts (including Minnesota if/when that happens) get two district events for the price of one regional.

I think this shows how important these discussions and grass-roots efforts are in making sure everyone (including key event volunteers) understands the basics of districts and are on the same page.

This.

Losing the flash of a regional is a reason I've heard being cited very often in the MN district discussion. As someone who grew up in the district system and has only attended two regional events (Crossroads 2014, 10k/North Star 2016), I don't feel like I've experienced enough of both sides to comment well on the differences. While I intellectually know some of the production differences between the two types of events, can someone with more experience with both comment on how different the two types of events "feel"?

I can also say, when talking to each team at both regionals this year, I specifically mentioned the smaller event size in high school gyms. This only seemed to concern 1-2 teams. In retrospect, I wish I had recorded the responses I got to add some interesting data into this discussion.

Currently Minnesota has 208 teams. 208 teams * 2 plays per team / 40 teams per event = 11 events as an absolute minimum, not counting growth or 3rd plays.

Yes, the 24 vs 8 match difference is highlighted in the cost per match chart on the flyer (which actually assumed 9 qualification matches for the regional not 8).

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Sean Schuff

Conversations regarding districts in Wisconsin have been going on for years among a variety of key stakeholders from both within and beyond our borders. There are benefits and drawbacks to both regional and district models and anyone can make a compelling argument for which side of the fence they fall on. Which is better will always remain a matter of opinion.

Beyond these details, there is a plan of action being implemented by the Wisconsin FIRST EAB to expand participation in FIRST programs in the state. Lessons have been learned from the rapid expansion in Minnesota and we are working on a system that will mitigate some of the issues associated with those types of growing pains. Districts have been and will continue to be part of the discussion.

The key stakeholders are the teams. They are the customer and all decisions affect them. So I would have to argue that Wisconsin has not been in discussions for a number of years with key stakeholders because the teams have not been notified of said discussions.

If any region is seriously considering moving to districts, and I believe all should, the teams need to be notified and kept abreast of the situation. And when those in charge feel road blocks or issues arise the teams need to know about them, especially if it is something as trivial as "need more volunteers". Each team has mentors on it from all different professional backgrounds and have knowledge and experience that needs to be taken advantage of to move FIRST into a better future.

I believe that this flyer is a great resource to do that. Does it have all the information from both sides? Of course not, no one would read it and it would be to jumbled a mess. But it does get the conversation started, and gets the word out about what districts can mean for low income teams. If it motivates people to contact their RPC and get more involved or start volunteering than this flyer and other like it are a huge success.

Semi secret meetings about the future of FIRST in regions benefits no one and especially those that you feel you are helping, the CUSTOMER.

[SoMe_DuDe904]

Originally Posted by northstardon

That might be true if you are counting all FIRST teams in Minnesota (FLL+FTC+FRC), but if you meant just the FRC teams then you'll need to be more specific....Minnesota's girls play varsity hockey too.

Well you have to standardize, if you used both that wouldn't be a fair comparison because FIRST robotics is co-ed sport.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Semi secret meetings about the future of FIRST in regions benefits no one and especially those that you feel you are helping, the CUSTOMER.

Back in 2012, lead mentors go this email from FIRST CA RD's

Hello FRC Team Leaders,

Welcome back to another school year and another season of FIRST Robotics. Jim Beck and I, along with the rest of the Regional Directors, had a very productive and informative meeting in June back at FIRST headquarters in Manchester. FIRST has completed a very comprehensive strategic plan which provides many new opportunities and challenges for us all. One of these, which has an effect on all of us, is the FRC competition model. As many of you know, Michigan has piloted a district competition model for the last few years as well as the Mid-Atlantic Region last year. This ‘District’ type model has proven effective and is one that FIRST would like to see more regions adopt moving forward, with the hopes that all areas meeting the qualifications will follow this model in the future.

California, which has the largest concentration of FIRST teams in the nation, is being considered by FIRST to adopt this model sooner than later. It is anticipated that we will present a California model to FIRST based closely on the current district model in the near future. That being said, there is no doubt that this is going to take a lot of effort on everyone’s part but it is certainly the hope that once adopted a California model will allow for more robot play ,with less travel and thus lowering the cost and improving the overall experience of FRC for California teams.

We know that there are and will be many questions as we consider this model and this is why we have asked FIRST headquarters to come out and present to all of the California teams. The presentation will be conducted by Roseann Stevens - VP of Field Operations, Steve Chism - SVP/CAO and Andrea Winegar - National Grants Program Manager and will cover what this model looks like, what next steps are and any questions you may have. In an effort to accommodate all the teams, we will be holding the same presentation in four cities throughout the state (San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego).

