Improving the District Experience

[Ben Martin]

Originally Posted by IKE

One phenomenon that doesn't get a lot of discussion is the community feeling that the district system creates. You see teams and people more often. More team members volunteer in some capacity, and get to know others by having lunch in volunteer lounge, or working through issues or just being in alliances together more often.

This sense of community engagement and friendships isn't only at the adult level, the students really get to know one another, and rival sport schools become "friends with robots".

...

In previous years, I talked with MAR and New England. Those areas are a little different (or at least were when I was discussing). I have heard that they have stronger State and/or local team allegiances, but it would be good to close the loop with them. Of note, both MAR and NE are heavily comprised of "old guard" FRC teams. Before probably 2005, and especially before 2000, FRC was not nearly as friendly a place as it is nowadays. Back in the day, teams used to cover their robot when they weren't working on it to ensure no one got a picture so they couldn't "copy" their successful ideas. I think this could be a factor in the culture or at least the observed culture. I should note that I may have been talking to them after their first year and did not do the follow up I have done with other regions. IE, they could be having super friendly everyone loves each other events now.

For MAR at least, the community feeling was a lot better this year than it has been in past years. I don't know what to attribute this to, but there is a heavy mix of 'new guard' teams achieving success in tandem with the 'old guard'. It could also be that this game doesn't force teams to be at odds with each other in qualification matches if the robots aren't complementary.

The camaraderie in districts is real, though. I know everybody a lot better than when I was in Indiana pre-district. Many of our students make great friends with other teams at the competitions.

[zachrobo1]

I'm not quite sure if the transition over to districts has negatively affected competitiveness as much as some other factors. Even pre-districts, Georgia teams have not been as competitive as their counterparts.

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

The camaraderie in districts is real, though. I know everybody a lot better than when I was in Indiana pre-district. Many of our students make great friends with other teams at the competitions.

I feel like this is a big part of the competitiveness problem for Georgia... There isn't much networking and collaboration between Georgia teams. I personally think that improvements in this will go a long way- and as said before, districts help in this regard.

In other words, I'm not quite sure that inter-district play is the best solution to the lack of depth.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

For MAR at least, the community feeling was a lot better this year than it has been in past years. I don't know what to attribute this to, but there is a heavy mix of 'new guard' teams achieving success in tandem with the 'old guard'. It could also be that this game doesn't force teams to be at odds with each other in qualification matches if the robots aren't complementary.

The camaraderie in districts is real, though. I know everybody a lot better than when I was in Indiana pre-district. Many of our students make great friends with other teams at the competitions.

I am very glad to hear that. For the record, I met a lot of very nice people from both of those regions, and I hope it doesn't come across as me "calling out" MAR and New England, but the discussions I had those years were distinctly different than those I had with Indiana and PNW folks.

[marshall]

So I talked with some folks about inter-district play and I can tell you all that what needs to happen is we need to get a proposal together and then we need to beat Frank over the head with it (not literally). Basically, it has to come from him. The local district executives all seem to have their hands tied to what Frank (read: FRC HQ) decides on this topic. What this means is that all of us here who want it need to work together to put in front of him.... and I think we can given that we've gotten him to respond about less important topics like free corndogs in the past.

[waialua359]

The best thing I can think of for improving the District experience, would be to allow outside teams to sign up for a district (if available after all teams in that district sign up) or inter-district play.
We would love the opportunity to participate in a district for a whole season.
NE, MAR, and/or FiM come to mind..

[Jscout11]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

For MAR at least, the community feeling was a lot better this year than it has been in past years. I don't know what to attribute this to, but there is a heavy mix of 'new guard' teams achieving success in tandem with the 'old guard'. It could also be that this game doesn't force teams to be at odds with each other in qualification matches if the robots aren't complementary.

The camaraderie in districts is real, though. I know everybody a lot better than when I was in Indiana pre-district. Many of our students make great friends with other teams at the competitions.

Agreed. Not just this year, I feel like the floor of competitiveness, at least by MAR Champs, has definitely risen each year, and there is a larger range of teams at the top. In 2012 when MAR started we had 341 and 25 clearly at the top, now while these teams are still at the top, there are a LOT of other teams right there with them.