LAS VEGAS REGIONAL... terminated?

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by JB987

Adam,
The best thing other teams can do to help us keep our regional is to send us some of your sponsors $$
Hey, if 2500 teams each sent $20 to Nevada FIRST we would be all set...kidding...sorta.

Seriously, our committee is working hard to get this possibly bad news out to our community and see if we can't shake some more financial support out of them. We haven't given up the fight yet...FIRST has been patient but reached a point where the loss of our regional and it's helpful role in offering additional capacity to CA and AZ teams (you would be amazed at the total number of teams left on the wait lists at so many of the area regionals including 10 left on ours). This is apparently no longer a mitigating concern to them since we have been told that there will be new regionals next year in CA (Ventura) and AZ (Phoenix).

This is sad news. LVR is my favorite regional. I personally would pay up to a extra $1000 to attend LVR. I think its that good. As for California teams, there was such a shortage to regional spots, there is no way for Ventura to make up for the california's need for an extra regional and the loss of LVR. Even if Ventura holds 60 teams, California looses 20 ish spots from LVR leaving only 40 new spots for California next year. To me that does not seem like a lot of space for FRC growth in california. I can think of 15 teams alone in So Cal that would like to attend a extra regional next year.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

This is sad news. LVR is my favorite regional. I personally would pay up to a extra $1000 to attend LVR. I think its that good. As for California teams, there was such a shortage to regional spots, there is no way for Ventura to make up for the california's need for an extra regional and the loss of LVR. Even if Ventura holds 60 teams, California looses 20 ish spots from LVR leaving only 40 new spots for California next year. To me that does not seem like a lot of space for FRC growth in california. I can think of 15 teams alone in So Cal that would like to attend a extra regional next year.

Thanks for the supportive response, Mark. We agree we have something special here and that's why the fight to survive is on. Maybe if teams like yours, and Adam's and many others directly affected were to convey directly to Frank such well made arguments like yours here we might have a fighting chance.

[Mastonevich]

The example States approximately 166k back to HQ. Does anyone know of documentation that describes what that really goes towards, and maybe a breakout?

[sastoller]

Joe,
We would hate to see the Vegas regional go away. Since PNW went to districts Vegas is the second closest regional to us (only 640 miles one-way). We really enjoyed the opportunity to meet and challenge many good FRC teams at Vegas this year, and I sincerely hope that we have the opportunity to play at Vegas for many years to come.

[James3245]

This development, should it come to pass, will have a major negative effect on Intermountain West programs. Idaho weighed in and Utah is another example. FIRST and NASA invested a lot of resources to help develop Utah teams beginning in 2010. The teams formed, many are thriving. What FIRST and NASA envisioned has come to pass. Of course, teams soon learned that to keep developing requires the inspiration that comes from competing. The more the better. But it isn’t easy to find places to play the game out here. Within an 8 hour drive there are only three events: Utah, Colorado, and Las Vegas regionals. The closest off-season event requires an even longer drive to California. (yes, we are working on setting one up in our region) The problem has become more acute as districts form up. Many teams from Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado attend LVR because it is the closest option for a second regional. (granted, travel is not as bad as what Hawaii and many international teams face)

By attending LVR the last three years we forged important ties with great teams from whom we’ve learned an immense amount. We bring home this knowledge and have done our best to build our own region. That is how FRC programs develop - they learn from more developed teams. But to test your team’s skills you need the opportunity to compete. In less densely populated areas, it can be surprisingly hard, and expensive (money and travel time), to compete more than once a year. To lose chances to play with and against top tier teams greatly compromises the goals of FIRST.

LVR is a superb event, as many teams can attest. Every year has seen an increasingly tough, and inspiring, line-up. Last year registration filled in less than 24 hours when it opened for second regionals. LVR has been an exemplary regional, extremely well run by volunteers (thank you 987), and top-notch field personnel. It meets every core mission goal of FIRST.