We are inviting up to three adult members from each California team to attend one of the four presentations. It will be up to you to determine which of the four locations will work best for you to attend. We would really like to see representation from each team so please make every effort to have at least one representative from your team attend one of the presentations. Below you will find the date, time and location for each presentation. Please click on the link below and fill out the quick form to let us know who will be attending from your team and which location you intend to attend we would greatly appreciate it for planning purposes.

Should you have any question please do not hesitate to contact Jim Beck in Northern California, [snip] or David Berggren in Southern California, [snip]. We are very excited about the future of FRC in California and the California FRC model, and look forward to seeing all of you at the presentations. Thank you.

I attended this meeting near Sacramento in October 2012.

Not a lot has happened since then (that I'm aware of), and even less has been communicated to teams regarding future plans.

No one has told me we need more volunteers, more venues, or more funding for anything on the horizon in CA FIRST's plans.

If CA switches, we'll host an event. I already offered to our RD's to host the Sac Regional in 2017 since we're leaving UC Davis (to expensive!), but haven't heard back. We hosted CCC 2015 at our school fairly easily this past fall. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to host an event.

Personally, I don't want to fight for districts in CA with RD's who might loose their jobs if/when we make the switch. I'll let someone else wade into that mire.

Until CA FIRST says "here's what we are planning, here's what we need, who can help?", I'll continue to put my time and energy towards helping people who are receptive to my input. 1678 and our 24 new FLL teams in Davis (soon to transition to Vex IQ!) is not a bad place to start.

The sad part is, I want districts for every other team in CA, not my own. We have all our competition fee's covered by one sponsor, so three events in NorCal for $13,000 isn't too bad for us. It's the rest of the teams we play with that suffer under this outdated system, where hundreds of thousands of dollars that should go to STEM get burned on Union A/V crews and expensive venues.

Wake up sheeple!

-Mike

[bduddy]

^ Was there no announcement about districts at SVR this year? I left early...

There have been vague announcements a couple times in the past. My joke was that this year was the 5th annual 2nd-to-last SVR ever.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by bduddy

^ Was there no announcement about districts at SVR this year? I left early...

There have been vague announcements a couple times in the past. My joke was that this year was the 5th annual 2nd-to-last SVR ever.

Not that I heard, nothing said during any of the major ceremonies, although I may be wrong.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by frcguy

Not that I heard, nothing said during any of the major ceremonies, although I may be wrong.

I didn't hear anything either.

I think Jim floated plans for a "state championship", "North vs. South" style at one of the 2015 offseason events. Was it at Chezy Champs?

Hard to remember these things when you get old!

Nothing about a potential state championship has been communicated to teams via email.

-Mike

[Drakxii]

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

Its not the volunteers, its the key volunteers. Head refs, Refs, FTAs, GAs, MCs, Scorers, ect. People that have to be trained prior to an event kicking off. Having done game announcing in Minnesota for 5 years, I will tell you that we are getting there, but we are not there yet. To my knowledge, we have 4 approved game announcers that if push came to shove, they could do an event solo. We have 2 in training. We have 3 MCs. We have 3-4 Head refs. We have 3 FTAs and 2 FTAAs. You can see my point. To do Minnesota correctly (using Michigan as the analog) we would need ~13 district events to service the 208 Minnesota teams (roughly half of what Michigan has). You would be asking these some of the Key volunteers to 4 or more events. Until that number can be dropped to something more reasonable (which we are working on) we cannot reliably do a district setup.

But hasn't the MNFIRST group(s) already been working on this for years? What difference is the next year or two going to make? MN has had 4 regionals every year since 2013 and based on your numbers some key volunteers still have to double up events. Unless the number of volunteers you trust for key positions doubles, next year, you may never be ready at this rate.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

No one from Minnesota is arguing against the fact that districts offer teams more plays. 24 instead of 8 is quite the increase in overall plays. What teams sacrifice over regionals is the consistency between all events and the scale in which the event is put on. Having your season end after two district events in school gymnasiums compared to having gone to a full event with 60+ teams, I would rather choose the latter.

If MN went to Districts this season, then they would have only needed 11 events assuming that all 11 events were capable of holding the maximum of 40 teams. Of course if not all of the events are capable of that then more may be needed. 208*2/40=10.4 Which is why I keep saying that it is best if it is done now. Making the leap in when there are more than 240 teams so that there will be a need for more than 2 events in a weekend seems like a very bad idea to me. In fact for the 1st season in the PNW we specifically choose to do a single week 1 event so that we could all learn together (and many key volunteers were doubled or tripled up) in hopes of making the rest of the events as smooth as possible. Event to event consistency is a top priority for the PNW District and I'm sure that it is for other current Districts as well. Personally I'd take 2 district events in HS gyms with only 8 matches and 40 teams per event over a single 64 team event with 12, 14 or even 16 matches if such a thing were possible.

