Ontario Moving to District Model in 2017

[Knufire]

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"?

I think FIRST decided that FRC wasn't for everyone when they decided to make the recommended ages for FTC overlap with FRC.

[Monochron]

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"?

Nope, I'll agree with Andrew. This is the true cost of FRC in general. It is a massively expensive program that gives a HUGE amount of value assuming you can invest the time, people, and money. On the low end, the same amount of investment in VRC or FTC give a much higher return than it would in FRC.

And like I said, this difference does NOT mean that his team needs to abandon FRC. It just means that they will need to scale up their investment to a level similar to other FRC teams.

[cadandcookies]

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"?

FRC is the wrong program for many people, schools, and communities. It is the wrong program when an area does not have the people, money, or time to participate in an effective manner. Fortunately there are other programs out there that are also fantastic robotics experiences such as FTC or VEX. It makes sense, when lacking the mentors, money, or time, to move to a different program in order to better serve the interests of a community.

I think that in many cases it's better to have a strong FTC or VEX program than a struggling FRC program. When a team is having problems, everything suffers-- it damages the relationships with schools and local companies, it makes it extremely hard to establish productive and valuable mentor-student relationships. And when a team fails, it makes it even harder for us to get future students in that school access to robotics programs.

So yes, it is a "cost" or moving to districts that we may lose some FRC teams. But done responsibly, moving to districts may be a good opportunity to create strong FTC or VEX programs that may one day have the resources to return to FRC.

[Jon Stratis]

I'll agree with the sentiment that not every school is well suited to FRC, and that some existing teams may do better in a less intensive program like FTC, and that it may be best served to coach those schools towards the program that fits them the best.

But should we just price the teams out by changing the program in a way that ultimately increases their costs past their sustainable level? Are these teams actually being moved into another program, or are they just dying as a result of the transition to districts? Has there been any documentation, at all, on how the different districts have handled this issue?

[swootton]

I've been following this discussion and would like to clarify the district system from our team's perspective. First a little background, we are currently entering our 6th season and couldn't be happier with the district system.

Our first year we attended 1 event and won RAS and were able to attend CMP. Another team helped us with logistics and transportation otherwise we may not have gone. This season we spent $5K for the regional and $5K for CMP. Our total operating budget for this year was nearly $50K

Our second year we attended 2 events and did not qualify to move on to CMP. We spent $5k for each event and had a total operating budget of about $35K

In our third season we moved to the district system and were excited to find out that we now get to attend 2 events for the same $5K and as many additional events that we could go to for $1K each so we signed up for three district events. We then qualified to attend the District CMP and attended which was an additional $4K. We did very well and were picked to be on the eventual winning alliance and were invited to attend CMP which cost another $5. Our total operating budget for this season was just under $50K

In our forth and fifth seasons we attended 3 events each year and District CMP for a total cost of $10K and an operating budget of about $35K

From a cost perspective our first and third years were the most expensive but we attended 2 events the first year and 5 events the third year for the same amount of money. Our second, fourth and fifth years were the least expensive but we still attended 4 events under the district model vs. 2 under the regional system.

As others have pointed out, I cannot understand how any FRC team could expect to grow/survive let alone just function on less than $10-$15K per year for a budget. We were told when the team was formed that we would need to find grants, sponsorships and do fundraising if the team was going to survive. We do not get any financial support from our school, town or state to fund our program, we are totally self supporting. We are fortunate to have two corporate/foundation sponsorships that we cherish very much that provide nearly 1/2 of our annual budget every year but we constantly discuss what we would do if we lost either one. One way we do that is to save money when ever we can. We have enough money saved at this point that we could survive for 1-2 years with some fundraising but we are always looking for and applying for grants and scholarships.