FIRST expects a lot of event organizers, whether district or regional; it is too much to ask every team to pay a high entry fee per event and then require the event organizers to run the event without access to that income. The LVR situation is exhibit A of the flaw of this model: a great regional that fulfills every mission goal of FIRST now apparently in peril, and not for a lack of paying teams.

The good news is that with to its model of high event fees combined with reliance on volunteers and sponsors, FIRST has built up an impressively large reserve from which it can draw.

LVR is vital to teams in the West - FIRST needs to support it, even if it requires investing a few coins from the war chest.

[Pat Fairbank]

I'm not an accountant, but a quick look at FIRST's financials seem to indicate that the organization is operating at a $2M yearly surplus and is sitting on top of nearly $24M in cash and short-term investments.

Given that for the parent organization funding is apparently not in short supply, is it unreasonable of me to ask why regionals experiencing financial hardship can't retain a larger portion of their own registration fees?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I'm not an accountant, but a quick look at FIRST's financials seem to indicate that the organization is operating at a $2M yearly surplus and is sitting on top of nearly $24M in cash and short-term investments.

Given that for the parent organization funding is apparently not in short supply, is it unreasonable of me to ask why regionals experiencing financial hardship can't retain a larger portion of their own registration fees?

I'm not an accountant either, but to get better insight into FIRST financials, their Form 990 filing provides details for revenues, expenses and compensation for the fiscal year. As a non-profit organization, FIRST's 2011 Form 990 filing is public information and can be found on the web.

An interesting aspect of the filing is the expenses falling under the category of "grants or other assistance to organizations, governments and individuals." Expenditure of grants received by FIRST from donors for specific teams in excess of $5000 are listed in Schedule I (starting on page 35). Basically, team registration fees are considered fair market value for "Kit of parts and program participation."

One might expect a portion of the team's registration fee for events would be applied directly the cost of events the team attends, but this is not the case. This begs the question: for teams registering for than one regional, just what program participation expenses are being paid by the additional $4000 per regional?

Some transparency from FIRST here would also be appreciated.

[Mark Sheridan]

Okay, Orange County, CA is rounding up some letters, or more accurately OCRA (orange county robotic alliance) is rounding up letters. So far 3309 and 3476 have committed.

Is there any other teams working on this?

[AdamHeard]

I think someone more eloquent than me should use this as a chance to ask a good Ask Frank Friday question.

FIRST is pushing transparency, I'd love to know more about where the money goes, how it's used, etc...

It'd be interesting to know their logic behind this decision when from our point of view the regional is very profitable for FIRST.

It's kind of crazy that I've been doing this forever and when a parent asks me where all the registration fees go if they don't go to the events, I can't really give them a great answer other than, "FIRST is big.... I'm sure they have a lot of expenses...?"

[Ryan Dognaux]

If LVR needs a year to recoup funds, couldn't they run a more district-sized event and make back their debts? I feel like teams would accept this to keep the competition and FIRST would do it to break even. Lose the flashy A/V & venue this next year and bring it back after that.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

If LVR needs a year to recoup funds, couldn't they run a more district-sized event and make back their debts? I feel like teams would accept this to keep the competition and FIRST would do it to break even. Lose the flashy A/V & venue this next year and bring it back after that.

We have no highschool venue large enough to handle the minimum 40 ish teams we were told we need to serve and cost of bringing in generator we would need brings overall cost to same as current venue we get for dirt cheap thanks to LV Convention Visitors Authority discount.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by JB987

We have no highschool venue large enough to handle the minimum 40 ish teams we were told we need to serve and cost of bringing in generator we would need brings overall cost to same as current venue we get for dirt cheap thanks to LV Convention Visitors Authority discount.

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it.

Venue rental is not usually the largest cost difference between regionals and district competitions. Professional event management and A/V services make regionals much more expensive to operate than districts.

I served on a regional planning committee for several years, in St. Louis, before moving to Michigan. The regional I helped to plan and run had a budget more than 20 times what my district competition runs on today.

