[FRC Blog] FRC Events Being Posted and AMAA on FUN

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

New England

Week 1:

• Waterbury Event @ Wilby HS (CT) March 3rd-5th (Fri-Sun)
• Granite State Event @ Windham HS (NH) March 3rd-5th (Fri-Sun)

Week 2

• WPI Event @ WPI (MA) March 8th-10th (Wed-Fri)
• SE Mass Event @ Brdigewater-Rayham HS (MA) March 10th-12th (Fri-Sun)

Week 3

• North Shore Event @ Reading HS (MA) March 17th-19th (Fri-Sun)
• Greater Boston Event @ Revere HS (MA) March 17th-19th (Fri-Sun)

Week 4

• Southern NH Event @ Bedford HS (NH) March 24th-26th (Fri-Sun)
• Rhode Island Event @ Bryant University (RI) March 24th-26th (Fri-Sun)

Week 5

• Pine Tree Event @ Androscoggin Bank Colisee (ME) March 30th-April 1st (Thurs-Sat)
• Hartford Event @ Hartford Public HS (CT) March 31st-April 2nd (Fri-Sun)

Week 6
New England District Championship @ UNH Whittemore Center (NH) April 5th-8th (Wed-Sat)

There's a couple complaints I would have based on how good districts have been in NE for the last few years. Pretty sad to have the Boston event moved to Revere. I get that it helps bring FRC to their high school, but the venue is a major step down. Also the lack of different day distributions isn't the best. I personally like Fri-Sun events, but I understand many teams don't (1519 also only has two possible events since they don't compete on Sunday's).

I am excited to hear about how the new venue at Bedford High School works out. And there are still many of the old venues back from last year that this isn't the worst possible scenario. But not having any events in four of the best NE venues (BU, NU, Verizon, Hartford's arena) stinks and only have two events that aren't fri-sun isn't great.

Then again it's still better than not being in districts at all.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

There's a couple complaints I would have based on how good districts have been in NE for the last few years. Pretty sad to have the Boston event moved to Revere. I get that it helps bring FRC to their high school, but the venue is a major step down. Also the lack of different day distributions isn't the best. I personally like Fri-Sun events, but I understand many teams don't (1519 also only has two possible events since they don't compete on Sunday's).

I am excited to hear about how the new venue at Bedford High School works out. And there are still many of the old venues back from last year that this isn't the worst possible scenario. But not having any events in four of the best NE venues (BU, NU, Verizon, Hartford's arena) stinks and only have two events that aren't fri-sun isn't great.

Then again it's still better than not being in districts at all.

Upside to Revere is that one of the biggest costs teams always had about BU/NEU was cost of parking is no longer an issue.

And, while the venue is definitely not as ... as something, I'm not really sure the word, maybe, nice? It does meet the requirements for a district event quite well and may even improve on team experience by decreasing costs for teams.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

...only have two events that aren't fri-sun isn't great.

In New England, as long as events are primarily being held in high schools, the trend is going to be Fri-Sun events.

The only reason RIDE, which is returning to Bryant University, is not Thu-Sat is because the president of Bryant got complaints from the faculty about having to walk a further distance from their cars during the event. Nothing to do with policies, event conflicts, etc.

Providence Career and Tech high school, who hosted RIDE last season, would not let us into the gym early Thursday due to gym classes running during school hours. We only got Thu - Sat because the school was closed for Good Friday.

Regarding DCMP, I am a huge fan of the Week 6 DCMP as it gives WCMP qualifying teams a better chance of using their invite. That 11 day turnaround from DCMP to WCMP was tight.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Rick

In New England, as long as events are primarily being held in high schools, the trend is going to be Fri-Sun events.

The only reason RIDE, which is returning to Bryant University, is not Thu-Sat is because the president of Bryant got complaints from the faculty about having to walk a further distance from their cars during the event. Nothing to do with policies, event conflicts, etc.

I think what some of us are curious about is why GSD was scheduled as a Sat/Sun event. It is at a high school however it falls during New Hampshire school vacation week and when it was hosted at Nashua in 2014/2015 it was kept as a Fri/Sat event. The move to Windham coincided with the off calendar year pushing out a week so it had to be Sat/Sun. Knowing what happens at the school during vacation week it surprised me to see it come up as a Sunday event. With such a tight schedule and one of two non-Sunday options pushing teams to take two full days plus early release on Wednesday to beat traffic to Worcester it would have been nice to have it return to a Saturday event.

I do have some concerns for UNH hosting the DCMP, but those aren't for me they are for other teams having to travel. We do thank NEFIRST for rotating it up here so our families and sponsors have a chance to attend! We just know there isn't much for hotel options for visiting teams and even we push the boundaries of commuting vs staying overnight. Parking will also be tight from family and friends who commute to UNH. Its not perfect but I think of the four venues we've had its the lower on the list of good places to host.


