District/Regional Format

[Joe Johnson]

Perhaps this thread belongs in the FIRST in Michigan Forum but I decide that this was a larger picture discussion. I was afraid that by posting that forum, that the larger FIRST community wouldn't be involved.

Having seen the results from last year and this year of the District/Regional format, I can tell you that the FIRST in Michigan format is a real winner.

The basic idea to those not familiar with it is that Michigan had 3 regionals -- Western Michigan, Great Lakes, and Detroit (or was it called Wayne State?). They gave up 2 "Regionals" and formed 7 Districts plus the Michigan State Championship.

The Districts are put on at a much lower cost. They are 2 day events (FR/SA). They typically are in high school gyms rather than in stadiums. There typically is no extra lighting and the audio/video system sometimes would not meet FIRST's standards. For all this, I don't know that many FIRST teams actually notice the corners that are cut.

Importantly, the schedule is such that teams still get 10+ matches in the FR/SA format.

Also reducing costs is the "bag and tag" system which saves on shipping costs. Essentially a team puts its robot in a bag and has someone with a certain gravitas sign off that the bag was sealed when it should have been. Teams bring the robot to the competition in the bag themselves with the seal still intact. If all the paperwork is in order, the inspectors unseal the robots and that is that. No crates to deal with.

Due to the cost reductions, the teams can participate at 2 Districts and the Michigan State Championship (if they qualify) at a cost roughly of a single FIRST Regional.

The prestige of qualifying for the State Championships is such that it has replaced some teams "Atlanta" trip.

I could go on and on about the great things that come from this format.

I would like to have a discussion about the following two questions:

Are there any other parts of the country/world that are making plans to follow the FIRST in Michigan District/Regional format?

Should FIRST carve up the country/world into Regions and essentially impose the District/Regional format on the country/world?

I know there are place that it would be hard to make this work but there are other that seem perfect. I am thinking of the Baltimore/DC area, NY State, New England, the South East, California, and so on.

I really believe that this is a good thing for FIRST in the long run.

What do you think?

Joe J.

[Tanner]

I don't know if GA FIRST is planning to do anything, but from what I know and who I know, I don't think so.

Do I think FIRST should impose the District/Regional format on the country/world?

From what I know of the system in Michigan (which is little, so bare with me) is that it seems you get more out of less. Specifically, more chances at district competitions, ergo more of a chance to get to Atlanta, from a "less" (read: same) amount of money.

Saving money is great, which seems like what this format was made to do, though without seeing/experiencing a district competition I couldn't say much about it. I can say I do like the lighting/set-up of the regionals. Again though, I don't know much about the district competitions.

I like the bag/tag idea though that's probably because our main regional is literally 10 minutes away from where we work. Don't know about the district format though, but that's probably because I don't know enough to make a well informed decision.

-Tanner

[Vikesrock]

Minnesota probably has close to enough teams, or will very shortly, but the problem I would see with using this system here is key volunteers.

Most of the key volunteers for the two regionals we have now are still imported from what I know. I believe only the LRI at 10k Lakes was from Minnesota out of the 2 LRI's, 2 Head Refs and 2 FTAs.

[Jamie Kalb]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Are there any other parts of the country/world that are making plans to follow the FIRST in Michigan District/Regional format?

I know there's been serious talk of doing this in C.A. due to the large number of teams (~150 teams and 4 regionals). I'm not sure yet what I think of that.

[Wayne TenBrink]

I am biased, but I recommend that they "impose" the district model on the rest of the country/world. District lines should accomodate a workable mix of quantity and distance. There would be some resistance, like there was in Michigan, but I would expect that to go away once people realized that they were getting a much better value and only losing half as many work/school days (OK, so maybe that isn't such a great selling point for the students).

If you consider the inverse of the current choice, it sounds rather funny (or sad). Imagine FIRST coming to Michigan at this point with the following proposal: "In order to grow the program in your economically stressed area, we propose raising the fees, cutting the number of events in half, reducing the number of matches per event, removing any objective means of scoring your team relative to your peers, and eliminating any affordable, merit based events. In exchange for this, we have arranged give your hard-raised money to professional event planners and transportation services so don't have to lug that 120 lb behemoth by yourselves, and you can watch the few remaining matches under some really cool lighting and great sound." It wouldn't work with me.

