2024 Illinois Teams and Events Heat Map

With the addition of two rookies for the coming year, team count in Illinois has grown to 55 with a total of 91 regional plays. Since this seems to be the trendy thing to do, I threw together a quick heat map showing geographical distribution of teams for the 2024 season:


Left map shows number of teams in each county, and includes markers for Midwest, Central Illinois, and St. Louis regionals, as well as R2OC, Roboteer Rumble, and GRC offseasons.
Middle and right maps show where Illinois teams are coming from for Midwest and Central Illinois regionals, respectively. Not too much of a surprise here: Midwest attracts mostly teams from Cook County and the suburbs/exurbs, while CIR pulls from all over northern and central Illinois. Midwest has 31 in-state teams attending and CIR has 28; 13 IL teams are attending both.


Below are some other observations that I thought were interesting or might reflect the general health of FRC in the state:

One notable thing that these three maps together hint at, is that the six down-state teams in Madison, St. Clair, and Jefferson counties do not compete at any Illinois events, instead opting for the much closer St. Louis Regional, as well as one team getting a second play at Central Missouri Regional.
Other than those 6 teams, there are 3 other teams in the state, all in northern IL, not making an appearance at either IL regional, instead opting for Iowa, Seven Rivers, Miami Valley, and Wisconsin Regionals.

In total, Illinois will be represented at 14 regionals:

Event IL Team Count
2024ilch 31
2024ilpe 28
2024mosl 8
2024wimi 7
2024iacf 5
2024wila 3
2024mose 2
2024arli 1
2025ohmv 1
2024oktu 1
2024ksla 1
2024mokc 1
2024paca 1
202mndu2 1

Out of the 55 teams, 22 are playing at a single event, 30 have 2 plays, and 3 have 3 plays. Of the 22 single-event teams, 10 are playing at Midwest, all from Cook or the ring counties; 6 are playing at CIR, coming from all over northern and central Illinois; 5 downstate teams are playing at St. Louis; and 1 team bordering Wisconsin will be at the Wisconsin Regional. Overall, the geographic distribution of single-play teams fairly closely mirrors the distribution of teams as a whole.

If anyone has anything else they are interested to see let me know and I’ll see what I can throw together. I don’t really have much experience with GIS/geocoding so all of this was done by a combination of python and Paint, but I’m happy to give it a try.

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That’s really cool! I did a similar thing based on the state’s 2023 numbers, but didn’t go as in depth as you did. Granted, my efforts were more focused on a potential future where Illinois is on districts (I can dream ok?). That definitely pointed out the same issue with teams downstate having it be more convenient to leave the state simply because of where the big cities are

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I didn’t want to be the first to bring it up but that’s definitely what drove me to do this lol. I think the two biggest problems for the state moving to districts are getting something that is equitable for the down state teams so they aren’t ending up worse off than before, and addressing the high number of single-regional teams who would need to add a second event’s worth of travel cost, especially for the Cook County and Metro East teams who don’t even need to budget for travel to a single event currently. That in turn pretty much comes down to event distribution and location.

We would realistically need two events in Chicago/suburbs, an event in Peoria, and another event ideally further downstate. We would just barely have enough teams to support 4 events (based on when Indiana added a fourth event), but the issue is that any downstate event is going to need essentially all of the teams outside of Cook County to travel to have a full event. A compromise might be putting an event elsewhere in Central IL (Springfield maybe) that is closer to the Metro East teams but not unreasonable for the rest of the state; unfortunately 4 out of the 6 downstate teams only compete at St. Louis, where they presumable just travel for the day, so you are still asking them to go from 0 events of hotel/travel cost to 2.

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Yeah, in my hypothetical drafts that’s been the big thing too. The two ways I could see Illinois going to districts is either by absorbing St. Louis or only taking its northern half (Springfield and up) and going with Wisconsin. For the former, the perk is that there would be enough teams to justify events downstate while still providing the ones needed further north. For the latter, Chicago and Milwaukee are close enough together that an event somewhere in between could provide a second driving range event for teams in both metro areas (for example, my alum team, 2358, despite being Chicago area, has an equal or shorter drive time to Wisconsin than Midwest). However, I’m not sure how feasible such state-splitting solutions would be, as I remember hearing that state support is very useful, and states have only split for a district once ever.

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What I have heard third-hand through the grapevine is that FIRST is extremely reluctant to split states when forming districts. I believe PA is the only state currently split (eastern half in MAR, western half regionals) and I wouldn’t expect to see Illinois split regardless of how much sense it might make. At the current moment if we want districts, I think it is on us in the state to work with those downstate teams to figure out how we can make it happen without splitting the state.
Now as far as combining with Wisconsin, I think that could make a lot of sense for increasing team numbers to a really healthy level for a good number of events, as well as placing Chicago fairly central geographically for a district champs.

