I know that Michigan and Florida have state funding for their FRC teams. Are there any other states or provinces that have this available? And if so, what was the first year of the funding?
Iowa had one from 2016-2018. I’m not sure if it’ll come back at some point though, since they seem to be focused on classroom programs.
If Florida has state funding for FRC, than they need to go to districts in the next 5 years becasue there time is coming up after California, New York ,and Minnesota go to districts imo. The district Champ would still be where the Orlando Regional is given its capacity of the amount of teams it can hold and its great location in the state.
Wisconsin has the Robotics League Participation Grant. Not FIRST/FRC specific, but every FRC and FTC team is eligible. I believe most teams get between $1500 and $3000 with a cap at $5000 per team. IIRC the first year was was 2017.
I’m crossing my fingers, as it already feels overdue. If Florida switched next year and stays under 100 teams, we could get away with 1 district a week for 5 weeks, dcmp week 6 and champs week 8. Any longer, as it seems will be the case, then there’ll have to be 2 events in a weekend in the first year. My bet is a third regional in the state before the switch to districts (and that will probably need to happen next year, given the current growth).
I am really hopeful with a new governor in Minnesota (one that has some background in education) will push for more STEM education dollars.
For those of you in Minnesota, please look to the STEM Advocacy Day at the Capitol. FRC 1816 has been leading this since 2016 and we do need more voices at the capitol this year. It would be great to see more out state teams at this event!
Yea I was thinking of adding another regional first, maybe near Tampa since USF loves hosting events and they can fit at least 45 teams for pits in their volleyball arena in the back of the stadium, or maybe at like UNF or Jacksonville university idrk? These locations for the regional would still be about 2 hours from the Orlando regional so they’re are spread out pretty well. Im just not really a fan of the 60 team regionals anymore, only for distrist champs since everyone gets 12 matches guaranteed and all the teams deserved to make it to that event. It depends where most teams are located. But Ive noticed a trend where a lot of rookie teams in Florida dont play the new season or after their second or third year in FRC. I think we lost 8 teams from last year. Im expecting it to happen again next year as well.
After just moving from an NEFIRST team to a FL rookie team, I’m really hoping for FL districts in the future. The difference between having 8 - 16 matches vs a guaranteed 20 - 24 matches (not including DCMP/Houston) is huge.
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I’m expecting we get another regional before we go to districts. Hopefully even next year. The biggest problem for Florida districts from a logistics perspective is definitely Theodore distribution around the state. We’d probably need 5-6 district events minimum, meaning north (Jacksonville) west (Tampa) and then Orlando and a couple in south Florida. But that still makes it difficult for teams in say the panhandle who want to go to multiple events.
That being said, I’m a huge fan of going to districts overall and I think it would help with our terrible team retention rate. We’ve been trying to find ways to keep teams near us alive but it’s difficult when the funding and events are in short supply.
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At the risk of turning this into a Florida districts thread, I’d like to provide some numbers to go along with these statements. Here’s a graph of the retention rate for teams in Florida since 2001. Since 2016, the retention rate has been over 90%, which it hadn’t been since 2001. So we’ve actually been doing a lot better at retaining teams. As to specifically why this is the case, I can’t say for sure. But the state funding did kick in in 2017. To see if that’s significant I’d have to do a wider study of all of FRC (and specifically FRC areas that don’t have broad state funding vs. those who do, thus the reason for this thread). But regardless, we’re doing much better than in the past and let’s keep this up! Also, this does not take into account pre-rookies or rookies who don’t end up competing.
You can compare to Michigan, who experienced better than average retention rates starting in 2015, even though I believe their funding kicked in in 2013. Also, they’ve almost always had a retention rate above 90% (with the exception of 2 years).
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I don’t know if I agree with the team distribution being the biggest problem to switch. It might be the biggest problem for the teams in the panhandle. But, Michigan had the same problem with teams in the Upper Peninsula; after a few years of growth up there, they were able to support an event, and now I believe they have 2 district events up there.
I’d say the biggest problem is jumping from 2 events in the state to 6-7 (5 or 6 districts plus DCMPs). I haven’t been to a Florida regional since 2016, but even then, most of the key volunteers were the same people at both events. So now they need to go to 6-7 events a season, or find and train a bunch of new people really quickly. Even for the positions where there were different people at each regional, it’s still 3-4 events per person, up from 1.
Financially, however, it makes way more sense for the state to go to districts. Regionals cost 150-200k, districts cost 20-40k. If a third regional is added, the state would pay 450-600k. A district with 6 districts and DCMPs is 120-200k in districts plus 150-200k in DCMP, so 270-400k total. Albeit, there would be additional costs especially initially in buying one or two sets of field+AV+miscellaneous equipment and paying for a place to store it.
Correct, plus 4 events in the northern third of the Lower Peninsula.
I mean there’s a only a few teams in the upper panhandle and they usually go to the Bayou or Rocket City regionals since its closer than Orlando for them. They for sure could drive a few hours to a Jacksonville district event and then to another event near Orlando. Its not that bad for them but growth in that part of the state isn’t to good lately so there won be an event to close for those teams. I’ve noticed the Florida retention rate was really bad about 8 years ago and its steadily getting better but well see what new teams can last a few years in, if they have little funding as well.
FRC is considered a varsity sport in Connecticut by Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC). Speaking from the perspective of Hartford Public Schools, the school is supposed to pay the registration fees for varsity sports.
Do you know what year that started?