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

Its not the volunteers, its the key volunteers. Head refs, Refs, FTAs, GAs, MCs, Scorers, ect. People that have to be trained prior to an event kicking off. Having done game announcing in Minnesota for 5 years, I will tell you that we are getting there, but we are not there yet. To my knowledge, we have 4 approved game announcers that if push came to shove, they could do an event solo. We have 2 in training. We have 3 MCs. We have 3-4 Head refs. We have 3 FTAs and 2 FTAAs. You can see my point. To do Minnesota correctly (using Michigan as the analog) we would need ~13 district events to service the 208 Minnesota teams (roughly half of what Michigan has). You would be asking these some of the Key volunteers to 4 or more events. Until that number can be dropped to something more reasonable (which we are working on) we cannot reliably do a district setup.

Yes I am guilty of lumping all volunteers together and there certainly are differences between the level of involvement and traning required for the different positions. A person could walk in off the street and work the check in desk with a 10 minute training while a FTA should have been a FTAA for a while and will have to go to HQ for the full training as well as attend the calls and keep up on the forum ect. However many of those people who for example are currently a ref, RI or FTAA may be ready and willing to move to the key position. Yes I agree that just because you fill one of those roles and are good at it does not mean that you would be good at the key role or that you may even want that key role. My point is that unless you ask for the volunteers they won't appear out of thin air. For the switch to the District System getting out ahead of the volunteer needs greatly increases the chances of success and minimizes the number of events a particular key volunteer needs to work. It could also provide more back ups in case someone can't make it for what ever reason. This is one area that I feel we in the PNW could have handled better. (Which is why I've been preaching that MN needs to start training people NOW). Do you think that there are not enough people willing and able to step up to make it happen?

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

Locations are not the issue. What others have mentioned, that you might be misconstruing as lack of locations, is the quality of the event. To go from Marrucci arena or the DECC to two high school gyms while still having to pay a $5,000 entry fee kinda makes teams and event planners squirm.

Regarding the venues count me in as one who before participating in the District system was very leery about loosing the flash of an event in a large commercial venue. It is very cool to walk into the seating area and see the field under lights as if it was a professional sporting event. After the first season I didn't miss it at all, though of course I have attended all of the DCMPs so I still see that there. To be honest it doesn't impress me as much as it once did, but that may be because of how long I've been doing it.

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

Forcing people into a decision that a majority of those involved do not support is bad news. You are correct in that FIRST would like Minnesota to move towards districts. You are wrong in assuming that FIRST has been putting on pressure. While I think the kids would love to see Woodie Flowers game announce at one of our district events, until we have enough Key volunteers with overlap Minnesota will not change. We have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. If I am scheduled for an event right now and I cant make it because of a family emergency, we have enough game announcers to cover my absence. If we were in districts right now, that might not be the case.

You are correct, but we are not resisting. To assume we are resisting FIRST like some sort of rebellious group is just pure ignorance.

That is not what I get from the people who have posted on CD and contacted me through other channels. From what I hear the leadership is planning on adding 2 or 3 more Regionals in the not so distant future. If you can't staff 25 days worth of events for a district system how can you staff 21 days worth of events that need more volunteers per event? Let alone the huge jump in cost.

To me the fact that they are reportedly considering adding more Regionals seems like pretty strong resistance.

Originally Posted by SoMe_DuDe904

Mr. V I dont know who you are but you seem to really like district events. What you have to keep in mind is Minnesota must be doing something right to have as many teams as we do. I would leave the planning to those who have really been crushing it in terms of growth. To go from 2 teams in 2006 to 208 teams in 2016 is nothing short of extraordinary. We have more FIRST teams than varsity hockey teams in the state of hockey!

RED = edit based on me learning something

If you look up to the left you will see that I am the FIRST Senior Mentor for Washington state. (which of course invokes me to say that everything that I post on CD is my own opinion and not the official word of FIRST) I have participated in FRC for 8 seasons now, 5 in the Regional System and 3 in the District System. 6 of those were on a strong, well funded team that did attend two events, iterated between events and managed to qualify for and attend CMP a number of times. The last two years have been on a team that started up last season who I'd say is in the middle of the road as far as funding. We made it to DCMP both seasons. Note in both instances we only qualified because of teams declining. In our rookie season we wouldn't have qualified if it were not for the rookie points bonus (10 the 1st season, 5 second season) and the fact that RAS is an 8pt award rather than the 5pts most awards earn.

Being a FSM does mean that I am supposed to be an advocate for teams and their experience, among other things. Because of this I spent a fair amount of time at the events in our first District season asking them about their feelings on making the switch. I can tell you that the students that I have talked to overwhelmingly prefer being in a District. The majority, but certainly not all of Mentors and Coaches that I talked to feel the same way. Of course it would have been impossible to talk to each and every participant so the information I have is based on a sample and does in no way represent everyone in the PNW's feelings on the switch.

Do not think for an instant that I do not believe that the people in charge of MN have not done a good job. The team growth speaks volumes about the work they have done and the dedication that such an endeavor requires.