Here is a more accurate mapping of all teams officially registered for the 2024 season, with events in green (regionals and offseasons):

Here is a map showing all former teams that are not currently active:

Yellow are teams last active sometime during 2020-2023 seasons. There are 15 of these teams.

Orange are teams last active sometime during 2017-2019 seasons. There are 5 of these teams.

Red are teams last active previous to the 2017 season. There are 48 of these teams.

Overall, there are now 68 inactive teams, versus 55 active teams for 2024. That is 55% of all IL teams to exist being inactive now.

This google map is available at the link below and you can see all of the team numbers & names for each of these groups below.

Link here

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Here is a zoomed in view of the Chicago area for both active teams and former teams since it is hard to see details in the pictures above for those who don’t want to bother with the link.

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Oh yeah, I’ve heard those same rumblings that HQ is reluctant to split states into parts, so while it may make geographic sense, idk whether it would work within FIRST politics (or Illinois politics, state funding could be harder with a split). One point for going with Wisconsin might be that it could provide the teams necessary to put enough events up north for teams that need it, while also containing enough teams with the resources to travel downstate to a St. Louis area event (I believe this hypothetical district could host 7-8 events using Indiana’s teams:events ratio of 14:1). While still not perfect for those downstate teams, it would be better than taking them from no travel to 2 hotels, and if they need to (ideally not, but possible), they would be able to opt for only one event. Also, given Chicago and Milwaukee’s relatively central location, team density, and venue situation, I think you could almost do a rotating DCMP, Chicago one year, Milwaukee the next, but neither would be a bad choice in any given year.

Also, upon comparing our Illinois maps, you have a team in Rock Island County while I don’t. Looking into this more, I think frc team search may not be working correctly. It shows 648 being from Moline, when I believe they’re from the Iowa side of the Quad Cities.

I’m attaching the Wisco heatmap I made a while ago. It uses red and green, which I recognize isn’t ideal for colorblindness accessibility concerns, something I realized from the FiT thread. It also technically isn’t a heatmap, I forget the exact name for what it actually is, SkyeHawk pointed out a lot of those semantics over there.

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I was actually with 648 for a while, I can confirm they moved in the off-season of 2022 over to Moline.

Oh huh, can’t say it’s super surprising, they are a Quad Cities team, so moving within the Quad Cities makes sense, but not what I would have expected.

Also, I checked some of the stuff I didn’t remember. In 2023, Illinois + Wisconsin had 113 teams between them, making 8 events a safe bet at that Indiana ratio. As such, I’d probably say La Crosse, Twin Rivers area (maybe Fond du Lac?), Milwaukee, Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, St. Louis suburbs, and something between Chicago and Milwaukee would be ideal. Where this last event would make sense I don’t know, the space between the two areas is relatively empty. Lake County, IL has only two or three active teams (not certain which side of the county line 8029 is based on) and into Wisconsin there’s nothing until Racine.

We could go crazy and split the region between Chicago, St Louis and Indianapolis

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How about a super-district with a super-dcmp right there in the middle in Champaign…

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My pitch would be allowing teams to opt out of the district (on a yearly basis to allow responding to changing situations), requiring this decision to be made with first event selection. Feels like an ok middle ground to allow STL area teams to do that still if MO didn’t join.

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Honestly to this end I’m almost wondering if it could go the other way too, with St. Louis teams opting in to an Illinois+Wisconsin district. There is precedent for out of district teams opting in to districts, 1102 M’Aiken Magic of South Carolina competed in Peachtree from 2018-2020. However, given that I don’t believe any NYC-area teams compete on districts despite being sandwiched between two, I’m not sure whether FIRST would be too happy with an entire metro area of teams considering this.

In my opinion, IL aims to grow to ~60 teams to switch to districts, which can allow for 4 district events, especially with teams from IN and MI coming to fill spots for third plays.

I would map these as one in the city of Chicago, one in a suburb of Chicago, one in the Peoria area, and one in the Rockford area.

The Rockford one is the most unique choice, but it still services the majority of teams in the state, and it has a proven track record of volunteer based and people who would support a district event.

My short term goal after this would be for the state to grow to 72+ teams as quickly as possible, with emphasis on St. Louis area and areas where tes have previously existed. Once this threshold is met, a 5th district event could be justified in the St. Louis area, which would give just above every team in the state a true “home event”.

I would also propose a district championship event somewhere in the Peoria area to start to offset the south teams having a bit more challenge travelling to at least one of their district events.

IMO this is the most fair approach while still being realistic about optimizing for the majority of the teams in the state, and would greatly help the state with all of the benefits districts brings to a region.

One of the most common points I have heard from teams in the state against districts is losing the “spectacle” of regionals. This is something that has been widely discussed here on CD and in the FRC world as a whole, so it is disappointing to me that in 2023 we still have people who don’t understand the ways in which this is simply not true, or how all of the vast benefits outweigh this. Personally, I’d rather IL FIRST be able to re-purpose the hundreds of thousands in sponsorship money that is put towards renting the Credit Union One Arena or Renaissance Colliseum, or towards massive AV costs, union costs, etc ans be able yo put it towards actions that help promote team growth and sustainability in the state. Unfortunately some of the teams/people I have talked to that are against districts simply don’t seem to care about that. They have figured out their teams operations and budget for doing 2 regionals a year, and cannot be bothered looking at the bigger picture for the state.

