As many in the Northland region know, there has been an ongoing challenge with limited event space and a lower participation rate in second events compared to other major FRC regions. Specifically, FRC Northland (comprised of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota) has the lowest second-event participation rate, with only 40% of teams competing in a second event — significantly lower than Wisconsin’s 74% participation rate. This disparity has created numerous challenges, and it seems the issue isn’t just about resources, but also about the way event registration is structured and the role of "host teams” and teams with many key volunteers.
Several factors seem to be contributing to this challenge:
Lack of Local Event Space and Travel Burden
Event Space Shortages: FRC Northland is struggling with a shortage of event spaces, and many teams are forced to travel significant distances for additional events. Many teams need to drive 6+ hours, or compete in back-to-back competition weeks, just to get their second play.
Back-to-Back Events: Some teams, like 6045, have had to raise significant funds ($50,000+) just to influence the decision makers to give us a spot at our local event. This makes the registration fee feel more like $53,000 than $3,000.
The Host Team Dilemma: Equity and Access
Host Teams and Key Volunteers: The current system prioritizes teams that bring significant volunteer support, as well as “host teams” who typically are involved with the Regional Planning Committee for events. While this makes sense from a logistical perspective, it can leave less established teams — who may not have the same volunteer base — in a difficult position, having to travel long distances for their second event or face limited options. How do we balance the need for key volunteers with the principle of equitable access to events for all teams?
Guaranteed Spots for Host Teams: Should host teams be guaranteed a spot in their home event, even if they didn’t select it as their first preference? How does this impact teams that don’t have the same privileges and may need to target a second priority event, giving them a perceived advantage in the registration process?
Insiders and Perceived Unfairness
Insider Access and “Perceived Insider Trading”: There’s a perception from many that the system favors certain teams over others, especially when it comes to securing spots at events. Teams that can bring a large volunteer base or have strong connections seem to have an edge, while teams without those advantages are left at a disadvantage. How do we address these concerns and create a more transparent and equitable system?
Regional Limitations and Expansion Potential
Underutilized Venues: Locally, Minnesota has a fully funded regional event site in Bemidji, which for unknown reasons, has not been used to host a regional event. Additionally, planning committee members are willing to split the Great Northern Regional into two events run simultaneously.
Expansion to Meet Demand: Northland would need at least two additional regional events to match Wisconsin’s participation rate in second events. However, this season, there are still 20+ teams who typically compete in 2 events with no place to compete a second time due to a lack of available slots. There are likely even more lower resource teams who have never competed twice due to the prohibitive costs involved with traveling.
Questions for the Community:
Host Team Prioritization: Where do you draw the line for “host teams” and teams with Key Volunteers? Should there be limits on the number of host teams for an event? How do we balance the involvement of Key Volunteers with the need for other teams to get into local events?
Equity in Event Registration: What can we do to make the event registration process more equitable? Is the current system of guaranteeing spots for host teams fair, or does it disadvantage teams that lack volunteer resources?
The Role of Volunteer Support: How important should volunteer support be when determining event participation, and is there a way to balance this with the needs of smaller teams who may not have the same resources?
Host Site Potential: Why isn’t the Bemidji Regional happening? How can we work to utilize existing facilities to increase event space in Northland?
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on these issues. How can we address the barriers to second-event participation and ensure equitable access to all teams, regardless of their resources or location?
*Yes, I used ChatGPT to edit large portions of this. It’s insanely efficient.
As someone from outside the region who has no exposure to this… what? Is this tied to being a “host team” because of money raised (and therefore getting guaranteed access to the event)?
I think to answer your questions, there’s an underlying theme (at least for 1-3, and then it might be the answer to 4) - in my experience with FIRST, systems like these exist because without them the event wouldn’t happen. To take an example from FTC, the host of a Qualifying Tournament can be optionally awarded the first advancement slot to the next level at the discretion of the Program Delivery Partner. From conversations I’ve had with other partners, this is leveraged when, without it, there wouldn’t be event hosts. From reading your descriptions, I would agree that there is an equity mismatch between the teams that can contribute to an event either via volunteers or hosting, because there is a significant benefit when spots are constrained to being guaranteed a spot. But if those incentives exist because, without them, the events wouldn’t happen (either due to lack of funding or staffing), then I believe there’s an argument to be made that the incentives are a net positive even if they’re not achievable by everyone.
The follow on question I’d ask, especially when talking about volunteers, is whether or not those same volunteers would choose to do the event without their team receiving a benefit. If they would, then there’s a reduced need to “reward” the larger teams who can give more volunteers (in number or experience) removing one of the equity barriers.
Funding (again assuming that’s the effective role of a “host team” based on other content in your post) and planning contributions are harder to replace because I can’t imagine a team donates 5-figures to an event (directly or indirectly through their work) without getting an incentive. So that goes back to whether the RPC would (1) exist and (2) be able to raise funds without giving RPC-associated teams a benefit.