Perhaps if the entire country followed the district model, we could find a way for teams to attend events outside their district. That is the only thing I miss with the FiM structure (we can still go out of State, but others can't come to MI).

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Tanner

I don't know if GA FIRST is planning to do anything, but from what I know and who I know, I don't think so.

Do I think FIRST should impose the District/Regional format on the country/world?

From what I know of the system in Michigan (which is little, so bare with me) is that it seems you get more out of less. Specifically, more chances at district competitions, ergo more of a chance to get to Atlanta, from a "less" (read: same) amount of money.

Saving money is great, which seems like what this format was made to do, though without seeing/experiencing a district competition I couldn't say much about it. I can say I do like the lighting/set-up of the regionals. Again though, I don't know much about the district competitions.

I like the bag/tag idea though that's probably because our main regional is literally 10 minutes away from where we work. Don't know about the district format though, but that's probably because I don't know enough to make a well informed decision.

-Tanner

Tanner, that isn't precisely true. District winners do NOT get invited to Atlanta. In order to keep the number of teams that are given invitations from Michigan static (the same as when we only had 3 regionals), a set number of births are given: 3 State Championship Chairmans, etc etc. Only the 3 winning robots at the state championship are given auto-invites, along with the state championship award winners (EI, Chairman, etc).

So, it performs 2 functions:
It is MUCH harder now to get in to Atlanta by being a random "picked by the number 1 alliance" team, because you have to perform well at TWO districts (40% of your final score) and the championship (60% of your final score).

It is MUCH harder to get in via Chairmans, etc. You no longer compete just against the chairman's presenters at your regional. You compete against all other 140 teams in the state, because after you win a district chairman you have to go win a state chairman's to be invited.

Essentially, what you now have coming out of Michigan is the cream of the crop, the best of the best (as far as Michigan teams go). Unless a team has the cash to pay their way in, if they've come through the Michigan District system, they're the real deal.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

I am biased, but I recommend that they "impose" the district model on the rest of the country/world. District lines should accomodate a workable mix of quantity and distance. There would be some resistance, like there was in Michigan, but I would expect that to go away once people realized that they were getting a much better value and only losing half as many work/school days (OK, so maybe that isn't such a great selling point for the students).

If you consider the inverse of the current choice, it sounds rather funny (or sad). Imagine FIRST coming to Michigan at this point with the following proposal: "In order to grow the program in your economically stressed area, we propose raising the fees, cutting the number of events in half, reducing the number of matches per event, removing any objective means of scoring your team relative to your peers, and eliminating any affordable, merit based events. In exchange for this, we have arranged give your hard-raised money to professional event planners and transportation services so don't have to lug that 120 lb behemoth by yourselves, and you can watch the few remaining matches under some really cool lighting and great sound." It wouldn't work with me.

Perhaps if the entire country followed the district model, we could find a way for teams to attend events outside their district. That is the only thing I miss with the FiM structure (we can still go out of State, but others can't come to MI).

Wayne, I'd love to see the FiM model expanded too (because we get so much for our money up here), but imagine having to drive 3 states away to get to your "championship", and one state away to get to your second "district". There team density is such that in many locations, they only have enough teams to fully fill 1, or sometimes two regionals. In those situations, creating enough district events to make the situation workable becomes a real problem, and even moreso when you take a state or regional championship into account.

[AnibaS]

The problem with expanding the FiM model seems to be the number of teams from each area. States like MI and CA both have a large number of local teams, but I don't think even NY would have enough teams for this system. We only have one Regional, and half of the teams come from NJ.

I think this system would also take away diversity- teams wouldn't have the opportunity to play against teams from cross the nation and world. It's always great playing against the returning teams from London and Brazil at NY!

On the other hand, the MI system is certainly successful in giving teams more experience and does bring out the creme de la creme.

