This idea has probably already been presented elsewhere on CD-- if this was your idea first, you are welcome to claim priority below. Understand, however, that you have altogether missed the opportunity to give the idea a cool name. In fact, this proposal is almost the same as the proposals for a super regional system fleetingly seen in previous years, just rephrased into the terminology of the district model.
Proposal
The Everywhere Else District is a district system for every FRC team which is not already a part of the already-established district systems.
The Everywhere Else District is awkward to imagine, because it lumps together disconnected and distant areas like western PA, Israel, and Hawaii into one territory. These are places that can sustain one or two regional events but canât (for whatever reason) establish a district. The territory claimed by the Everywhere Else District is the entire world, minus the territories of the other established district systems.
Key features of the Everywhere Else District:
Upon implementation in 2017, ALL former âregionalâ events like Western Canada and Las Vegas become âdistrictâ events within the Everywhere Else District.
High performance in the Everywhere Else District qualifies a subset of teams for a âDCMPâ in Houston. Team performance is measured by the standard points ranking system used by all 8 other district systems [EDIT] with one key modification: single-event teams would receive double the points at that event.
High performance at the âDCMPâ in Houston qualifies a further subset of teams for the âCMPâ in Detroit.
New district systems would be free to emerge even after the implementation of the Everywhere Else District. The territory claimed by the newly-forming district system would simply be carved out of the Everywhere Else District.
The Everywhere Else District would to turn ALL remaining regionals into district events by 2017, well ahead of previous growth projections. It would create a system where all teams (regardless of their geography) would have the opportunity to participate in 3 distinct tiers of play. The change would also immediately allow the possibility of unlimited interdistrict play.
My concern with grouping vast areas into districts is how to compete effectively in such a model. Since in our case every other regional is separated by several thousand miles of ocean.
I believe the idea behind districts is to give more competitions for the same registration fees. Hence reducing the per match cost significantly while increasing engagement and competitiveness.
Any travel at all would be the opposite of saving money in our case. Which I am sure is the case for many off mainland and international teams
As it is many Hawaii teams have to fly and air freight their robot just to compete our local regionalâŚ
There is just no easy solution to this⌠Guess they need to move Champs hereâŚ
The idea of creating an everywhere else district just seems⌠Bad. Iâm one of the biggest supporters of districts. There is only one issue with this idea⌠with this. Ignoring the whole volunteer factor, You need to reach a certain FRC team density before going to districts. Why? You want to make districts where at least 2 events are within a 2 hour drive max for every team. Why? You want to make it where any team can go to their two district events without staying at hotels. Why? It saves huge amounts of money. I suggest the minimum team to square mileage ratio is around 50 teams for every 40,000 miles squared. That is about where IN districts are and Indiana is at the Minimum range a district should be when you focus on the 2 hour drive guideline. If you make certain areas like South Dakota apart of the everywhere district, theyâd be forced to go to 2 events instead of choosing to go to 1. Of course, it would cut down on the registration costs but that isnât the point of districts. We payed the same for registration in 2015 for districts as we did in 2014 for regionals. The whole point of districts is to cut down on hotel costs and create more FRC teams in an area. Making an everywhere else district would just make it more expensive for almost every FRC team who is currently in the regional area. Theyâd have to travel and pay hotel expenses for 2-3 times the amount of regionals. In order for an area to go to districts, they need to reach a certain team density so the district wonât fail to start out with. Hopefully, This makes sense.
It is always said that moving to districts makes it cheaper for teams to compete. This is not true, it makes it cheaper per match, but not cheaper in total.
I would totally disagree with you. IN is one of the least populated districts. We went to 4 events for $10,000 (3 qualifying events and the DCMPS). The same cost as two regionals. Those cancel out. Regionals require you to stay at hotels for each regional and charter a bus for each regional unless you live in an area like MN where finding 2 regionals within driving distance isnât as hard. That right there saves you 4 nights of hotels and 4 days of chartering a bus. That saves you so much money.
Youâre looking at it from the perspective of a team that would attend many events. A majority of teams in the regional model attend only 1 event. The minimum cost for a regional team to compete at the Championship is $9000 for registration. The minimum registration cost for a district team is $14,000.
I edited the original post to describe a modification of the standard points system for the Everywhere Else District. Single-event teams would be eligible for a 2x multiplier and would therefore recieve double the points they earn at their event.