As far as the Bemidji Regional - assuming that there is sufficient team demand to attend, is the issue preventing the event from occuring volunteer demand or money (depends on what you mean by “fully funded regional event”)? That would explain both why those incentives exist as well as potentially why the new event hasn’t been added. I don’t know how field scheduling works for regionals but I also wonder if it’s a case of "FIRST doesn’t have a field available to add an event in the week Bemidji would want to be "? But that’s more speculation than anything else.
I want to add a note to clarify that the teams who do the hard work to bring an event online should be rewarded for their efforts. I don’t think my original post conveyed that sentiment the way I intended to. Teams who bring many volunteers to events should be rewarded if the incentive is what drives the volunteers. The questions I’m posing are more intended to start a community dialog about how we can balance those deserved rewards with transparency and equity for teams that aren’t in the position to do those things.
Agreed completely. Having an event is better than not having an event. If the event requires incentives for people to run it, that’s an obvious solution. A lot of those things end up being case by case decisions left to local leadership’s discretion.
It seems reasonable to want more transparency around exactly how hosting an event, supplying Key Volunteers (and a volume of overall volunteers) works towards securing entry for a team (or teams) into a reserved slot in an event.
I think it’s totally fair for a team (or small group of teams) who work every year to ensure that an event is possible to both: have reserved admission to that event and to leverage that reserved admission to make a different selection in the first round of event selection. They do a massive good for the FIRST community and, in exchange, the community allows them a small (in relation to the impact of their efforts) benefit in exchange.
It can be both (and I think is).
It sounds like the actual problem is “not enough nearby events to serve the need.” If that’s the case, taking actions to remove incentives to host events doesn’t pull the region towards a global optimum.
Asking for transparency (“is there a ‘points system’ for volunteers?” “a points system for securing funding [or venue space]?” “is there a limit to the number of reserved slots?”) is totally reasonable and could also serve to increase volunteerism or have some other teams realize that they could individually or in a small group work to create a new event that doesn’t exist today. But removing incentives to ensure that a team that only builds a robot in their own shop has exactly equal registration opportunities as a team that does that plus puts in effort to ensure and sustain a regional event for 32+ teams to enjoy every year only works towards the most surface kind of fairness, IMO.
If a team works hard, above-and-beyond what the competition requires one to do, sets-up and effectively runs (with people and/or monies) an event, are teams really upset they get to compete at an event they host?
Most events, on the small side, are 32-36 teams. We’re talking about “reserving” about 3% of the available capacity of the event for the host team. This does not get them an inherent advantage (other than a competition slot), does not advance them, get them first alliance selection (unless they earn it in quals as top seed), etc.
I would argue if this is a major concern of teams in your area, you need to have a conversation with your PDP/RD about adding event capacity.
It actually prevents an inherent disadvantage, caused by E106. If a team is hosting but not attending an event, and their shop is the event machine shop and their field is the event practice field, the event attendees have priority over the host team on those items, which effectively means the host team is behind anybody competing at their next competition.
Easiest fix? Host team is an attendee, treated like anyone else. IF they want to be, that is–hosting and competing at the same event is a lot of work.
This is the way most District host teams do it. Yes, our home events are a lot of work but we love them.
But there’s really no comparison between our situation in FiM and the one described here in Northland. The Regional advancement model is expensive in many ways.
I will refrain from overcommenting this topic but I’ll respond to 1/2 of the questions
FIRST needs volunteers. All the way. The only way they increase their chances is when you bring teams that have that ability. In the regionals ive been too, I’ve seen plenty of small teams get accepted in, and even if they didn’t offer volunteers, as a small team myself being an instance, its pretty balanced in that right to me. The thing with volunteers though, is that if you want them, you get their team in the package deal.
I’d say that also if a team is hosting in their venue, but isn’t allowed to attend, why would the host team want to host it? Look at that on the flip side. It’s tough i get it. E106 prevents the inherent disadvantage of losing the shop bc of not having the venue or whatever as a host team. So much work for all those host teams, so kudos to them for putting in so much work to make FIRST work.
Speaking for myself, (and perhaps my daughter), as volunteers, we volunteer at the Iowa Regional “knowing” that our team will be competing there. It’s as simple as we can’t be two places at once and we have sufficient mentors to allow some to volunteer. Does it help our chances of getting into the event, I don’t know. I’m guessing not because I think there are still open slots. YMMV
Not all the time. I specifically don’t condition volunteering on my team getting into any given event, or volunteer only at events my team is competing in. I know many volunteers that do things that way.
I also know that there are many volunteers that mainly show up at events their team is attending. That’s cool too, it makes travel easier for the volunteer(s), and allows their team(s) to have extra adult support needed to travel.
Kind of helps to have both types of volunteers–as I recall for FiM (at least in their early days, not sure about currently) there was a requirement for each team to provide some amount of volunteer hours, but that requirement wasn’t tied to events the team was competing in.
I can speak to this as a volunteer. I’ve taken a good step back from LM of my team to “the guy who DMs other mentors when he sees something on Slack, and occasionally 3D prints more exotic parts/materials”, instead I’ve put more time into volunteering at events…
Volunteering at a non-local event is… not cheap. Usually transportation is fairly miniscule in the grand scheme (I don’t fly to volunteer, I drive), but hotel costs can get a bit much.
