Indiana 2018

[SciNerd42]

Maybe? That is really early in the season. With Official Rules not coming out till the first week of Sept, that really only give 2 1/2 months. It would be tough for builds to get around that fast. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas not do a fair number of the building events? That would probably make a mid Nov Invitational easier to prep for.

November/December seems like a good time. Perhaps Carmel teams up with Raymond Park (who is also in that area) and do a Div B/C tournament.

[Unome]

The weekend I would shoot for would be the 2nd weekend in Dec. It is still far enough away from the Holiday that folks would go, but not in conflict with another Invite. We need our Invites to spread out more in terms of dates as to give more teams more chances to participate.

East Chicago Central used to hold an Invite every year the 2nd week of Dec, and it was always well attended.

What would be your opinion of an invitational happening in Indiana before thanksgiving? TX has a couple invites that happen this early, and registration for such competitions always fill up really quickly.

Maybe? That is really early in the season. With Official Rules not coming out till the first week of Sept, that really only give 2 1/2 months. It would be tough for builds to get around that fast. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas not do a fair number of the building events? That would probably make a mid Nov Invitational easier to prep for.

CyFalls at least typically runs all of the Texas events, which includes all of the national events. I don't know about the other early Texas invitationals.

I know in Georgia, Johns Creek and UGA were Oct 14 and Oct 21 respectively and did have several teams with builds. Johns Creek had 9 each for Helicopters and Mousetrap Vehicle, and at least 15 for Towers (they didn't run Mission, Georgia Div C invitationals have a strange aversion to the event). UGA had 16 teams in Towers, 9 in Mission, 10 in Mousetrap, and 17 in Helicopters. Though I figure numbers might be lower in a comparable Indiana invitational if teams aren't used to it.

[pikachu4919]

What would be your opinion of an invitational happening in Indiana before thanksgiving? TX has a couple invites that happen this early, and registration for such competitions always fill up really quickly.

Maybe? That is really early in the season. With Official Rules not coming out till the first week of Sept, that really only give 2 1/2 months. It would be tough for builds to get around that fast. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas not do a fair number of the building events? That would probably make a mid Nov Invitational easier to prep for.

CyFalls at least typically runs all of the Texas events, which includes all of the national events. I don't know about the other early Texas invitationals.

I know in Georgia, Johns Creek and UGA were Oct 14 and Oct 21 respectively and did have several teams with builds. Johns Creek had 9 each for Helicopters and Mousetrap Vehicle, and at least 15 for Towers (they didn't run Mission, Georgia Div C invitationals have a strange aversion to the event). UGA had 16 teams in Towers, 9 in Mission, 10 in Mousetrap, and 17 in Helicopters. Though I figure numbers might be lower in a comparable Indiana invitational if teams aren't used to it.

For reference, CyFalls is usually mid-October iirc and UTA is usually either the weekend before Thanksgiving or the weekend before that weekend. Theoretically, if I were directing an invitational at Carmel, I would probably do it either the weekend before or two weekends before thanksgiving if possible. I mean, builds that early will not necessarily be at a really high competitive level, but the concept of a competition that early generally helps with getting started, since it gets you to have something that’s at least testable at an early deadline, so then you will mostly just be refining from then on out rather than just starting to build a device when thanksgiving approaches. In other words, the general goal of attending early invitationals is so that team members don’t have as much time to put off their studying/building, which can help in the long run because it may hopefully reduce some levels of procrastination.

My only concern with running a Carmel invite tho is the manpower - we do have a group of involved alumni that is only continuing to grow a lot now, but at the same time, it’s not like we’re all able to come back for the same weekend at the same time to help out with events, so you have the issue of whether we’re going to have current team members and alumni run the events or whether we’re going to have parents or teachers run events or whether we’re going to have attending schools run events. Plus, the other main two concerns are dealing with administration and funding. Point is, we at Carmel have discussed this idea for years now, it’s just that we’re not sure we’ll have the support to execute it well.

EDIT: @Northridge, if you think there’d be a compelling impetus to hold an invite at Carmel, I’d be willing to talk about it along with Coach Henry/Rushing after State, since I will be there since I’m supervising at State this year. It’d take a lot of convincing of administration, but it might be doable, just I’m not sure when.

[Adi1008]

What would be your opinion of an invitational happening in Indiana before thanksgiving? TX has a couple invites that happen this early, and registration for such competitions always fill up really quickly.

Maybe? That is really early in the season. With Official Rules not coming out till the first week of Sept, that really only give 2 1/2 months. It would be tough for builds to get around that fast. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas not do a fair number of the building events? That would probably make a mid Nov Invitational easier to prep for.

CyFalls at least typically runs all of the Texas events, which includes all of the national events. I don't know about the other early Texas invitationals.

I know in Georgia, Johns Creek and UGA were Oct 14 and Oct 21 respectively and did have several teams with builds. Johns Creek had 9 each for Helicopters and Mousetrap Vehicle, and at least 15 for Towers (they didn't run Mission, Georgia Div C invitationals have a strange aversion to the event). UGA had 16 teams in Towers, 9 in Mission, 10 in Mousetrap, and 17 in Helicopters. Though I figure numbers might be lower in a comparable Indiana invitational if teams aren't used to it.

Early invitationals in Texas (Cyfalls, UT, and last season, Rice) run every event, including build events. UT and Cyfalls also run the state trial events, which include a few build events as well. From what I can tell, it's not a problem for most teams, who usually have working (although generally not great) builds and it helps make sure people start working earlier and stay focused

[Unome]

Maybe? That is really early in the season. With Official Rules not coming out till the first week of Sept, that really only give 2 1/2 months. It would be tough for builds to get around that fast. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Texas not do a fair number of the building events? That would probably make a mid Nov Invitational easier to prep for.

