Ontario Moving to District Model in 2017

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Getting a slot via the wait list doesn't help if you cannot afford to go. The wait list caters to teams that don't otherwise qualify. It doesn't take into account funding specifically. The core pillars of First is to make sure the program is diverse and affordable. I wouldn't call it catering to the low resource teams, but implied in there finding a way to make it affordable.

I'm confused; are you responding to me within the context of the discussion or are you just pointing out something incredibly obvious for personal entertainment?

Is the Championship Event supposed to be catering to low-resource teams ie making it free or something? The idea that I was sorta playing off of Sean is that the waitlist can be used as a tool between the two postseason events for low resource teams to save up money and go to these events when they are prepared financially.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

You don't have to be argued whether or not they should be catered to because they are via the waitlist.

What does the wait list have to do with discussions of sustainable funding when it comes to district registration fees? The "catering to" comment was in regards to how Ontario structures its registration process.

[Kleiman]

I am quite surprised at the direction this discussion has gone.

I am not sure how it is valuable to mathematically determine the overall additional cost to "one-event teams" distributed over all participating teams to imply that I am taking a hit of a few hundred dollars.

I don't think I could have been more clear earlier with my numbers, but I will try one last time to reiterate and hopefully return to a meaningful discussion.

In the regional model it cost $5000 USD to play once and potentially qualify for worlds.

The Toronto District School Board saw the deep rooted value in this remarkable program and invested heavily in getting more teams to be able to participate. They agreed to pay the full $5000 USD (~$6400 CAD) registration fee for every team for a single annual event. Rookie grants from FIRST easily cover your first two years of operating costs (and it can be stretched if you are careful). The program has exploded. Huge numbers of new teams have joined including mine. My students lives were transformed as was my school community and we have connected with so many other schools and students in the FIRST community. The foreseeable future meant that I could participate in FIRST with an annual operating cost of ~$2000 and so could any school in the city. I do a lot more than just run a robotics club, but this seemed well worth it to me. Many other teams, I'm sure, would reach the same conclusion, and many more young people in Toronto could play. Who won from this arrangement? STEM and Education.

Now, it costs ~ $7500 CAD to go to 2 district events and ~$3000 to go to district champs. The TDSB cannot pay for all of that for every team. Instead, they have very generously offered $5000 CAD for districts and $1500 for district champs for every team (up to ~$6500 CAD like before).

Here is where the math is not at all complicated but many people seem to be misunderstanding me. This means that I now need to pay ~$2500 CAD to register for my 2 district events. That is an increase from $0 to $2500 CAD. That is more than double my previous operating cost. If I am in the top 60 teams in Ontario, I pay another $1500 CAD.

The previous model allowed more teams in Toronto to play with less money and less time commitment. I thought I had signed up for a program centered around spreading STEM education. Apparently it seems very obvious to the majority of posters here that the benefits of more rounds of play for better value, the opportunity to iterate between events, and cost savings for large scale competitive teams who already attend multiple events, outweighs the benefits of setting a lower bar for all to participate. The change from Regionals to Districts will provide lots of benefits. The main added cost is that it costs Toronto teams between $2500 - $4000 more just to play, and many more hours and/or people to supervise and plan. For non-Toronto teams, they too need to spend at least $1000 CAD more than in the past and either attend two events or quit after one regardless of your team's performance.

If you want to play more, iterate, or increase your odds of winning, then to me it is reasonable that you need to pay more for those added experiences. If you want to spread STEM and get kids excited about building robots in every school that you possibly can, then set the financial and time commitment bar as low as possible to play and work hard at establishing publicly funded partnerships like the TDSB's model for Toronto based teams everywhere.

I am pretty new to FIRST, but I can already clearly see that when people participate in this program they are never the same after. This is hands down the best educational experience I have ever offered to students. Public educational institutions will eventually get on board and fund what they can if we ask. What I would ask in return is that FIRST Canada maintains their model that keeps total cost down. Any increase is too much if you ask me, regardless of the added benefits. The benefits of the program as it was are far more than enough to warrant more participation.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

...I will try one last time to reiterate and hopefully return to a meaningful discussion.

That actually was very helpful in understanding the discrepancy in the "standard" experience switching to districts several people have described. I think I understand your frustration and feeling of being "priced out of the program, but I don't think FIRST is the culprit, at least not directly.

There seem to be a confluence of factors that has increased your participation costs, of which several were not necessarily experienced by other district teams in their transition. I'll attempt to highlight them individually, per my understanding.

As far as FIRST is concerned, registration is $5000 USD for either 1 regional or 2 district events. From the origin point, the registration cost is the same.

