All District FIRST?

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

This is a FIRST HQ thing. Check out Jim Zondag's white paper. FiM wants states to be free.

Doesn't matter to the teams, it still costs $17 000.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

Its about 5 hours from Houghton to Traverse city, its about 7 hours to Flint... a bit more than you think for the western UP... For reference Duluth is 4 hours away.

My distances were based on the a reasonable "best case scenario," a team traveling from Sault Ste Marie. You're right that it gets even worse (and even closer to Wisconsin/Minnesota) for teams further west.

Originally Posted by Gregor

Doesn't matter to the teams, it still costs $17 000.

Depends on how long FIRST requires that. As more areas go district, the pressure to keep the cost relatively equal between regional and district teams goes down. And the chances FIRST allows for a reduced cost/free MSC-type event goes up.

Additionally, MAR has a number of grants they award to teams to help them reach MAR championship. FiM may have a similar program.
http://www.midatlanticrobotics.com/m...application-2/

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by 1018sophmore

Indiana is hopefully going to the district model either this year or next gonna be interesting

I really hope not.

Indiana is still too spread out. And with one corner of the state barely populated with teams (SW corner) and the other corner/side devoid of teams (Cincinatti/Lousiville area*), I think the district system isn't appropriate.


*- I'll save this for another thread, as I live there and have a few things to say.

Aside from Indy, the state doesn't have enough teams crammed in one specific area to warrant districts. Kokomo and Lafayette have more than a few, but otherwise, it's too spread for districts to truly be districts.

I think the current two regional + 3 slightly out-of state regional setup is doing well... maybe a 3rd regional would ease tension. But districts, I'm not feeling it.

[Anupam Goli]

Everyone is getting excited about districts since they offer so many advantages to the current system, but don't realize why the district model works. I'd love to be able to compete twice or more without having to travel 400 miles and budget $5000 per competition, but there are very few places where having districts is feasible. Districts would work in the North East, since there is a high team population density, but as soon as you go to places like the southeast US, things get tricky. If >85% of teams are in one city and there's less than 50 teams in that city, districts aren't right for your state yet, and may not be until the region populates more. It's nice to be able to go to multiple competitions for the same registration price, and only pay $1000 for each additional district event, but unless one city or area has two regionals that are within a 50 mile radius of each other, then districts are far in your future. Try doing what Toronto does first, by having two regionals in the city that are 3 weeks apart.

[3747Mentor]

Playing time is very important to my team. As others have stated, the amount of time, energy, and money spent on the construction of the robot warrant an increase in playing time. Our regional this year gave us 8 matches. When I saw the match schedule, I couldn't believe it! The parents of my students were not happy and neither was I. We had a difficult Thursday, missed all practice time, and were left with very little opportunity to work with our machine. I'm sure this story is not unique to my team.

My school district has a difficult time supporting a program that costs so much per pupil. When they hear that we are competing against 60 or so other teams for a handful of shots at advancing, and we only get 8-9 opportunities/18-20 minutes of playing time, the program becomes even harder to justify. It is hard to explain this whole 18 minutes of competition with 3 days in the hotel to the AD.

I would support any model that increases playing time while reducing time spent away from school in hotels.

[Ivan Malik]

I know there is a thread floating around that discusses this, but who likes thread revivals anyway?

My personal opinion is there is no way to divide all of FRC into regions unless there is explosive growth in certain areas, which I don't see happening anytime soon. Eventually enough areas will be "sectioned off" into the islands that the current district models have that travel for many teams/volunteers, who are left out, will be insane. At this point everyone will go to a points based system and the points will be used for championship spots. In this scenario there would be no "state" championships or borders because how could you divide those in less team/volunteer dense areas into regions without crazy travel? The issue with this is awards like chairman's and EI.

Any model for the current island type district areas would have to have fluid borders so you don't get things like the Western U.P. in Michigan competing in the L.P. when Wisconsin/Minnesota is quite a bit closer.

Eventually I can see something like little league baseball does, but that is way down the road.

[karomata]

I personally like the current regional system, it's cool to be able to go to other distance places to compete, and with a district system in all 50 states it would get rather confusing.

[dodar]

Or maybe you do like randomized groups at the beginning of the year with every team in FIRST. Then, after you are put into a group, you play through a normal year of FIRST accumulating points like in a district but not from anywhere specifically, just from where you compete. And then at the end of the regular season, the top X teams from each group go to Worlds. Like say 1592, 1986, 1983, 175 could all end up in the same group(there would be more than 4 but those are the 4 that came to mind first) but 1592 plays at Orlando, 1986 at GKC, 1983 at Spokane, and 175 at Boston; say they all win the regional undefeated, then each team would have the same number of "group points" towards getting that slot at Worlds.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by dodar

Or maybe you do like randomized groups at the beginning of the year with every team in FIRST. Then, after you are put into a group, you play through a normal year of FIRST accumulating points like in a district but not from anywhere specifically, just from where you compete. And then at the end of the regular season, the top X teams from each group go to Worlds. Like say 1592, 1986, 1983, 175 could all end up in the same group(there would be more than 4 but those are the 4 that came to mind first) but 1592 plays at Orlando, 1986 at GKC, 1983 at Spokane, and 175 at Boston; say they all win the regional undefeated, then each team would have the same number of "group points" towards getting that slot at Worlds.

Interesting. I'm not sure I like competing for a slot at CMP with teams I'll never see, but I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand just because of that. Having teams in different groups competing at the same event would make for some really "interesting" politics. Possibly even more interesting than what already goes on.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

Interesting. I'm not sure I like competing for a slot at CMP with teams I'll never see, but I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand just because of that. Having teams in different groups competing at the same event would make for some really "interesting" politics. Possibly even more interesting than what already goes on.