To put in perspective, it costs me virtually nothing to volunteer at our local event (15m from my house), but to volunteer in NYC… Ouch. $120 for the train up and back, plus another $972 in hotels. That doesn’t include the Starbucks run(s), or the stops at the bodega on the way to/from the venue.
I’m lucky in that I get to volunteer with my alum son who is also a KV (proud papa here) and very good at his role. It give us some time together, and an opportunity to split the hotel costs! (Divorce attorneys are expensive, folks!)
So volunteers that “tag along” with their team are probably doing so to piggy back on good hotel rates, and maybe transportation costs.
Remember, this program is not cheap for teams to compete in – it’s likewise not cheap to volunteer at, especially if not local.*
* - I didn’t include the hundreds of dollars of gear, adapters, tools and things I use/give/bring to events each season.
And we super appreciate both of you here in NYC!!!
I volunteer at NYC (volunteer coordinator) and whatever events the team I mentor goes to. There’s cost. But there’s also time. I can’t be doing this every weekend.
I did volunteer at Hudson Valley last year without my team. But that was because I was mentoring their volunteer coordinator last year. And it was a lot to not get the week off reinforcing the “time” factor. (Yes, I know some people do every week; it’s not for everyone)
ok i see where you’re pointing. There are some exceptions, but generally if a volunteer is gonna volunteer, the usual “able-bodied volunteer” is on a team going. I see your point however, thanks for pointing that out
I’m a little unclear on what a “host team” is - for an off-season that typically means the team that is physically hosting the event (at their school, for example) and putting in all or most of the prep work to make that happen (recruiting and scheduling volunteers, scheduling and advertising the event, managing registrations, etc). I’ve never heard of a “host team” for a regional before, and OP just says they’re teams that are “typically involved with the Regional Planning Committee”, the meaning of which is not clear to me.
If a team (not just one mentor who happens to be on the committee, but a significant portion of the team) is doing a significant amount of the work needed to make an event happen, either in planning or by bringing a ton of volunteers, it seems fair to me that they should get to go to that event. Without them, the event would probably need to be canceled.
I don’t know how it works for regionals or in other districts, but lots of NE events occur in a town with a team and even in that team’s high school gym; the team often takes care of setting up and tearing down the field, provides concessions, and more volunteers. For example, the Greater Boston district event is in Revere High School, which is one of 125’s schools, and they do all of the above. As another example, I assume the WPI district event operates like this with 190, and I believe UVM and 9101 does as well. NEDCMP probably operated like this with us (246) as it was in BU’s Agganis Arena, and so was the Boston Regional before NE was a district.
TL;DR: it varies, but the host team sometimes provides a space, usually provides volunteers as well as team members for field build and teardown, and sometimes supplies their machine shop for the event machine shop.
For a large portion of the Northland the only event spaces that are around and distributed widely are hockey arenas, which are just plain not available (or necessarily even that warm) in MN over late feb/early march.
As far as highschool gyms… Well that is a districts conversation, however only a small percentage of schools could ever hope to host, the schools are simply not big enough in general. A lot of teams come from towns with 3 gas stations, a post office, and a bank or two. The gyms are not an insurmountable problem, but a very limiting one, there is often only a single option in a 50 mile radius or so, this doesn’t leave room for things to go wrong, like a schoolboard saying “no”.
Now, this does not mean that more generally sporting events do not happen in a tournament format, they do. The hotels and restaurants generally exist once you get to towns with about 20,000 people. However FRC is different than most highschool sporting events based on the amount of time folks spend in the arena and the number of seats needed.
From my reading of this thread, it sounds like this basically IS a “district conversation.”
While I don’t know the specific limitations in MN (I do understand rural areas can tend to have very small schools and school gyms), having smaller events due to a small venue would not be totally unprecedented. 32 team events, (even 24 team events if you were REALLY tight on space) are totally doable. Ultimately though, as long as an area is in the Regional structure, there are going to be extra costs associated with traveling to distant events simply because there generally aren’t as many Regional events.
Back before FiM, if a team in Northern Michigan wanted to go to any event, their choices were basically to travel 3+ hours regardless of what event they wanted, and if they didn’t get into one of the 2-3 MI events, they’d be looking at going out of state too. Moving to districts and smaller events made it FAR more practical to host local events in Northern Michigan, thus reducing the travel burden on such teams substantially.
Yup I agree! I just didn’t want to re-re-re-re-hash the MN district conversion any more than minimal. Just trying to provide some context for those that may not know about this particular flavor of rural. It is just one of those things that will have to happen slowly and I am sure MN will be watching northern Wisconsin very closely in the upcoming seasons and comparing it to northern MI and the UP.
With Wisconsin switching, I think it very likely that the writing is on the wall for the regional model (at least here in the Midwest). Closing off Wisc as a choice for a 2nd (possibly 1st for border areas) regional increases the pressure for a Minn district (possibly including ND). Now Iowa teams (only 1 regional in Iowa) have mostly just Missouri as second regional choice and you can see where this leads. For those of us in Iowa/Nebraska the question appears to be can we grow enough teams to be a viable district before this all goes down (10 years? 7? 5!?)