The state leadership has also proven time and time again that they are either too short sided to see the benefits to the state of switching to districts, or cannot be bothered with the work to switch (or separate from any financial benefit?). IL having a net growth of 0% from 2014-2023 is pretty inexcusable IMO from the IL leadership. Happy to see a jet growth of 3 teams going into 2024, but this state should be thriving a lot more.

Hopefully Wisconsin moving to districts in 2025? will motivate IL, MN, and others to make the switch. IMO districts should be:

  • Minnesota & ND
  • Wisconsin
  • Illinois
  • Missouri & Kansas

Iowa teams be allowed to opt in to a district of their choice.

I debated even posting here but to be honest I have kind of had it with the lack of progress on IL. The report from the discussion at the town hall held at Roboteer Rumble this past October and the lack of accountability taken left me disappointed, frustrated, and at the point where I’m willing to speak pretty candidly publicly here about this topic.

There are solutions, but it requires those in a position of power to make those decisions and think of the larger picture and what is best for the teams and the state.

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This should also be extended to Nebraska IMO, since those teams have tended to play in Kansas City and Iowa in the past. South Dakota is in a similar boat where they’re technically part of FUM but its only team may not want to go to Minnesota and North Dakota events.

If possible, I wonder if Iowa could also hold a “neutral” event or two any team within this area would be able to play at for points. I don’t know how this would work out logistically with respect to Impact award slots - I guess every district would have to be prepared to have an extra team at DCMP if they won in Iowa?

I swear, they shoulda just gone with East Dakota and West Dakota…

The team plays Colorado as their home event, but their TBA shows them going to MN three times (2019, 2020, 2022). Probably has something to do with travel distance from Rapid City. Wouldn’t hurt to extend the offer, though.

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When FIM started, they sited one event in Traverse City even though there were not yet many teams “Up North”. I believe that contributed to the increase of teams away from the traditional “sponsored by car companies” cluster.

As reported in another thread, the Michigan 1st Congressional District (covering the UP and northern LP) has the most teams of any congressional district in the nation. I don’t think this could have been done without the establishment of districts and district events in the area.

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Interesting note.

As someone who spent a few years living in Chicago and now lives in Champaign, the distribution of teams in Illinois outside of Chicago is strange when you compare it to Indiana. Indiana has clearly done a MUCH better job attracting smaller school districts and even suburban school districts to get on board with FRC.

Take a look at Champaign for instance. Champaign/Urbana and Lafayette/West Lafayette are about as similar as you can get culturally and size. Both have large engineering schools at the heart, with an industrial backbone and some other industry. Greater Champaign county has 205,000 people. Tippecanoe county has 187,000.

The Lafayette area has 461, 1646, 1747 and 4272. All school supported, with Purdue First Programs clearly also being an integral reason for success.

Champaign has 4096. A Community supported team.

Now, I’ll admit I only recently moved to the area, but I don’t understand how there’s such a disparity between FRC participation in the 2 areas. To me, there’s no reason teams couldn’t be established in Champaign, Urbana and Mahomet. There seemingly has to be a mentor base pulled from UIUC and local industry (Kraft Heinz, Wolfram Alpha, Plastipak) with no good reason money cannot be raised.

Establishing a district event in Champaign (like Purdue had the Boilermaker regional and now has the Tippecanoe district event) may be what’s needed to spark growth in that area of central Illinois.

A large portion of this could probably be attributed to central place theory - or in other words: once you have a big thing (Chicagoland) it tends to dominate at the expense of the surrounding area.

Makes living just outside of Chicagoland quite lackluster.

People may say: "oh, but you are so close to < major population center > that must be nice! "

In reality < major population center > vacuums everything up at the same time making distance and logistics being a pain is the butt to traverse. (Part of that is being a car centric society, but that’s a different topic)

To @Nick_Coussens ’ point on district event locations- take advantage of the suburbs being sprawlly and space with big schools and parking - it’s not like Chicagoland really has the public transportation to easily bring teams to a civic center, large school, or some other suitably sized venue.

As for placing all the initial events in the north ~third of the state: I think there needs to be a lot of communication, and transparency with teams outside of this area if this is the case . Districts thrive off of density, both sides need to work on expansion to make the next two district events a reality.

I would also take a page from FiM’s book and NOT place the DCMP in Chicagoland. Yes there are a lot of teams here relative to the rest of the state, but there are gains to be had logistically by putting it elsewhere. May even be beneficial to put it down Springfield direction for the political angle for a few years - state politicians love STEM and photo ops, teams and communities love grants from government budgets.

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