We attended an off season event in Yonkers, NY a couple weeks ago and were shocked by the differences between us being in a district system and all the other teams that are in a regional system. For us it was our 6th event, for all the others it was either their 2nd or 3rd. All we heard all day was comments about our robot not breaking and being very refined. All the teams wanted to find out more about the district system and most if not all wished that NY would go to a district model after playing with and talking to us.

In a nutshell:
Regional model
$5K per event - 6 teams advance to CMP out of 55-70 teams

District model
$5K for 2 events to qualify for point to advance to the district CMP
$1K for additional district events in your district or other districts
$4K for district CMP if you qualify - 32+/- teams advance to CMP

If you normally attend 2 events under the district model you spend $10K

For $5K you get 2 events, for $6K you get 3 events and for $10 you get 4 events if you qualify for district CMP. If you go to district CMP you have roughly and 50/50 chance of going to CMP.

In our team's opinion, we would not go back to the regional model if given the choice. We get more "bang for the buck" now and our kids have way more fun interacting with other students than they ever did.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

But should we just price the teams out by changing the program in a way that ultimately increases their costs past their sustainable level? Are these teams actually being moved into another program, or are they just dying as a result of the transition to districts? Has there been any documentation, at all, on how the different districts have handled this issue?

I don't think there have been enough cases of teams dropping out due to the transition to districts to warrant any documentation or response from the DPC's, but I don't have any hard numbers on me. I think if it was a big enough issue, we'd hear about it. As long as events are spread out through the region to match population distribution, and the dates don't conflict with other events (I'm looking at you, Georgia...), the transition should be simple enough for most teams.

Also, I'm going to be blunt and say that any team that can't handle the transition to districts was never going to be sustainable in the long run anyway.

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I'll agree with the sentiment that not every school is well suited to FRC, and that some existing teams may do better in a less intensive program like FTC, and that it may be best served to coach those schools towards the program that fits them the best.

But should we just price the teams out by changing the program in a way that ultimately increases their costs past their sustainable level? Are these teams actually being moved into another program, or are they just dying as a result of the transition to districts? Has there been any documentation, at all, on how the different districts have handled this issue?

I don't see how districts are pricing teams out of FRC. Ignoring the CAD/USD exchange rate issues - district registration is the exact same cost as a single regional. You play more matches, and the events are likely closer to you. You then get a bonus 2nd event for free if you so choose. The only valid negatives are the lack of "show", and geographic isolationism.

Districts do require an additional layer of competition before the half champs level, but this only applies to teams who attend a single regional event, and manage to qualify directly at that event. As my previous post showed for Ontario - there aren't many of those.

I recompiled the numbers for regional model teams in 2016. I excluded rookie teams (259 teams) and everyone except for US and Canadian teams (154 teams).

There were 1535 veteran regional model teams that met that criteria.

899 teams attended a single regional event: (28.7% of all FRC teams)
858 did not attend the world championship
41 did attend the world championship (4.6%)

636 teams attended 2 or more regional events: (20.3% of all FRC teams)
414 did not attend the world championship
222 did attend the world championship (34.9%)

Single event teams quite simply aren't attending the world championship, and can play in as few as 8 official matches before their season ends - that doesn't seem very sustainable or inspirational to me.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by swootton

We attended an off season event in Yonkers, NY a couple weeks ago and were shocked by the differences between us being in a district system and all the other teams that are in a regional system. For us it was our 6th event, for all the others it was either their 2nd or 3rd. All we heard all day was comments about our robot not breaking and being very refined. All the teams wanted to find out more about the district system and most if not all wished that NY would go to a district model after playing with and talking to us.