Glad to see a Bedford, NH event. Maybe Dean will stop by considering its 5 minutes from his house!

[Brian Maher]

Four PCH District events and the DCMP brings us from 108 to 113.

[rwodonnell]

I started looking at where our team might attend, and made a map to visualize the location of the NEFIRST events. I put the teams in as a layer to see the rough distribution (teams are from 2016, TBA data), and thought other teams might be interested in saving the work.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

I started looking at where our team might attend, and made a map to visualize the location of the NEFIRST events. I put the teams in as a layer to see the rough distribution (teams are from 2016, TBA data), and thought other teams might be interested in saving the work.

Just wondering about the map - I can't seem to find 3654 on it. Same with 3525 in Waterbury. Is it put down as 1 team/per town max because Middletown, CT hosts at least two. Just might change the densities of teams.

[rwodonnell]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

Just wondering about the map - I can't seem to find 3654 on it. Same with 3525 in Waterbury. Is it put down as 1 team/per town max because Middletown, CT hosts at least two. Just might change the densities of teams.

Yes. Unfortunately, the data from TBA that was easy for me only has city and state. When I imported them into the map, it stacks teams from the same city. If you click on the down arrow below the "teams.csv" layer, it will list all the teams that have a dot there. Cities like Middletown and Waterbury (from the teams you mentioned) and of course Boston (6 teams), Worcester (4 teams) and others will look like they just have one dot.

This does have the effect of improperly showing less team density in certain areas. If I could figure out how to have it put a number on those, or change the size of the dot, I would. If anyone has a CSV file of the teams in NE that includes a street address, I will import that and that should fix the problem, save for teams with the exact same street address (if there are any).

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

Yes. Unfortunately, the data from TBA that was easy for me only has city and state. When I imported them into the map, it stacks teams from the same city. If you click on the down arrow below the "teams.csv" layer, it will list all the teams that have a dot there. Cities like Middletown and Waterbury (from the teams you mentioned) and of course Boston (6 teams), Worcester (4 teams) and others will look like they just have one dot.

This does have the effect of improperly showing less team density in certain areas. If I could figure out how to have it put a number on those, or change the size of the dot, I would. If anyone has a CSV file of the teams in NE that includes a street address, I will import that and that should fix the problem, save for teams with the exact same street address (if there are any).

Thanks, that clears that up!

[ahartnet]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

Yes. Unfortunately, the data from TBA that was easy for me only has city and state. When I imported them into the map, it stacks teams from the same city. If you click on the down arrow below the "teams.csv" layer, it will list all the teams that have a dot there. Cities like Middletown and Waterbury (from the teams you mentioned) and of course Boston (6 teams), Worcester (4 teams) and others will look like they just have one dot.

This does have the effect of improperly showing less team density in certain areas. If I could figure out how to have it put a number on those, or change the size of the dot, I would. If anyone has a CSV file of the teams in NE that includes a street address, I will import that and that should fix the problem, save for teams with the exact same street address (if there are any).

If you put the data in google sheets, you can do the map marker and you'll have bubbles sized to the # of teams there. I recently downloaded Tableau (that's what the person who did the map for Michigan team density did and it looked great) to do the same there though, because with the google sheets map, it's "smallest" size is the continental US. Which is workable for mapping teams in Texas. probably not so much so NE. *EDIT* - here's a link to my google sheet for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...5mQ/edit#gid=0 - it takes a long time to load because it basically does a search for every one of the cities

[rwodonnell]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

If you put the data in google sheets, you can do the map marker and you'll have bubbles sized to the # of teams there. I recently downloaded Tableau (that's what the person who did the map for Michigan team density did and it looked great) to do the same there though, because with the google sheets map, it's "smallest" size is the continental US. Which is workable for mapping teams in Texas. probably not so much so NE. *EDIT* - here's a link to my google sheet for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...5mQ/edit#gid=0 - it takes a long time to load because it basically does a search for every one of the cities

Thanks for the tip - that's a good way to go about it. The map I made is made from "Google My Maps". I hadn't make a map in a google sheet before, I will have to give that a try.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Does anyone have any info on LI, HVR or Montreal, such as when dates will be officially be posted?

[Jay O'Donnell]

http://www.robotiquefirstquebec.org/...-de-robotique/
If this is accurate and my high school level French is correct, looks like Montreal is week 4.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

http://www.robotiquefirstquebec.org/...-de-robotique/
If this is accurate and my high school level French is correct, looks like Montreal is week 4.

I guess they didn't get the memo that every event in the area is supposed to be week 3 this year. As much as we've been complaining in NY, Montreal teams have it even worse, having only the Montreal event to go to, and the only other driving distance event is hours away, across a border, and the next week. I bet TVR is going to get a good number of Montreal teams this year who used to compete for their second event in Ontario.

[Dominick Ferone]

Does anyone know when the Hudson valley event is, or how big of an event it's supposed to be?