[jblay]

When I first heard about the MSC format I thought it would be an awesome thing to have in the tristate area. A couple of district competitions throughout NY, NJ and CT would be amazing and it would help a lot of the teams in the area catch up to the Michigan caliber teams.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Wayne, I'd love to see the FiM model expanded too (because we get so much for our money up here), but imagine having to drive 3 states away to get to your "championship", and one state away to get to your second "district". There team density is such that in many locations, they only have enough teams to fully fill 1, or sometimes two regionals. In those situations, creating enough district events to make the situation workable becomes a real problem, and even moreso when you take a state or regional championship into account.

Good point, but teams in low density areas already have to travel greater distances to attend their first or second event. For them, even if they skipped the second district event or the district championship (which we still need to pay for, BTW) they would still get more matches at a lower cost than they do for a single event now. Perhaps a streamlined path to the CMP could be found for those areas.

(In my previous post, I didn't give the volunteers the credit they deserve. Just because we aren't paying people to put on the events, it doesn't mean they just magically happen by themselves.)

[MagiChau]

Well Michigan is the test subject of the format because of such a high concentration. Some teams can not even afford going to State Competition even with qualification. Being able to attend a low cost District event allows teams to participate in events with a lower budget. The main issue as everyone points out is that a lot of areas do not have such a concentration of teams. If district events become more common in the FIRST Robotics Competition perhaps more teams will become created? In effect the high concentration of team will become existent by the very system that worked for high concentration teams. Maybe this can work?

[Nawaid Ladak]

#1: I've heard talks for New York State, but that's about it. everybody seems to want it in Minnesota, California, the Southeast etc. though.

To answer #2 Honestly, I'm not at all a fan of FIRST imposing the District system across the world. I would rather, create a 4 system approach

District System: same as the Michigan system but in different area's, ie: California, Texas and New England.

The "Super" Regional system: just like GTR in 2004 and 2006. 2 fields, more competition, and more spots to the Championship handed out at these events than at normal regional competitions. Count this as a State Championship without the process of going through he districts. This would work in a area where a VERY high concentration of teams are located in a small area, ie Minnesota, New York, The Baltimore/DC area, or areas where a District model doesn't fit the needs because there aren't enough teams to impose the system... ie: locations listed above, and Pacific Northwest. This would also benefit the outliers that fall into the system, for example teams that are located in Kennewick WA would only have to attend one event instead of going to Portland and Seattle for district events

The "Normal" Regional system: The normal setup for a regional. for places like Georgia, Florida, Arizona etc. who bring 40+ teams to their regional.

The "short" regional system: a setup just like Pittsburgh or Sacramento used a regional with 35 or fewer teams. ie: Pittsburgh, Palmetto, Hawaii etc.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

#1: I've heard talks for New York State, but that's about it. everybody seems to want it in Minnesota, California, the Southeast etc. though.

I've heard a lot for New York State, and something about a Capital Region "district size event" in the distant future. New York isn't a bad region for districts, but there's a lot of separation between Rochester-area teams, Albany-area teams, and NYC-area teams, so I wonder how it would work in practice. Next year...

I want a District system that allows teams from other areas to come to us, unlike Michigan. Otherwise, I think I'm fine with it.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I want a District system that allows teams from other areas to come to us, unlike Michigan. Otherwise, I think I'm fine with it.

Thats one of my major gripes with the district system: teams are discouraged to from traveling outside the state to compete. The real answer to this thread can be found here.

[BrendanB]

I don't think that each state will become a district, but some are large enough to do so. I believe that instead FIRST will split up "sections" into districts. Like Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut could all probably wind up creating a New England District culminating to a huge championship. Although it would kind of look like a lot of the small off-seasons around which are pretty awesome!

But I do hope that FIRST works a way out for teams to travel. Our team traveled to another regional for the first time this weekend and had an amazing time at North Carolina. I would be very sad if others would not have the same opportunity. Yes there will still be travel with districts, but it is not the same when you are meeting/competing with a whole group of teams you have never played with before!

I really like the district set up and how Michigan game play has dramatically increased over the past 2 years. I really hope that by 2012 there will be more in place if not sooner!