Using recent exchange rates, this was approx. $6400 CAD.
FIRST Canada seems to have gotten approval for doing direct payments rather than paying and converting to USD. In doing so, they set the initial registration cost higher, at $7500 CAD, estimated. This increase is, as far as I can tell, somewhat unique to the Ontario district switch, related to the next point.

The district championship registration is typically set at $4000 USD, which using the same exchange rate of 1.28 would convert to $5120 CAD. Teams attending the Ontario District Championship are saving $2120 CAD compared to a US district team. This "benefit" does not factor in to the 78 teams who will not compete in the Ontario DC.

The last bit I'll cover is what I think is causing the most heartburn, and also isn't experienced by a significant number of teams. The TDSB has been paying your full initial registration cost, but now has reduced that amount so they can also partially fund teams who are able to advance to the district championship. Most teams have to fund raise through sponorships, external grants, student fees, bake sales, etc. While I understand not every one of these is feasible for every team, the experience of scraping together those funds -- being entrepreneurial -- is part of the FIRST experience.

I wish you and your team the best of luck in continuing. I do share your enthusiasm for the program and hope you and other teams in your situation don't fold because of this transition.

[EricH]

I do believe your numbers are correct (as is your terminology--that is likely what threw a lot of us off previously).

And I actually think that your operating cost is now $4500 CAD--add in your current costs to the registration fee. I'll assume that--for a couple of years or so--you don't attend the DCMP (there's nothing saying that invite = attendance).

At current rates, that's about 3500 USD. That could be raised fairly easily by some of the team's I've been on--one big fundraiser and a couple of smaller ones would do it--but others would struggle.

I think it's a manageable increase to deal with, at least while you build a deeper sponsor base. Phase 1: Contact current sponsors and advise them of your situation ("We are changing playing models next year, we'll be doing two events, it's going to cost us more") and ask them for a modest increase to help. Phase 2: Look for new sponsors. Phase 3: Fundraisers (done alongside Phase 2). Phase 4: Any family members want to help out?

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

I don't think I could have been more clear earlier with my numbers, but I will try one last time to reiterate and hopefully return to a meaningful discussion.

Now, it costs ~ $7500 CAD to go to 2 district events and ~$3000 to go to district champs. The TDSB cannot pay for all of that for every team. Instead, they have very generously offered $5000 CAD for districts and $1500 for district champs for every team (up to ~$6500 CAD like before).

Originally Posted by MechEng83

That actually was very helpful in understanding the discrepancy in the "standard" experience switching to districts several people have described. I think I understand your frustration and feeling of being "priced out of the program, but I don't think FIRST is the culprit, at least not directly.

THANK YOU for these two posts. I was having trouble figuring out where the heck some of the numbers and concerns were originating from regarding expenses and what TDSB would pay for. In particular, that TDSB would not in fact be covering the entire initial registration (when it had sounded like they would only pay for half of it to cover 1 district event ie $2500USD).

As an outsider looking in, I might understand districts, but Ontario and Toronto are not wholly familiar.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

I am quite surprised at the direction this discussion has gone.

I am not sure how it is valuable to mathematically determine the overall additional cost to "one-event teams" distributed over all participating teams to imply that I am taking a hit of a few hundred dollars.

I don't think I could have been more clear earlier with my numbers, but I will try one last time to reiterate and hopefully return to a meaningful discussion.

In the regional model it cost $5000 USD to play once and potentially qualify for worlds.

The Toronto District School Board saw the deep rooted value in this remarkable program and invested heavily in getting more teams to be able to participate. They agreed to pay the full $5000 USD (~$6400 CAD) registration fee for every team for a single annual event. Rookie grants from FIRST easily cover your first two years of operating costs (and it can be stretched if you are careful). The program has exploded. Huge numbers of new teams have joined including mine. My students lives were transformed as was my school community and we have connected with so many other schools and students in the FIRST community.

This is great! This is not a unique occurrence however. Rookie grant programs are designed to infuse cash immeadiately into potential new programs for a short period of time. A really easy place to look at is Texas, who has seen both sides of this strategy. Through what I believe you could call 4 different initiatives on the part of existing FIRST grants, JCPenney, Texas Workforce Commission, and the Texas High School Project (the last two might be connected?) 41 new rookies were started for the 2011 season. From 2010 to 2011, Texas went from 104 to 144 teams. From 2011 to 2016, Texas has added 112 rookie numbers while going from 144 to... 141 teams.

