What would be the benefit of moving New York to a district system? I, personally, am anti-district for NY (from what I know about it), But I know it’s been talked about, and that a lot of people want it and I’m just wondering why? Feel free to ask my reasoning as well.
Why do you not want districts?
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Districts, from my understanding, would create a more confined competition atmosphere. There would be no international teams to compete with and we’d be playing the same teams every year. For me, the international aspect of regionals is one of the biggest benefits to FIRST, and to have it taken away would be really disappointing.
Feel free to try to prove me wrong
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I heard that to be a district, the entire state has to be in agreement.
Upstate and NYC are already on opposite ends in every way possible (yes, politics too but that’s NOT my focus) so how would NY be a district at all? 2 or more separate ones maybe but 1? Definitely not. Team 1665 would not exist if we were forced to travel to NYC for a regional.
But i do like the district system.
Being in a district system would allow 5943 to go to district events in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Ontario, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia that regional teams are not allowed to compete at. 5943 would also still be allowed to compete at the regional events that international teams will attend.
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Would a team be able to compete at both a regional and a district event?
you would be guaranteed more events and a better chance to make Worlds every year
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^for districts
yes
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By time NY adopts going to district the robots will already have taken over and this will all be a mute point.
All of FRC should be a districts with regional championships that qualify teams for a single World Championship.
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Having districts would make all the teams more competitive as well there is a reason why there was only 5 non district teams on Einsteins this year.
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A district system for New York would actually be very beneficial for New York teams. Teams in districts have the opportunity to attend multiple events for the same price, so they would be playing with a bunch of different teams that they would not have been able to play against before. Also, districts would send way more New York teams to championships than the current system, so you would have a better chance of attending an event with a LOT of international teams. Plus , districts can truly improve teams that are in the system, as seen in the current districts like Michigan. There are many PowerPoints and threads explaining the benefits of districts and what districts would mean for New York.
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This is the major plus of district system. More events, lesser cost. Just the hotels might add up though.
Let’s save some time… there are many answers in the old, large New York district thread Here
It will answer many of these questions.
As for international. Last year upstate New York had more international teams then Lon Island.
In a district model ny and li teams can go practice for $1000 in Jersey.
A district thread gets brought up once a month now, the biggest issue is the RDs all coming together to work together. As it is now many rds don’t communicate in ny.
Ny needs to get connected state wide, that’s our biggest issue first off. Not many downstate teams travel up ( minus a few teams like 271, 870, 533, 694… and a handful of others.)
Many Long Island teams would rather spend $5,000 on one event that’s 10 matches, than 2 12 match events for the same price, with a better chance of making it to champs. Plus you don’t have multiple teams from out of the area eating up championship slots from our events.
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Not sure why you think there must be hotels. For us (Mass. team), we can easily attend our choice of 4-5 District Qualifier events without getting hotels. The District Champ moves around, so there we need a hotel maybe 1/2 the time (assuming we qualify).
I don’t know the distribution in NY, but I would imagine there would be 3-4 events in Upstate and similar in the city/Island. Presumably the DCMP could alternate, so teams would need hotels then.
The important thing is that a New York district be a New York district, upstate and downstate, not merged into NE or FMA. (The result of such a merger would be financially devastating to several events, nevermind a host of other unintended consequences.)
For teams, a NY district has many positives, and depending on where you are, what your progression and level of play is like, some negatives (ie travel to a DCMP). Several people have been quietly working on exploring what those issues would be for the various teams, to explore the problem space, to hopefully find answers, solutions, and statewide funding to allow NY to transition smoothly into districts at some point in the future. (No, not 2020.)
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Few major issues with NY district that we need to solve before we actually get a district system.
- No central non-profit organization that runs the state FRC scene. We have a bunch of scattered ones - NYC FIRST, RCR, Tech Valley, etc. Would need to consolidate all into one.
- Travel for downstate teams is very difficult. This essentially forces the DCMP to be downstate if the state was 1 district.
- Upstate teams do not want to travel downstate.
- No leadership has put effort into a district plan. Upstate is having all of our RDs replaced next year, NYC just got a new RD within the last 2 years, and LI is kind of a mess (there is muddy water with regards to SBPLI). We currently do not have the equivalent of a Jim Zondag or Shawn Lim.
- Many people are not educated on the pros and cons of districts, or how districts work in the first place. Many teams in NY state they are anti-district because NE/MAR went to districts and now we can’t play there. However, if we were districts, we would be able to… There are many other arguments like this.
- NY is still struggling to get the basics right. Our regionals have run in the red in the past, and we don’t have FSMs for the vast majority of teams in the state. We actually have a surprisingly low number of offseasons, imo. At least, compared to NE, which is abundant with them.
- Many teams in NY do not want extra plays. They are 1 regional and done teams. They do not care for competition.
- Finding cheap venues in NYC capable of hosting an FRC event is excessively difficult
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look at long island regionals
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more of the down state teams would become more competitive and be able to compete against some of the “power house teams” of NY like the teams from upstate or 1796, 870 etc.
Well it’s funny
I tried, as well as have someone who is higher up on li but not in sbpli, to try and get Senior mentors on li. But it got shot down by sbpli