I figured id talk a bit about this metric
To start at the event there were 13 teams
2 of them are in the District system
4055 being one of them was ranked #1 and this was their 6th event
the other was 4361 who was ranked 10th and this was their 3rd event

Out of the NY (non-district teams)
rank #2 - 4122 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs off waitlist
rank #3 3419 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs
rank #4 2869 (2nd event) Attended 1`regional
rank #5 335 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #6 5943 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #7 371 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #8 1880 (3rd event) Attended 2 regionals
rank #9 333 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs off waitlist
rank #11 4528 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #12 5123 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #13 369 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional

It also should be mentioned 4122 and 333 ended up winning the event with both teams having this as their 4th event

So, aside from a few anomaly's it is pretty clear events make teams better

and lets look at some numbers
4055 paid $10,000 for their 4 official events
4122, 3419, and 333 paid $13,000 for their 3 official events If those teams wanted an extra event before champs they would be paying $17,000 for the same amount of events that 4055 got for 10k.

I do not care how quality the event is $7,000 extra is not worth it.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

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.

I was refuting your statement that the wait list is to benefit low-resource teams. Your point about the wait list making a championship slot predictable so you can save for it is well made. While I generally try to be helpful and pertinent, there is a component to my own entertainment to this as well.

But there is also a yin-yang to this. The core mission of First is to spread STEM. That includes making it affordable to low-resource teams. To have a truly world class top level competition, it is going to be resource hungry, which will make participation by low-resource team difficult.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

But should we just price the teams out by changing the program in a way that ultimately increases their costs past their sustainable level? Are these teams actually being moved into another program, or are they just dying as a result of the transition to districts? Has there been any documentation, at all, on how the different districts have handled this issue?

Ontario is a special case. Typically the cost to single teams does not rise with the move to Districts, regardless of how many events a team attends. The issue in Ontario is the TDSB sponsorship, in which the money given for a team to attend their 2 District events is LESS than the money previously given for that team to attend one regional. Another way to look at this is as a loss of sponsorship, not purely an increase in cost brought on by going District. I think TDSB's change to give a portion of money for District events and a portion for DCMP was smart for the majority of teams, but there is a small minority who it will harm. This is somewhat unavoidable when money allocation changes.

One last comment, and this part is just my opinion. If we accept that transitioning to Districts grants a large improvement to quality for a region (and having just gone District this past year, I certainly believe that) then I am not sure if it is the right choice to avoid Districts in the hopes of keeping struggling teams in FRC. If there were no other comparable programs, or if those other programs demanded the same investment as FRC then I wouldn't be saying this. But holding back a whole region to help a few struggle along doesn't seem right to me when there are so many better options for those struggling. No one is getting a good deal in that scenario.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Ontario is a special case. Typically the cost to single teams does not rise with the move to Districts, regardless of how many events a team attends. The issue in Ontario is the TDSB sponsorship, in which the money given for a team to attend their 2 District events is LESS than the money previously given for that team to attend one regional. Another way to look at this is as a loss of sponsorship, not purely an increase in cost brought on by going District. I think TDSB's change to give a portion of money for District events and a portion for DCMP was smart for the majority of teams, but there is a small minority who it will harm.

Yes, having spent some time digesting the last few pages of this discussion, I think the heart of it is the issue between Toronto area teams and the TDSB "sponsorship" they have been receiving. The upcoming change would be like any of us getting word from our sponsor that $1500 would be withheld until we qualified for district championship.

I have to pause here to say that my opinion here is purely my own and not representative of my team.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the fact that the barrier for entry has been so low for so many Toronto area teams. I love that as a result there are so many teams from the Toronto area and that FIRST and FRC are so prominent there. I love meeting students who are excited about FIRST and STEM.

But I have to agree with some of the sentiments posted on the last couple of pages. I'm sorry, but if an increase of $2500 is a show-stopper for your team, then you need to stop and think about how incredily lucky you have been.

We started from scratch this year - literally no money, no tools, no supplies - and we busted our patooties doing fundraisers and hitting the streets looking for sponsors. We targeted $20-40K when we made our preliminary budgets, and we hit our target. It was challenging, but we were rewarded. We found enough sponsors and donations to have a great year. And I'm certainly not patting ourselves on the back here - because thousands of other teams do the exact same thing each and every year.