No. Youâre correct that these âreasonsâ are ways districts have been marketed to the FRC community. However, the overarching reason for implementing a 3-tier competition structure is because the 2-tier former structure was unsustainable.
Correct. But many FRC teams I know went to two regionals. But still, you save $5,000 on events but you still have to pay for 2 more nights of hotels and 2 more days of chartering a bus unless you leave near a regional site. So in the long run, you arenât really saving that much money, you have an even smaller chance for improvement throughout the season (less hours to work on robot between first event and World CMPS), you have less practice, and you have an even smaller chance of making it to World CMPS.
As well, there is the perspective of the âisolatedâ teams. HI fits in here (there arenât enough teams on any one island to have a full regional, I believe, and so they have to fly to compete, WITH their robot). So do the Dakotas, Alaska*, Chile, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.
Very simply, an âisolatedâ team has to travel overnight to get to ANY event. Two events wonât save them any money, if they were previously a 1-event team, because the $4000 saved in registration will simply go towards travel to the second event (along with whatever else they can fundraise).
*Alaskaâs one team will be an interesting test case in PNW this yearâputting it mildly.
Back to the original topicâŚ
This is an interesting option as far as it goes. In team-dense regions, I can see it working. In team-sparse regions, or long-travel regions, itâs going to go over about like concrete blocks in a swimming pool.
This would be up to the individual event planning committees. I would expect very little changes in the first year of implementation.
Aside from the name, the 2017 Everywhere Else District Mexico City Event would look very much like the 2016 Mexico City Regional.
Meanwhile, the 2017 Everywhere Else District Alamo Event planning committee might choose to replace their historically-regional-style event with some number of (perhaps 2 or 3) historically-district-style events for a similar total cost.
I donât see a need to create a very large number of new events with the implementation of this structure.
I like the concept of the Everwhere Else District since its intent is to allow for more play at a cheaper cost.
Iâm sure with a task force in place, this could work!
Wont be easy thoughâŚ
Quick question. Does anyone else notice that many teams in the everywhere else district would have to fly at least twice. So many teams live out of range of Houston and Detroit. Even teams in very heavily populated area like New York and California would have to fly twice. That seems like a bad idea too
Iâm intrigued by the idea, for sure. I think this would be better described as a split between district teams and regional teams - as others have said, calling it a âdistrictâ is a little misleading given the previously stated goals for districts.
I think it could get a lot harder for regional teams to go to worlds, though, depending on how the numbers work out - ½ the teams at PNW DCMP this year qualified for worlds, so if you wanted a similar portion of teams in Houston to qualify for Real CMP, youâd have to have 500-600 teams or more.
Only for the EEDCMP and the CMPâmany teams wonât need to deal with the CMP even if they make the EEDCMP. (This does depend on relative size of the two events, mind you.) And many, many teams probably wonât make the EEDCMP (unfortunately).
Something like âsuddenly needing to travel again to attend the World Championshipâ can be dealt with. It wonât necessarily be pretty. But it is doable.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the LAST time the NY teams didnât need to fly to a Championship was in the early 90s when Nationals was in Manchester, NH. The CA teams have never had a Championship within driving distanceâand would love to see some of the Midwest and East Coast teams have to fly out here for once.
The Alaska test case will definitely be very interesting. I hope that at some point at the end of the year, the Nerds of the North will post something on this forum about their experiences in the PNW this year.
About the Everywhere Else District: The point made in the quote above about many teams in isolated areas having to travel overnight is important. By adding a required DCMP, it saves them no money (probably makes them spend more) and does little to guarantee of making it to Champs.
What might instead be a better alternate solution is for teams to âOpt intoâ a district region with sufficient notice (something a reasonably large amount of time, so that the planning committee for the district can accommodate them) or to simply allocate extra CMP spots to isolated regionals.
Overall, I think the travel problems for isolated teams make this idea a tough sell.
This will never happen. HQ isnât going to take the revenue hit of giving everyone thatâs currently in the regional system two events for the price they currently pay for one.
Unfortunately, from what Iâve heard, this is a true statementâfor a wide variety of reasons.
I think TDav is right, though: An âOpt-Inâ provision in FIRSTâs standard policy that would allow teams to request inclusion in an adjacent district area would probably have some very interesting results. (No âOpt-Outâ, though.) The Albany-area teams (NY) would probably ask to be included in New England. NYC/Long Island would be pretty evenly split between NE and MAR. I could see South Carolina and/or Florida teams making a request to adjoining district areas.