The rookie grant program does great things. It gets people who have no idea what FIRST is get excited about FIRST. That is awesome! However, the global attrition rate means that not all teams are successful long term (the Texas example is very extreme). There is data that was recently posted to this website under CD-Media that you can view to learn more. Why do teams fold? There are a LOT of reasons. Studies have been done globally and locally. Indiana in the past has publicized the reason individual teams folded (anonymously). A very broad reason that teams fold? FRC is hard as hell to sustain because resources of the physical, human, and financial variety seem like they are always vaporizing in front of your eyes.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

The foreseeable future meant that I could participate in FIRST with an annual operating cost of ~$2000 and so could any school in the city. I do a lot more than just run a robotics club, but this seemed well worth it to me. Many other teams, I'm sure, would reach the same conclusion, and many more young people in Toronto could play. Who won from this arrangement? STEM and Education.

I'm going to be very blunt here and say that if you thought $2000 was going to sustain an FRC team year after year, even after registration fees, you are wildly unprepared to transition the team from start-up to sustainable and in pretty much every other place in North America, you would not be fielding an FRC team next year. How do I know this? I was faced with a near-identical problem in my junior year of high school. We needed to raise a lot of cash fast to keep the program viable. I am here today because we did. We went through grant programs, brought in new corporate sponsors, and rechartered the team to get existing sponsors to buy in to our idea of where we wanted to take our program and support it at a higher level.

If someone within the community or on staff told you that an FRC team can be sustained with effectively $7000 in revenue, they have sold you a lie and they need to be stopped. Depending on physical resources, team goals, and other variables, a sustainable team probably would need about $13k USD year over year just for registration parts, tool replacements, upgrades, and maintenance, apparel, and travel.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

Now, it costs ~ $7500 CAD to go to 2 district events and ~$3000 to go to district champs. The TDSB cannot pay for all of that for every team. Instead, they have very generously offered $5000 CAD for districts and $1500 for district champs for every team (up to ~$6500 CAD like before).

Here is where the math is not at all complicated but many people seem to be misunderstanding me. This means that I now need to pay ~$2500 CAD to register for my 2 district events. That is an increase from $0 to $2500 CAD. That is more than double my previous operating cost. If I am in the top 60 teams in Ontario, I pay another $1500 CAD.

Texas teams had this problem when the TWC/THSP/JCP money went poof. I don't remember them having much of a warning.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

The previous model allowed more teams in Toronto to play with less money and less time commitment. I thought I had signed up for a program centered around spreading STEM education.

Marginally less money than now, but I believe that there is no more expensive STEM program in North America besides FRC. That has been true for as long as I have been a part of it. You have signed up for a program that has a self set mission to "inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting Mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership." This has not changed or been negatively affected solely by the Toronto shifting to districts.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

Apparently it seems very obvious to the majority of posters here that the benefits of more rounds of play for better value, the opportunity to iterate between events, and cost savings for large scale competitive teams who already attend multiple events, outweighs the benefits of setting a lower bar for all to participate.

In terms of making FRC a better program, yes. You have it nailed squarely on the head, with one glaring exception.

FRC Team 1137, Rocket Sauce, is based out of Mathews High School from Mathews County, VA. The town has a population that is solidly under 9000. They are not the richest team in the state. I will link you to their Blue Alliance profile from their rookie year in 2003. Here, you can see all of the matches they have played. You will notice 2 things about the team's participation in FIRST from its founding through 2015. The team made it to semifinals once, and was more likely to not make eliminations than make them. They never went to more than one regional. They only ever went to championships when they could afford it and get a spot on the waitlist.

Here is their profile for 2016.

There was no big change for this program besides the introduction of the district system into the region. Through this initiative, 1137 was able to make it to the elimination rounds at all 3 of their events. You will also notice that after making it to semifinals at their first event, they went back, made some changes to their machine, and made finals at their second event.

This is not a large-scale competitive team. This is also not a team that needed the bar to be lowered for them. They needed some fuel for their jetpack and they got it.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

The change from Regionals to Districts will provide lots of benefits. The main added cost is that it costs Toronto teams between $2500 - $4000 more just to play, and many more hours and/or people to supervise and plan. For non-Toronto teams, they too need to spend at least $1000 CAD more than in the past and either attend two events or quit after one regardless of your team's performance.

The added hours and people are not unique to Ontario's shift to the district model. However, people in Ontario have already decided to let this happen. There are a lot of people in the province who are very passionate about FIRST and want to pull teams up and have a better experience in FRC.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

If you want to play more, iterate, or increase your odds of winning, then to me it is reasonable that you need to pay more for those added experiences. If you want to spread STEM and get kids excited about building robots in every school that you possibly can, then set the financial and time commitment bar as low as possible to play and work hard at establishing publicly funded partnerships like the TDSB's model for Toronto based teams everywhere.

