Districts in Israel 2017 Announced

[SavtaKenneth]

@Ari423

First of all welcome to Israel and the Technion!

The Israeli competitions are held on weekdays and not on the weekend in order to allow religious teams to attend and participate. However for students the competition season falls on the B exams period so if you don't need to retake anything you have time off for it.

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by Ari423

Now that I'm studying at the Technion, I'd love to lend a hand with all the competitions I can! One of the nice things about Israel's geography is nothing is too far away for a weekend drive

EDIT: I am wondering whether the competitions will be on Saturday and Sunday like most US district competitions or Friday and Saturday in accordance with the Israeli weekend.

The competitions will all be during the middle of the week and not on weekends, due to the importance of keeping the Shabbat.

There are going to be many events, and FIRST Israel will need a lot of dedicated volunteers, and those with knowledge of the FIRST program are particularly important for certain key roles.

11 FLL events, 5 FRC events, 3 FTC events and dozens of Jr. FLL by my count all at around the same 2-3 months. (nothing official)

Please contact volunteer@firstisrael.org.il and let them know you'd like to volunteer. I know they are looking for certain key volunteer roles to be filled, and would love to get ahead on them ASAP.

[IKE]

Congratulations! I am very excited to see how this impacts FRC in Israel.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Gregor

California, New York, Minnesota ect., your lack of districts have now entered the realm of laughably sad. Good job Isreal.

I'm not laughing.

Ditto to Israel. Huge congrats.

Ever since attending the 2012 Israel Regional, I knew districts would be a great fit for that region. There are so many great teams in Israel, but the country has been consistently under-represented at CMP under the Regional model. I'm excited to see more Israeli friends at CMP in the future!

-Mike

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Ever since attending the 2012 Israel Regional, I knew districts would be a great fit for that region. There are so many great teams in Israel, but the country has been consistently under-represented at CMP under the Regional model. I'm excited to see more Israeli friends at CMP in the future!

Agreed. Unfortunately, with California not moving to districts for the next couple of years, teams that have travel to Israel in the past (like 1836 & 1662) won't be able to visit their friends in Israel for a while.

[yarden.saa]

Originally Posted by MichaelBick

Agreed. Unfortunately, with California not moving to districts for the next couple of years, teams that have travel to Israel in the past (like 1836 & 1662) won't be able to visit their friends in Israel for a while.

Unfortunately, there is no other option. The decision to moving to districts was not only becasue it is a better model. Israel Regional was over populated in the last years - not only we were the only regional this year that was 3.5 days instead of 3 but also, the teams got only 9 matches, the field stuff had to pass lunches and extend competition day after 9PM.

Another regional is probably is not preferable since it will be filled very quickly (not to talk about the finncial side)

[ASD20]

It's interesting that some teams may have less than 24 hours between load out at one event and load in at the next (not to mention the field which will probably have around 12-15 hours).

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by ASD20

It's interesting that some teams may have less than 24 hours between load out at one event and load in at the next (not to mention the field which will probably have around 12-15 hours).

Yeah, with 4 non-coinciding competitions in 2 weeks it's going to be extremely hard on everyone involved (teams, volunteers, the field, etc.). Since there may not be enough time between competitions, I wonder how the rules will tackle the 6 hours usually allotted to district teams to make up for the lost day of a 3-day regional.

P.S. - it looks like I will be volunteering as a CSA at most, if not all, of the Israeli competitions

[Tottanka]

Originally Posted by Ari423

P.S. - it looks like I will be volunteering as a CSA at most, if not all, of the Israeli competitions

AWESOME! See you there!

[The other Gabe]

my one worry about this would be inclusion of non-israeli teams that used to go to the israel regional. But then, I have no idea how many non-israeli teams went to israel last year :v

a quick search on TBA shows that just one non-israeli team went last year, from Bosnia and Hertzegovina of all places. I didnt even know there was a team from there!

[jaredhk]

Originally Posted by MichaelBick

Unfortunately, with California not moving to districts for the next couple of years, teams that have travel to Israel in the past (like 1836 & 1662) won't be able to visit their friends in Israel for a while.

This is great news for Israel but too bad for us here in California. Hopefully we'll still find a way to see each other.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Ari423

I wonder how the rules will tackle the 6 hours usually allotted to district teams to make up for the lost day of a 3-day regional.

Throw the programmers (or freshmen with duct tape depending on the state of your robot) in the trailer with the robot for the ride between events. Problem solved.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by yarden.saa

Unfortunately, there is no other option. The decision to moving to districts was not only becasue it is a better model. Israel Regional was over populated in the last years - not only we were the only regional this year that was 3.5 days instead of 3 but also, the teams got only 9 matches, the field stuff had to pass lunches and extend competition day after 9PM.

Yeah, I am totally in agreement. Having personally been on the travel team that has gone to Israel (twice now), it was unfortunate seeing the great teams that only had a single chance to compete. I'm rooting for 1836 to make it to champs so that we can see our friends from Israel there.