Im curious as to why you think that? The thought process behind that, was that this formula for making it to Worlds would put all the burden on your team's ability to play the game and understand the alliance selection to allow you to play the game to the best of your ability.This would almost entirely erase the feeling teams will have about competing in the elimination with teams that arelady own a slot at Worlds. In this setup, every match you play alters not only your chance of making it but pretty much every other team in FIRST. This allows for each team to quantify each match to an even greater magnitude.

[Jaxom]

Originally Posted by dodar

Im curious as to why you think that? The thought process behind that, was that this formula for making it to Worlds would put all the burden on your team's ability to play the game and understand the alliance selection to allow you to play the game to the best of your ability.This would almost entirely erase the feeling teams will have about competing in the elimination with teams that arelady own a slot at Worlds. In this setup, every match you play alters not only your chance of making it but pretty much every other team in FIRST. This allows for each team to quantify each match to an even greater magnitude.

Because it's fun to have direct interaction with a team with whom you're competing. It's fun to have long-standing relationships with those teams as well; if we randomly select groups every year those will constantly shift.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, and neither of my "fun" reasons are terribly significant. I do wonder about the size of the groups; you're probably always going to end up with teams in your group at the same regional. So you could still be competing with teams that have already qualified, and now the competition is on two levels -- within the group, and for the blue banner at that event. Have you thought about those kind of interactions?

Remember, I said "...I'm not sure I like...." I'm putting an emphasis on uncertainty, and I'm interested in the idea.

How many groups do you think this needs?

[Phyrxes]

I went to a meeting at our regional this year about Districts, *hat tip* to the visitors from MAR who also attended and gave some personal insight.

The National Capital Area is currently looking at the district model but we were told it would be 2015 at the earliest. For reference this district could absorb 3 Regional Events (DC/Chesapeake/Virginia).

Given the proximity between MAR and the parts of the possible National Capital Area the idea of playing across district lines surfaces again.

At that meeting coaches were very divided on their initial perceptions of going to the district model so it may be an interesting ride.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Jay Money 1058

Where do you think the next few district areas will be?

It appears New England will be going district/"conference" next year. California, Minnesota, the National Capital regional (Maryland, DC, Virginia), Canada/Ontario, and some combinations of Midwest states (Illinois + Indiana + Ohio? + Wisconsin?) may switch the year after that. Representatives from Minnesota and the National Capital region have attended MAR events over the past two years, to get a feel for events and what teams think of them.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

I went to a meeting at our regional this year about Districts, *hat tip* to the visitors from MAR who also attended and gave some personal insight.

The National Capital Area is currently looking at the district model but we were told it would be 2015 at the earliest. For reference this district could absorb 3 Regional Events (DC/Chesapeake/Virginia).

Given the proximity between MAR and the parts of the possible National Capital Area the idea of playing across district lines surfaces again.

At that meeting coaches were very divided on their initial perceptions of going to the district model so it may be an interesting ride.

The topic of districts in the National Capital Region sure seems to be a lot more complex than I imagined. At the Virginia Regional, there was a lot of animosity from groups of people who liked keeping the format unchanged in Virginia. There are solid reasons for this: 5 of the 6 teams who qualified for Championships out of the Virginia Regional only attended the Virginia Regional. VirginiaFIRST and the Virginia Regional are the second oldest 501c3 and event pair, only behind the FIRST in Michigan and Great Lakes Regional, which is now the Michigan State Championship. Still, it is important to note that some teams in Virginia, including <1000 level teams, do not think they can sustain having to pay double to get into CMP. 422 has provided financial assistance to teams in our area just to get them a bus to St. Louis.

However, my issue with maintaining the status quo in our region is that by not acting as soon as possible to make this change to the competition structure in the area, we are actively hampering the progress of the program. In Virginia this year, teams only played 8 qualification matches. If you didn't make eliminations and were a veteran team, you essentially forked out $625/match, which is something people at the Virginia meeting seemed to be apprehensive to accept as something bad.

At the Washington, DC Regional, which is common ground for teams all over Virginia, Maryland, and the district, there was near-unanimous approval at the meeting, citing the low costs, equal or fewer days out of school/work, and in general, a remarkable return on investment. Why that message did not come across well to some Virginia teams remains a disappointing mystery to me. There is money for teams in the states and district if they just go look for it.
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Back on the topic at hand
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If the National Capital Region is to switch over to districts by the 2015 season (which I still expect), there will be an interesting situation where pretty much the entirety of the northeast will be in the district system. They could theoretically all play under the same point system but have some restrictions (the limit on how you can submit for DCA, and you can only attend your local championship), but the whole area could serve as a test-bed for inter-district play.

[Phyrxes]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

...At the Washington, DC Regional, which is common ground for teams all over Virginia, Maryland, and the district, there was near-unanimous approval at the meeting, citing the low costs, equal or fewer days out of school/work, and in general, a remarkable return on investment. Why that message did not come across well to some Virginia teams remains a disappointing mystery to me. There is money for teams in the states and district if they just go look for it....

I have a theory about why the receptions at DC and VA meetings went very differently. In the proposed NCA there is the potential for some teams to have the same travel issues that the Upper Peninsula teams of FiM have.

Looking at the teams that registered this year for the events and assuming they had a mentor at the meetings there is a significant disparity in the number of teams that will be within say 100 miles of two or more proposed district events. For those teams I can see travel being a significant issue as they are generally located at one end of the proposed district border and it is possible that a non district event would be closer than any "non home" district would be.