Or you can just do the VEX Robotics Competition. If I understand it correctly, the goals of your program is to get kids excited about building robots with the qualifications of doing it a low time commitment at a low cost. That is VRC. That is not FRC. That has not been FRC. As far as I know, that will not be FRC for the immediate future. It costs zero dollars to register a VEX team if I remember correctly. That is a very low bar for entry. It operates year round, not within the tight confines of our 6+10 week season. That is a flexible and potentially very low time commitment.

Originally Posted by Kleiman

I am pretty new to FIRST, but I can already clearly see that when people participate in this program they are never the same after. This is hands down the best educational experience I have ever offered to students. Public educational institutions will eventually get on board and fund what they can if we ask. What I would ask in return is that FIRST Canada maintains their model that keeps total cost down. Any increase is too much if you ask me, regardless of the added benefits. The benefits of the program as it was are far more than enough to warrant more participation.

I do not participate in any other robotics program besides FRC. I never have, and I probably never will, for various reasons. I am not employed by anyone who could in any way, shape or form benefit from telling you this. I love FRC. I love my team. I want there to be as many successful FRC teams as possible. I see these successful teams as ones who become sustainable agents of change in their community by standing on the shoulders of giants in the FRC community (hall of fame teams) to chart their own path, learn from their experiences, and develop their own identity. I believe the regional model long term will not support those kinds of teams from coming into being on top of who we already have in the program.

FRC is bar none, without question, with zero necessary qualifiers or hesitation THE BEST POSSIBLE PROGRAM YOU CAN BE IN. People whine and moan over stuff that they disagree with in the sport to varying levels of merit but it is still the best. There is no equal. It is great to know that you see it this way. All I can promise you is this: if you can get the money to participate in the district system in Ontario, you will love the program even more. Of the 40 returning members to 422 for the 2016 season, zero preferred the regional model to the district model when we surveyed them. ZERO. That is not me telling you my opinion, but me informing you of theirs. They had an opportunity to grow as a team and become a better program over the course of a season. It was worth every penny.

FIRST Canada is providing the teams of Ontario an opportunity to get more out of FIRST. Whether those teams get more out of FIRST or just get out of FIRST is up to them.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

In terms of making FRC a better program, yes. You have it nailed squarely on the head, with one glaring exception.

FRC Team 1137, Rocket Sauce, is based out of Mathews High School from Mathews County, VA. The town has a population that is solidly under 9000. They are not the richest team in the state. I will link you to their Blue Alliance profile from their rookie year in 2003. Here, you can see all of the matches they have played. You will notice 2 things about the team's participation in FIRST from its founding through 2015. The team made it to semifinals once, and was more likely to not make eliminations than make them. They never went to more than one regional. They only ever went to championships when they could afford it and get a spot on the waitlist.

Here is their profile for 2016.

There was no big change for this program besides the introduction of the district system into the region. Through this initiative, 1137 was able to make it to the elimination rounds at all 3 of their events. You will also notice that after making it to semifinals at their first event, they went back, made some changes to their machine, and made finals at their second event.

This is not a large-scale competitive team. This is also not a team that needed the bar to be lowered for them. They needed some fuel for their jetpack and they got it.

I love this example, even spent time checking them out on TBA! Its crazy this same team attended 4 events in one year, which is equivalent to their past 4 years combined.

[thatprogrammer]

Originally Posted by R.C.

I love this example, even spent time checking them out on TBA! Its crazy this same team attended 4 events in one year, which is equivalent to their past 4 years combined.

They also played over 50 matches this year. That's more than their last 5 years COMBINED! It's really interesting how districts seem to have raised this team to the next level.

[mipo0707]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

I am quite surprised at the direction this discussion has gone.

I am not sure how it is valuable to mathematically determine the overall additional cost to "one-event teams" distributed over all participating teams to imply that I am taking a hit of a few hundred dollars.

I don't think I could have been more clear earlier with my numbers, but I will try one last time to reiterate and hopefully return to a meaningful discussion.

In the regional model it cost $5000 USD to play once and potentially qualify for worlds.

The Toronto District School Board saw the deep rooted value in this remarkable program and invested heavily in getting more teams to be able to participate. They agreed to pay the full $5000 USD (~$6400 CAD) registration fee for every team for a single annual event. Rookie grants from FIRST easily cover your first two years of operating costs (and it can be stretched if you are careful). The program has exploded. Huge numbers of new teams have joined including mine. My students lives were transformed as was my school community and we have connected with so many other schools and students in the FIRST community. The foreseeable future meant that I could participate in FIRST with an annual operating cost of ~$2000 and so could any school in the city. I do a lot more than just run a robotics club, but this seemed well worth it to me. Many other teams, I'm sure, would reach the same conclusion, and many more young people in Toronto could play. Who won from this arrangement? STEM and Education.

