2017 - New England District Event Schedule

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Connor McBride

I'm a little torn on DCMP being a week 6.

1. With the lack of nearby hotels, finding one will be a pain.

2. With the extra week between DCMP and CMP, teams have more time to prep such as airfare (or bus), hotel arrangements, shipping the robot and their pit items (if they choose to do so).

I think its a good move. Week 7 made it really difficult to arrange travel especially with airlines.

The benefit to having a short turn around for the DCMP is we are all familiar with New England and while finding close hotels isn't easy there are still plenty a little further away.

[TD78]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I think its a good move. Week 7 made it really difficult to arrange travel especially with airlines.

The benefit to having a short turn around for the DCMP is we are all familiar with New England and while finding close hotels isn't easy there are still plenty a little further away.

Week 7 next year is Easter weekend too...it was definitely a good move to make DCMP week 6.

[rwodonnell]

Here's a map of the events (posted in another thread before I realized this one was created.)

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

Here's a map of the events (posted in another thread before I realized this one was created.)

Thank you for sharing!

This pretty much confirms three things:

1. CT teams are definitely getting the short end of the stick.
2. Greater Boston teams are definitely "winning out" with ~5-7 events within approximately a one hour drive.
3. There's still a gaping hole of events (and dramatically fewer teams) in VT. The Pine Tree event and concerted effort by individuals and teams in Maine (Jamee Luce, 2648, and others...) helped spark a ton of Maine growth over the last 4 or 5 years... Something similar would be great in Vermont... but that's not easily carried out at all!!!

[Ty Tremblay]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

1. CT teams are definitely getting the short end of the stick.
2. Greater Boston teams are definitely "winning out" with ~5-7 events within approximately a one hour drive.
3. There's still a gaping hole of events (and dramatically fewer teams) in VT. The Pine Tree event and concerted effort by individuals and teams in Maine (Jamee Luce, 2648, and others...) helped spark a ton of Maine growth over the last 4 or 5 years... Something similar would be great in Vermont... but that's not easily carried out at all!!!

The map looks pretty well distributed for me. The locations of districts are entirely dependent on the locations of venues capable of hosting a district (within the price model of a district) and those venues almost entirely exist in areas populated enough to warrant one. It looks like the density of teams and the locations of the venues follow the population density of NE pretty closely. It would make sense that most of the teams and most of the events are within an 1-2 hours of Boston.

I wouldn't call the lack of an event in VT a "gaping" hole. There are 4 teams on that map in VT and there were definitely more than 4 ME teams (even if you adjust for state / population size) before the Pine Tree event started.

[jweston]

Originally Posted by rwodonnell

Here's a map of the events (posted in another thread before I realized this one was created.)

I have a hunch that Waterbury and Hartford will be filled with CT teams after 2nd event selection, given that there are nearly 50 CT teams and UMass Dartmouth was popular with CT teams (CT accounted for 10 of 32 teams last year at MANDA).

Am I correct in remembering that a district event is typically restricted to 40 teams? I can't find confirmation of any kind of limit but that's my recall. Having been to a couple of 40 team district events, I can't imagine making it work for much more.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

The map looks pretty well distributed for me. The locations of districts are entirely dependent on the locations of venues capable of hosting a district (within the price model of a district) and those venues almost entirely exist in areas populated enough to warrant one. It looks like the density of teams and the locations of the venues follow the population density of NE pretty closely. It would make sense that most of the teams and most of the events are within an 1-2 hours of Boston.

I wouldn't call the lack of an event in VT a "gaping" hole. There are 4 teams on that map in VT and there were definitely more than 4 ME teams (even if you adjust for state / population size) before the Pine Tree event started.

I don't want to make a particularly big deal of my VT comment in the context of this years' event schedule... it's not a real criticism of anyone, and not the NE District planning team(s). But I do disagree that VT has anything close to a reasonable representation of teams.

I wasn't saying "gee, the fact that VT doesn't have a district is a crying shame!" I was more saying "man, I wish there was more FRC (teams and events) in VT!" and that I think having more/closer events would be a big help, similar to both the help and support provided by individuals and groups in Maine over the last ~5 years. In 2010, Maine had 6 teams, including 2648 who was competing in their 3rd season. In 2011, Maine had 8 teams, when the Mainely Spirit off-season event was first started. In 2012, the year after teams had their first off-season nearby to attend (which I believe 2648 and co actively recruited other seed teams to attend) there were 10 teams. In 2013, when the Pine Tree regional had its first season, there were 13 teams. In 2014, with the first year of districts and the second year of the Pine Tree, there 18 teams in Maine. There were 24 teams competing in Maine in 2016... I don't know how many there will be in Maine in 2017, but I'm guessing they're adding a few more.

I definitely wouldn't say that VT's FRC representation comes close to following its population density. VT has a population of 626k over about the same area that NH has 1,300k people... NH had 32 teams in 2016, while VT had 4 (and that includes 95, which is based right on the border of the two states and moved their meeting space from NH to VT last year). Additionally, VT doesn't have any teams in the Greater Burlington area, which comprises almost 1/3 of the state's population. I'm sure this largely has to do with no events being within a 2.5 hour drive. If anyone did approach a school board about starting a team in VT, I'm sure (well, our first event is over 2.5 hours away, and we're supposed to attend at least two... if we succeed the Championship is even further away in New England) is a tough sell, particularly when there's little supporting infrastructure.

All that to say, I'm not blaming anyone for VT's under-representation in FRC, but I'm sure with enough concerted effort it could be "fixed." I'm not in a good position (geographically, particularly) to spark it, but I would certainly be willing to support it from a planning or technical support standpoint.

[rwodonnell]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

2. Greater Boston teams are definitely "winning out" with ~5-7 events within approximately a one hour drive.

We definitely feel fortunate to have 7 events within roughly an hour from Burlington! With the DCMP about 1hr 15min away, we will likely not spend on hotels for any district events, which is nice financially.

As some others have said, it would be great to see more Th-Sat events, and another one in CT would be nice too. I'm sure the committee did all they could to make a great slate of events - many thanks to those who put in so much effort!

[jweston]

Sorry to see no UMass Dartmouth this year. I know we'll be thinking long and hard about our options. Typically we like to do 3 district events that are well spaced. 5 weeks with NECMP on week 6 makes this tough. We'll see what shakes out.