I've been involved with a few FRC teams in the Ottawa region and we would love to see FRC grow in popularity here, but it's been slow going. It's hard to start new teams, and meanwhile older teams are leaving the program because they find it too difficult to sustain. For a long time I wondered how long it would take, how many teams it would take, before there was enough momentum here for FRC to catch on as big as it has in Toronto.

Now I understand that all your teams had a huge head start. And going forward you will have slightly less of one. While I understand that's disappointing, I hope you can see why I think it's unproductive to be grumbling about it.

[swootton]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I figured id talk a bit about this metric
To start at the event there were 13 teams
2 of them are in the District system
4055 being one of them was ranked #1 and this was their 6th event
the other was 4361 who was ranked 10th and this was their 3rd event

Out of the NY (non-district teams)
rank #2 - 4122 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs off waitlist
rank #3 3419 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs
rank #4 2869 (2nd event) Attended 1`regional
rank #5 335 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #6 5943 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #7 371 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #8 1880 (3rd event) Attended 2 regionals
rank #9 333 (4th event) Attended 2 regionals and champs off waitlist
rank #11 4528 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #12 5123 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional
rank #13 369 (2nd event) Attended 1 regional

It also should be mentioned 4122 and 333 ended up winning the event with both teams having this as their 4th event

So, aside from a few anomaly's it is pretty clear events make teams better

and lets look at some numbers
4055 paid $10,000 for their 4 official events
4122, 3419, and 333 paid $13,000 for their 3 official events If those teams wanted an extra event before champs they would be paying $17,000 for the same amount of events that 4055 got for 10k.

I do not care how quality the event is $7,000 extra is not worth it.

Sperkowsky,
Thank you for doing all the math and research I didn't have time to do. Your final comment was basically what we heard from most teams while at the event.

[Kleiman]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

I've been involved with a few FRC teams in the Ottawa region and we would love to see FRC grow in popularity here, but it's been slow going. It's hard to start new teams, and meanwhile older teams are leaving the program because they find it too difficult to sustain. For a long time I wondered how long it would take, how many teams it would take, before there was enough momentum here for FRC to catch on as big as it has in Toronto.

Now I understand that all your teams had a huge head start. And going forward you will have slightly less of one. While I understand that's disappointing, I hope you can see why I think it's unproductive to be grumbling about it.

I think this post sums up very clearly what the general sentiment has been from the FIRST community on this one. This program is expensive and hard to grow/sustain, I am lucky that I was sustained by public funds, but welcome to the reality that other teams face who do not have as much public funding. Now deal with it, don't complain about it, or just leave (P.S. I hope you don't leave #sorrynotsorry).

Firstly, I am not running a "struggling team" as has been implied on this forum repeatedly. I am running a relatively small scale, but hard working, competitive team with room to grow. In the regional model we would have required zero private money to operate.

Second, it has been implied that my difficulty in more than doubling my annual budget for future years is reflective of a lack of willingness to do the hard work of being an FRC team. Over the past two years, I have dedicated astronomical amounts of time, energy and passion as all of you have to build this program from nothing. I am a biology teacher with zero engineering background and I have converted my science class and a tiny storage area into a workshop.

My difficulties in raising more funding stem largely from an issue I have avoided bring up here due to the Pandora's box of backlash I expect it will open, but here goes... Like many of my fellow Canadians, a core value I hold as an educator is that I don't believe that private sponsorship belongs in public schools. In the regional model with the generous public financial backing of the TDSB I could indefinitely run a successful (though maybe not world champion) FRC team on public funds and through grass-roots fund raisers in a sustainable way. I am aware that the overall FIRST program doesn't exist without private sponsorship. It is a compromise I am currently willing to accept in exchange for the unprecedented experience. Developing private partnerships within my own school program is where I draw a firm line. I will continue to work myself to the bone for this team so I can run a STEM project funded with no-strings-attached and I will also continue to lobby public education to recognize the educational return on investment in FIRST. Perhaps rather than you asking me to STOP complaining about added cost, I should ask you to START complaining about lack of public funds if a dedicated team requires heavy private sponsorship to exist. "Greying Jay" implies that his wish for Ottawa's program to expand like Toronto's will come as a result of a higher cost to participate and an increased time commitment.

