Inter-District Play in 2017

FIRST General Forum
#81

I have a suggestion. Have the first 2 district events count towards district ranking, where the events were in your home district or not.

Other than restricting the number of district events a team can attend, I have no ideas about teams competing in more than 2 events. There are plenty of regional events that teams may attend.

My questions regarding this are:
What is the rationale of attending more than 2 district events? What are the benefits?

As a team we have a hard time raising the funds for 2 events and then the DCMP, if we qualify, each year.

Looking at some of the events this year, Here is what I found,

  • Indiana District - St Joseph’s There were 34 teams total with 10 from outside district. These 10 received 33% of the available points.
  • FIM - Marysville and Shepard events each had 40 teams with 7 competing in their 3rd event. These 7 received 31% and 29% of the total points
  • CHS - SW Virginia (Week 1), 38 total teams with 9 from outside district receiving 23% of total points
  • All Districts, All Events - 13% of the total points available went to teams ineligible to earn points. 8 events had teams ineligible for points earn 20% or more.
#82

For inter-district play, the rationale is getting to play your first event outside of your home district to get practice. If things are going to go wrong, it’s better to figure them out before points start counting. It’s, essentially, expensive practice. Not to mention, it gives your kids a chance to attend a third competition and a chance to mingle with teams outside of their home district.

As for attending a third event within your home district, it is a very inexpensive way to play a third event. It’s also a third chance to go for EI or Chairmans, if you’re hoping to qualify for Worlds via those channels. It costs almost nothing (compared to the cost of a regional), and allows you to play one more time. (And, in Indiana, it means you see every single team that you’ll see at State twice.)

#83

This is the exact reason that Team 74 plays our first event out of district. In 2015, we had some issues with our robot at our first competition, and we scored very low in district points. We figured out our issues for our second and third competitions, but since the third one didn’t count, we narrowly missed our DCMP that year. Playing out of district for our first event allows us to eliminate issues like that, which allows us to provide the fullest experience to all of our students.

#84