California District Competitions

Competition Regional Competitions
1

So I was reading the thread about the toughest regional and I saw a few posts about California becoming the new FiM and MAR program. The question is…when is the right time?

Currently California has 195 teams and 5 regional programs. More than any other state. I think CA will have to get to about 250 teams before we switch to districts, because all 195 of us are spread out over a large area. And the district championship would most likely be at at the CVR.

Another thought would be a North Vs. South thing. They could add one more regional in northern California, and then have a NorCal district championship and a SoCal district championship.

Thoughts anyone?

2

We do not need more teams to go to a district model. As it stands next year it’s going to be extremely hard to find enough space for CA teams to stay in state for a second regional. It was really bad this year and it’s only going to get worse. Adding new traditional regionals can only get you so far.

3

True, so would you say it’s better to just go to the district format and add more district competitions throughout the state?

4

Jim Beck, CA regional director, visited 256 a few days ago and told us that anywhere from 2013 to 2017 California and Hawaii will mix to become one district area, with a lot more events. Also, he said something about the number of teams exponentially rising, so that more competitions won’t mean less teams per competition, but maybe even more teams per competition.

5

What do you think would be the right number of teams for a district level competition?

I really like the FiM model, in which each event has 40 teams and each team gets 12 qualifying matches per event.

6

Honestly, I don’t see why we don’t go to districts next year. California is one of the leading states in teams, and we don’t have enough room to fit them all.

7

After doing San Diego last year with what 60 teams 40 sounds like a way better number, Even with 50 in Vegas its so cramped

8

Yeah, and 60 in Central Valley this year will be hectic.

9

There are currently 45 teams registered for the 2012 Central Valley Regional.

10

I heard it was fitting 60 from Mr. Beck.

11

We will be Going to Vegas still only 44 listed

12

If they will add more events, where do you think we will see them? I wouldn’t mind seeing a SF district event :wink:

Depending on space (I have not been to any SoCal events) I wouldn’t be surprised if SD or LA went to a two competitions in one format, like what Dallas did this year.

13

I think L.A. has the space to do that, if they plan carefully. If I’m not mistaken, SD barely has space for the teams they do have… But I could be wrong on that (I only attended there in '07).

San Jose, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, Madera, Los Angeles, San Diego are the current events in CA. Hawaii rounds out the current regional events in the proposed district area. That’s 7 events; presumably, at least one new event would end up in HI to make it easier for HI teams to go to 2 events. That’s 8. Add one more in the Bakersfield or central coast areas (or both), and one in Orange County, you get 10 districts; turn one district into the area championship (and make sure that whichever one that is has an airport nearby that can handle traffic to/from HI)… 9 districts, one area championship to start out with, then add more wherever the most teams are that have a hard time getting into 2nd events or wherever growth is wanted.

14

Silicon Valley is in San Jose.

15

Seattle used to be a 64-team competition, but then we switched to a venue with bigger floorspace and but less seating room with two simultaneous regionals of 50-54 teams each. Last year was the first year of that, and after registration closed, they redistributed the teams by experience (i.e. by team number) to balance the rookie:veteran ratio.

As such (in no way condescending), it’s somewhat amusing to see irritation at 50-team events. :stuck_out_tongue: I definitely agree with the district format as far as the logistics of the events and the increase in competition time teams get to experience, as well as guaranteeing a stronger pool of robots going on to CMP (it’s a shame that 971 doesn’t always make it).

However, and we’re running into these issues attending just two regionals, the number of days of schools missed really stack up. It really isn’t a major reason to justify not having the district format, though.

A bigger reason to justify not having the district format is the international teams. If Washington switches to a district format for Washington State (right now, we’re at 90ish teams, plus a few inactive), where else would the Turkish teams that attend our regional go? A local team here started the team in Turkey, and having international teams (previously, Canada too when 1346 was still in FRC) really expands the scope of the experience for the students. Here near Microsoft and Boeing, we’re all technology-spoiled, and the opportunity to talk to the international teams is a huge reality check–“Wow, we really take science and tech for granted!”

I don’t know too much about the Californian regionals, but that is part of the experience I don’t want to miss.

16

I thought I had one too many in there…

With respect to the international teams, there are a couple of ways to handle that. One, which the current district areas take, is to tell them flat-out that they can’t come. The other, which to my knowledge has not been tried, is that if a team counts their “home” regional in a given area, they have the option to be counted as part of that area for purposes of district competitions.

I have a third idea, but it’s getting late so I won’t go into full detail. Short version, take something like the current regional format, but cap the number of teams that can register from any given area with a district system. This allows for teams from the various areas with district systems to meet up at a venue other than Championship. This particular idea wouldn’t be as desired now as it would be once the district system spreads across the country.

17

I really dont see Hawaii teams as a whole becoming a part of the California District competitions.
As long as you have to fly to get to events, its no different for us to fly to California vs. anywhere else on the Western side of the US. The only drawback I see is Hawaii teams being excluded from participating in such events as a result of not being part of it.

Its simply too costly for travel and the time to get robots in back to back events becomes a concern since we dont normally just drive the robot to events.

Michigan and MAR makes sense for all the reasons they made the move. For Hawaii, unless you plan on putting events all over Hawaii for teams to participate in during the course of the competition season, there would be no benefit.

18

With 36 teams currently in Hawaii, that is enough for 2 district events in the state now. There would soon have to be a 3rd district if the number of teams expands. I understand that travel between the islands is much more expensive than travel between districts on the mainland. But the teams would not have to travel interstate to compete in 2 district events.

California would need 10 district events to cover the current number of teams.

And the two states combined would feed into 2 championship events, to keep the scale the same as in FiM and MAR.

19

I don’t see any current benefit of changing the Hawaii makeup. It’s a solid destination regional, and the number of teams there make up for a nice state championship atmosphere. California already has more teams than Michigan, why add on 36 more teams?

On the subject of the district system finally (hopefully) spreading across the United States, it’s a subject people love to pick apart at the conclusion of the State Championship (and now MAR, I guess).

The district system isn’t this scary entity that threatened the sanctity of FIRST like most people (including myself) believed in its infancy. Like how South Carolina picks presidents, the Michigan State Championship picks Einstein competitors. What once was a pilot program has seem to become FIRST’s idea of how to fix the degrading regional system we have in place.

Regionals made since in 2000. Michigan, California, and Texas had one competition each. If you wanted to go chill in Epcot and you had the money, you got to go and compete in the tents. If you were based out of Virginia and points North, you had options for multiple regionals.

Now it’s 2012. We’ve gone from a collective of under 400 to a growing monolith of what, 2400? And championships haven’t really grown much in the last few years because it simply cannot. It’s a problem that needs to be solved, and the district model works. Now, the qualification structure doesn’t always fit the region, nor does the seat count. However, I feel that you can scale it to any region of the country containing two or three close regionals.

I don’t know if FIRST is going to sanction its spread, or more easily enable it, but it’s coming. It’s coming to New England, California, the Southeast, the Ohio Valley, greater metropolitan DC, the deep south, the upper and lower midwest, Texas…

I’m excited.

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20

So maybe FIRST goes RPV? Small parts of teams travel to take care of the hardware, while the Controllers (drivers & strategists) stay home? Or the Controllers perhaps gather collectively in some relatively local multi-team environment, for the hoopla factor.
Wireless remote control (instead of autonomy) started down this path. The Kinect is extending it. Most fields become big arrays of OLED TV’s. This is the real world, mostly autonomous machines with some remote (NM to Afghanistan) supervision.
FIRST 3132 hosts 2014 Championship? Talk about Thunder Down Under.