Ontario Moving to District Model in 2017

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by WelderManiac

We're quite concerned right now. It's a fifteen hour drive to send the robot down unless we were to ship it in a crate. Having to go to two events would be a logistical and budgetary nightmare for us. We're trying to go to the Northern Lights Regional next year instead of down to GTRE, like we did this year.

I'm also worried for team 4704 (Timmins), which I assume would have an even harder time raising the funds to do districts.

That is a down side of having illogical district boundaries. For the past two years BC teams have had to compete in Calgary, rather than in the PNW district event taking place about one hour's drive south of them in Washington state.

To add to the irony, Alaska is able to send teams to PNW district events, meaning that Vancouver teams are surrounded by a district they cannot (at present) join.

Nothing against the Calgary regional (both teams had a great time there), but it makes poor environmental and economic logic to drive over 12 hours to get to an event when you have events one hour and three hours drive from your school.

Knowing several key people involved in both Ontario and PNW, I have faith that over time they will be able to make districts work out really well for ALL the teams... not just the 95% of teams that currently see a huge benefit from the district model.

Congratulations to Ontario on going district. I've been volunteering in the PNW for a few years now, and while I'm blown away by the commitment of the key volunteers, it has been great for the teams that can take part in it.

Jason