CyFalls at least typically runs all of the Texas events, which includes all of the national events. I don't know about the other early Texas invitationals.

I know in Georgia, Johns Creek and UGA were Oct 14 and Oct 21 respectively and did have several teams with builds. Johns Creek had 9 each for Helicopters and Mousetrap Vehicle, and at least 15 for Towers (they didn't run Mission, Georgia Div C invitationals have a strange aversion to the event). UGA had 16 teams in Towers, 9 in Mission, 10 in Mousetrap, and 17 in Helicopters. Though I figure numbers might be lower in a comparable Indiana invitational if teams aren't used to it.

For reference, CyFalls is usually mid-October iirc and UTA is usually either the weekend before Thanksgiving or the weekend before that weekend. Theoretically, if I were directing an invitational at Carmel, I would probably do it either the weekend before or two weekends before thanksgiving if possible. I mean, builds that early will not necessarily be at a really high competitive level, but the concept of a competition that early generally helps with getting started, since it gets you to have something that’s at least testable at an early deadline, so then you will mostly just be refining from then on out rather than just starting to build a device when thanksgiving approaches. In other words, the general goal of attending early invitationals is so that team members don’t have as much time to put off their studying/building, which can help in the long run because it may hopefully reduce some levels of procrastination.

My only concern with running a Carmel invite tho is the manpower - we do have a group of involved alumni that is only continuing to grow a lot now, but at the same time, it’s not like we’re all able to come back for the same weekend at the same time to help out with events, so you have the issue of whether we’re going to have current team members and alumni run the events or whether we’re going to have parents or teachers run events or whether we’re going to have attending schools run events. Plus, the other main two concerns are dealing with administration and funding. Point is, we at Carmel have discussed this idea for years now, it’s just that we’re not sure we’ll have the support to execute it well.

EDIT: @Northridge, if you think there’d be a compelling impetus to hold an invite at Carmel, I’d be willing to talk about it along with Coach Henry/Rushing after State, since I will be there since I’m supervising at State this year. It’d take a lot of convincing of administration, but it might be doable, just I’m not sure when.

Regarding running events, at Chattahoochee we generally split between having our people run ~6-7 events with the rest covered by attending schools. Admin - I obviously can't comment on that, since I don't know anything about your school's administration (though considering the size of the school I can see how it might be annoying). Funding: what in particular?

[dcrxcode]

The weekend I would shoot for would be the 2nd weekend in Dec. It is still far enough away from the Holiday that folks would go, but not in conflict with another Invite. We need our Invites to spread out more in terms of dates as to give more teams more chances to participate.

East Chicago Central used to hold an Invite every year the 2nd week of Dec, and it was always well attended.

Depending on the year, Carmel has finals/finals prep starting around that time, so that probably wouldn't work super well, and would likely get vetoed either by coaches, students or admin.

Regarding running events, at Chattahoochee we generally split between having our people run ~6-7 events with the rest covered by attending schools. Admin - I obviously can't comment on that, since I don't know anything about your school's administration (though considering the size of the school I can see how it might be annoying). Funding: what in particular?

Biggest thing is room allocation --- those have to be figured out a year in advance if we want to use the school. Gyms are nearly impossible to claim since there's always some sort of sporting thing going on and the Dad's Club/youth leagues have every gym booked year round. That makes getting space for flight events hard (unless its heli). The school itself is big enough to support a pretty massive invitational (although unsure about both Div B and Div C).

In terms of what pika was saying about enough supervisors --- I also agree that would be difficult. I think having enough test writers wouldn't be too difficult, since there is a group of alumni that could write enough tests to cover the events, but supervisors and graders is a different story. I'm unsure if we would look towards the community, because I know the coaches dislike the idea of every team having to bring a test.

[pikachu4919]

Here's a survey for potential interest in an invitational at Carmel High School: https://goo.gl/forms/SYLhuktqgEJ7qnB52

[pikachu4919]

Gyms are nearly impossible to claim since there's always some sort of sporting thing going on and the Dad's Club/youth leagues have every gym booked year round. That makes getting space for flight events hard (unless its heli).

Freshman cafeteria if not one of the gyms?

<sorry about my double posting >.< >

[SciNerd42]

You need to include Division B, especially if you want the area to grow. If not a simultaneous invitational should occur.

[dcrxcode]

Gyms are nearly impossible to claim since there's always some sort of sporting thing going on and the Dad's Club/youth leagues have every gym booked year round. That makes getting space for flight events hard (unless its heli).

Freshman cafeteria if not one of the gyms?

<sorry about my double posting >.< >

I hate flying in the freshman cafeteriaaaaa . There are some obstructions on the ceiling which make it difficult. The obstructions in the varsity gym are higher, which makes it a little better. Neither is ideal, honestly. Hmm....

You need to include Division B, especially if you want the area to grow. If not a simultaneous invitational should occur.

I agree, but Carmel doesn't have the resources to set one up without cooperation from an area Division B school. We don't have any feeders or alumni or coaches who have any experience with supervising Division B or catering to those needs. Unless RPMS (I think you're from RPMS?) did quite a bit of work on this portion I think for the first year its more feasible to just do Division C, but I personally don't want it that way.

We explored the possibility of an invite at Carmel in fall of 2016 when Dan Nichols' email was down and we thought we weren't going to the Whiting Invite. So, I think we've all agreed certain factors that need to be explored for a feasible invite:

1. Interest (without 30-40 teams interested, I think it becomes very difficult to justify an invite).
2. Carmel HS Administration
3. Rooms
4. Division B involvement
5. Supervisor availability (test writing should be much less of a problem).