Now, it costs ~ $7500 CAD to go to 2 district events and ~$3000 to go to district champs. The TDSB cannot pay for all of that for every team. Instead, they have very generously offered $5000 CAD for districts and $1500 for district champs for every team (up to ~$6500 CAD like before).

Here is where the math is not at all complicated but many people seem to be misunderstanding me. This means that I now need to pay ~$2500 CAD to register for my 2 district events. That is an increase from $0 to $2500 CAD. That is more than double my previous operating cost. If I am in the top 60 teams in Ontario, I pay another $1500 CAD.

The previous model allowed more teams in Toronto to play with less money and less time commitment. I thought I had signed up for a program centered around spreading STEM education. Apparently it seems very obvious to the majority of posters here that the benefits of more rounds of play for better value, the opportunity to iterate between events, and cost savings for large scale competitive teams who already attend multiple events, outweighs the benefits of setting a lower bar for all to participate. The change from Regionals to Districts will provide lots of benefits. The main added cost is that it costs Toronto teams between $2500 - $4000 more just to play, and many more hours and/or people to supervise and plan. For non-Toronto teams, they too need to spend at least $1000 CAD more than in the past and either attend two events or quit after one regardless of your team's performance.

If you want to play more, iterate, or increase your odds of winning, then to me it is reasonable that you need to pay more for those added experiences. If you want to spread STEM and get kids excited about building robots in every school that you possibly can, then set the financial and time commitment bar as low as possible to play and work hard at establishing publicly funded partnerships like the TDSB's model for Toronto based teams everywhere.

I am pretty new to FIRST, but I can already clearly see that when people participate in this program they are never the same after. This is hands down the best educational experience I have ever offered to students. Public educational institutions will eventually get on board and fund what they can if we ask. What I would ask in return is that FIRST Canada maintains their model that keeps total cost down. Any increase is too much if you ask me, regardless of the added benefits. The benefits of the program as it was are far more than enough to warrant more participation.

This is like saying this is the best thing ever but i only want to do it once and not have more chances in a year for the students to enjoy and learn from it because you and the team don't want to do any work or give effort in raising money from sponsors. I think giving the team more opportunities is better than complaining about raising money for a better experience. Also you have it better cause TDSB is helping you out, imagine all the teams who have to raise money themselves and travel long distances and they do it year after year. SO THE BIG THING TO GET OUT OF THIS IS THAT IT IS POSSIBLE WITH EFFORT AND 2 IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN 1.

[chrisfl]

My first impression was "woah! McMaster Carr has a university?"

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

Now, it costs ~ $7500 CAD to go to 2 district events and ~$3000 to go to district champs. The TDSB cannot pay for all of that for every team. Instead, they have very generously offered $5000 CAD for districts and $1500 for district champs for every team (up to ~$6500 CAD like before).

Here is where the math is not at all complicated but many people seem to be misunderstanding me. This means that I now need to pay ~$2500 CAD to register for my 2 district events. That is an increase from $0 to $2500 CAD. That is more than double my previous operating cost. If I am in the top 60 teams in Ontario, I pay another $1500 CAD.

Though it may not be a popular opinion, or even one that you are interested in, I will say that if $2,500 is more than double your previous operating cost then FRC probably isn't the most effective program for your students even with the TDSB contribution. Vex or FTC offer a much broader experience for students at that price point

Still that's certainly no reason to "give up" if you and your students are dedicated to building an effective program. But the way you seem to be viewing the need to raise around $1,250 I might recommend going another route where your money will go further.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Though it may not be a popular opinion, or even one that you are interested in, I will say that if $2,500 is more than double your previous operating cost then FRC probably isn't the most effective program for your students even with the TDSB contribution. Vex or FTC offer a much broader experience for students at that price point

Still that's certainly no reason to "give up" if you and your students are dedicated to building an effective program. But the way you seem to be viewing the need to raise around $1,250 I might recommend going another route where your money will go further.

So, is this the true cost of moving to districts? Telling some teams "sorry, but maybe this program isn't for you"?

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

So, is this the true cost of moving to districts? Telling some teams "sorry, but maybe this program isn't for you"?

Good question!

With almost 1/2 of FRC in or moving to districts, anyone care to calculate district transition team attrition rates versus the global annual average?

-Mike

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

So, is this the true cost of moving to districts? Telling some teams "sorry, but maybe this program isn't for you"?

No, I've been saying that for years. Independent of districts.