Third, I believe that we don't just participate in the FRC program, we are helping to build it. It can become whatever we want it to become. Looking backwards and sideways at what works currently and what has worked in the past is valuable, but it is equally valuable to imagine how we want to change this program looking into the future. I know for many people reading this, their response is that they envision a higher proportion of large-scale, competitive teams and more robust programs. For others they may be imagining that the benefits of this program spread as far and as wide as possible to afford more students the opportunity to be transformed by FIRST. Both views have merit, but on some levels these views may find themselves at odds with each other. A program that builds better teams may cost more and require more commitment, but this could also lead to the program becoming more exclusive.

I think we have more than enough fuel to easily sell this program's worth to private sponsors, so why not sell it with equal vigor to our municipal, provincial and federal governments here in Canada. My sense from the discussion on this forum is that more people are concerned about making more WINNING teams rather than making more WORKING teams. I get it... district model = better educational experience and more team growth. But I say again; at what cost? In the US, for the same price you get more FRC. More power to you. Enjoy it. In Toronto, it costs my team and other "one-regional" teams like mine at least double the previous cost (after public funding) to now play two district events. Why not imagine a model like ours of FRC where more teams can run strong, sustainable teams on less than ~$2500 CAD per year. This does not exclude the option to grow into a mega-world-class team (as many here in Canada already have done), but it just costs more to do so.

Finally, what seems to have been forgotten on this forum is that the move to Districts was a CHOICE. The decision was made by FIRST Canada that the district model was right for Ontario. More cost and commitment to participate, but less cost for more value in terms of number of plays and the educational experience for participating teams. This was a choice that makes it harder for public funding to facilitate more universal participation in the long run. I can accept it, and I will do my best to continue to play within the new framework, but I can confidently say that this choice moves in a direction contrary to my personal preference. I wish for this program to reach as many schools as possible for as little money as possible even if it means some degree of dilution to the level of competition. And no, it is definitely NOT because I don't want to do more work.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

A core value I hold as an educator is that I don't believe that private sponsorship belongs in public schools... Developing private partnerships within my own school program is where I draw a firm line.

Here's a cool story with an alternative viewpoint.

[Matt Ciprietti]

Originally Posted by Kleiman

My difficulties in raising more funding stem largely from an issue I have avoided bring up here due to the Pandora's box of backlash I expect it will open, but here goes... Like many of my fellow Canadians, a core value I hold as an educator is that I don't believe that private sponsorship belongs in public schools.

I don't know if you're going to get backlash, but you have to realize that your opinion is so different from that of thousands of teams - many of them very local to you - that it's going to be met with confusion more than anything else.

I'm pretty sure the reason why people were assuming you just didn't want to fundraise, work harder, etc. was because they never would have guessed that.

I mean, fine. You're taking a philosophical stand on a personal belief, I get it. I doubt I'll be able to convince you otherwise. But I'm a Canadian educator too who's been doing this for a few years, and I have to say, I've never run across that particular viewpoint as it pertains to FRC. Being an extracurricular activity, I'm willing to accept outside funds to allow a better experience for my students. If suddenly I found myself teaching "Chemistry - brought to you by Pfizer" then I might feel a bit differently, but as far as most of us are concerned, sponsorships for FRC are just part of the game. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages (if there are any disadvantages at all).

People have been trying to give you advice, but given the constraints you've created, you've only left yourself with a single option - convince the TDSB to increase their contribution. I wish you luck in your lobbying efforts as I'm sure they'll be beneficial to all TDSB teams, but it would be a shame to lose your team over a problem that does have another solution.