Inspired by @Dominick_Ferone’s New York Heat Map, here is Minnesota:
There are 3 new teams this year - Hennepin County gaining 2 teams, and St. Louis County gaining 1 team.
We gained a regional this year in St. Cloud (Stearns County), and are down to 1 regional in the Twin Cities Area. Duluth still hosts 2 regionals.
I like the idea, but I think it’d make more sense to try the following splits to add some more colors represented:
That or a continuous coloring like what Excel does with conditional formatting for a true heatmap.
I agree. I was a little taken back by how many counties have 5 or fewer teams. It makes sense though
Also, I keep a map of Minnesota team locations. I’m sure this is a bit out of date if any teams dropped out between last year and this year, but it should be mostly accurate.
This is a lot more clear, and its roughly what I expected just from what I know of our states population density. Good work!
I sense the influence of Iowa in the orderliness of your southernmost counties, and then it all goes to crazytown! 
You see one river, and all geographic rules go out the window. It’s the same reason West St. Paul is south of St. Paul.
6,10, 1623, 6663 are some off of the top of my head that are missing from your map.
Is that this year or last? Might answer @MOCTA1189 's question here.
Last, don’t have a final count on how many new teams there are yet
I’m not sure what qualifications a team had to be discontinued and also in the FRC API, which that map is based on. I compared the FRC data to the FIRST Upper Midwest list, and any team not in a state region was listed as discontinued.
I knew about team 10 at least when I put this together - our booster club president was a student on that team.
I am not convinced this is a good thing overall.
We all have opinions one way or another on FIMs expansion I guess…
Accessibility?=Good.
Oversaturated such that it impacts sustainability? =Bad
The real question is who manages blackout bingo first? The UP or the Mitten?
Having so many teams is really tough on having enough events in the shortened season. 5 events every week except week 2 now has 6 events
Yeah, I guess my last season in fim was that madhouse of states then worlds the following week in 2022
How did you make this map? Was it just make an excel spreadsheet and color by numbers, or is there something more automated that you used to fill in the counties? I’m interested in making one for Wisconsin when I have the time.
Used FRC API to get teams and cities, google sheet magic with a reference pulled online to find counties, then color by number. I regret not working more to automate it. I really should come up with a reason to get python tools on my work computer.
Yeah we won state that year but couldn’t go to worlds. With the quick turnaround there was no way to secure funding and logistics. The school system had control of our funds even though they don’t put a penny in there. We have since started our own 501c3 for our team funds because of the headache of dealing with the school.
I messed around in some Python for this today. Would have been nice to do it this way to start, but here’s a baseline for you.
I put this together just to see the impact of 2020, but the explosion in 2007 and 2008 is so cool.