Of course this is not easy -- it takes a small army of dedicated volunteers and some of the best organizers in the FRC community. But surely LV is up to that kind of challenge.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but of the roughly 50 high schools nearest me, I can only think of 5, max, that would fit the bill, just from space, not even counting schedule. L.A. has a similar population density to some areas of Vegas. You guys are 1/1, we're 1/10 if that. Some of our high schools could probably fit their entire athletic areas, football field gym and all, into the space used by IRI (including theater and possibly the neighboring swim area).

Here's the thing: Out here, high schools are rather space-constrained by neighborhoods. If any given high school (let alone middle/elementary schools) needs to expand, they have only one place to go: straight up. Or straight onto the athletic fields, which are probably about the only open space for a few hundred yards. Bigger gym? Sorry, there goes the X building. Oh, we need that? Guess we've gotta build a taller building for Y so we can eliminate the need for X. Wait, the Z regulation forbids that? Guess we gotta modernize the gym and skip the expansion. You get the picture. And when something does get budgeted for and built, it can take YEARS. (A local high school put a theater in recently. I think it opened up about 3-4 years ago. They started back when I was in middle school, as I recall. Might be off on the times, but it took a very long time to put up.)

In the Midwest, there's a lot of more open land. True, there's a lot of farmland in use. But the point is, there is very little space at a high school to put a facility that can handle a robotics competition out here, and the existing facilities were generally built when high schools were smaller, smaller athletic departments, you get the picture.

If I can only think of 5 high schools that can maybe handle a district from a space standpoint, and one farther out that definitely can, in a much bigger city area than Vegas, then maybe "We can host a district and we're smaller than you in population" isn't the sort of thing that will help the problem. I've heard that one of the issues with going to a district system in CA is the venues, or lack thereof--as a state, we've got more area and more population, and have had more teams at times, then most of the current district areas. Therefore, there must be something else that is keeping us from going to districts, and suitable venues is a likely suspect, though certainly not the only one.

[Uniwersel]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

I think the LV area has upwards of 2 million residents and about forty high schools. If our one high school in a community of about 8 thousand can host a district competition, surely one (or more) of those LV high schools can do it..

I lived in Las Vegas as a freshman, and I can't think of any high school in the area that could support a regional with 50 teams attending. Most of the high schools are based on one of two designs, both of which are similar in size. The high school I went to had a 3 court basketball gym, with a small practice gym attached. There would be space for the field, which would be extremely cramped, but no room for pits.

[DELurker]

Originally Posted by Uniwersel

I lived in Las Vegas as a freshman, and I can't think of any high school in the area that could support a regional with 50 teams attending. Most of the high schools are based on one of two designs, both of which are similar in size. The high school I went to had a 3 court basketball gym, with a small practice gym attached. There would be space for the field, which would be extremely cramped, but no room for pits.

Coming in late to this discussion...

If you move the event to a district-sized venue, you need to have a district-sized attendance. The description one poster gave of a 3-court gym with a practice gym on the side is all you need. Put bleachers over two of the courts and the field on one and there's your arena. Turn the side gym and maybe another mid-sized room into the pits, and you have a district-sized venue suitable for 40 teams. This describes most of the MAR districts I've attended as well as many of the off-season events on the east coast.

More on-topic: It's disappointing that LVR cannot garner more sponsorship to make this a dead issue. I hate seeing Regionals go away without some form of replacement. Would Nellis AFB be able to provide some form of DOD sponsorship grant?

I would encourage any teams who are looking at folding due to this potential setback to reconsider. There are regional events within 300 miles of LV that are viable. My 11-person team travels 2+ hours each way (about 140 miles each way) to our two district events each year. It's taken some changes in how we approach the events to reduce our costs (drive team only for the first night before competition), but we've done it with a minimal budget. If nothing else, have the students approach this as another design problem: how do we find more money?