Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Turns out the word "likely" in that official e-mail just made other plans.

Greater Kansas City showed up today as week 3 (March 13-15) which places it at the same time as St. Louis for the 2nd year in a row. Venue is TBD which may mean that we are considering an arena other than Hale. Wonder what that means for the size of the tournament if there is a change?

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

New locations (and dates) posted for the Chesapeake & DC Regionals.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Clarifying, these are:

DC Regional is now the "Greater DC Regional"
Week 5 (Mar 27-29)
Patriot Center (10,000 seat basketball arena)
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Chesapeake Regional
Week 6 (Apr 3-5)
Comcast Center (18,000 seat basketball arena)
University of Maryland, College Park, MD

The size of these events should compare well with the Virginia Regional (the Siegel Center is an 8,000 seat basketball arena). It will be disappointing not to play a stone's throw from DC's Chinatown or Baltimore's Inner Harbor-- maybe I'll have to make some side trips during practice rounds!

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

I know my students were disappointed about the inner harbor but DC moving it to GMU puts that event even closer to our back yard. Now to wait on one more "localish" regional to get finalized before we start making serious schedule decisions.

Pesonally I was hoping one of the DMV events was going to be "early" but with these two being finalized its time for plan B.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Looks like they are having the KC Regional at the MCC Business and Technology campus. They have an exhibit hall there that must be the place. Up Next (team 3528) builds there so maybe they can offer some insight. It could be awesome, especially if they let teams use the FabLab as an on sight machine shop. I have a lot of great memories at Hale Arena, but I'm optomistic that this could be a good thing.

Bummer about the conflict with St. Louis. However, there were many teams that were going to be on spring break during week 4. As a coach, it is a very awkward position to have to ask students to choose between robotics and family vacation. Our team wasn't going to be able to go to the KC Regional this year, but with the move, now we can.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

This is the second year in a row that KC has hit our Spring Break. Not my preference, but many of our varsity sports have tournaments over spring break, and the band often takes a trip somewhere. It is a conflict that families in high caliber activities are growing accustomed to in our community. In the past we have enjoyed hosting some of our feeder elementary schools for a field trip at the tournament, and will be missing that again this year with the spring break conflict.

Loved Hale, but am also looking forward to the new space at the BTC. I heard that it was bigger than Hale and should be able to still accommodate the large number of teams we are used to seeing in KC.

PS. The KC regional wouldn't be the same without 1939. Glad the date change allows you to come.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

It's probably a fair bit cheaper than Hale, because from what I've heard they kept raising the rate every year.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Yes indeed, the exhibit hall at MCC BTC is less expensive than Hale. It's also larger compared to the spaces FIRST used in the past at Hale, and cleaner. It has ample room for 64+ pits, the main field, plus a practice field (or two). Tons of free parking. Easy access. Here's a good, albeit older, article about the space:

http://meetmags.com/mme/2005/12/a-un...to-your-needs/

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Does anyone have any idea when GTR West will have a definitive date and location? Registration is merely 10 days away and there is still nothing posted :confused:

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

In just one week the insanity of FRC event registration begins for the 2014 season.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

I'm pretty concerned that there is only a week left until registration and some dates are still preliminary. Is there anybody hare that has any information on any of them.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

GTR West is going to be at the Crescent School, 610's school!

Has any team ever hosted a regional event before?

I'm happy that there's now a regional I can get to just via local public transit.

With both GTRE and GTRW back to backs weeks 2 and 1, Toronto teams that don't like to travel will be doing back to back, early regionals.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...egional-events

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

The Arizona Regional has been hosted by Hamilton High School, Team 698, since 2011.
They do a great job too!

According to the event list...
Inland Empire Regional is hosted at Grand Terrace High School
Central Valley Regional is at Madera South High School, Team 1323

And of course the first ever event in 1992 was at Memorial High School in Manchester, NH.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Very exciting that Crescent School is hosting GTR West this year. (Or maybe it should be renamed GTR Central) They've hosted very successful FLL and VRC events in the past, I'm sure this event will be great. Unfortunately 1114 won't be able to attend as our school is hosting the Ontario Provincial VRC Championship that same weekend. Will be weird not being a part of GTR West, but at least there are now five options for events in the Province.

Re: FRC Blogged-Something New--Early Release of Event Dates
 

Gotta say, I'm a little confused by Crescent School being the host. Don't get me wrong, 610 is a great team, and will be great hosts, but their facility isn't exactly conducive to the type of environment an FRC event needs.

From what I know of their school, there isn't really an appropriate spot to host a FRC field, complete with enough seating for 30+ teams, plus 30+ 10x10 pits with aisleways nearby.

I presume the venue is Crescent's field house, which I understand they had a partial field set up in for practice in 2013 due to space concerns.

The building is roughly 40m x 40m judging by the satellite image on Google. Crescents Website says 30,000 ft^2, which doesn't add up. The on-floor footprint of an FRC field plus all of its gear is about 40x70ft = 2800ft^2. Add some buffer for aisles between the field and whatever seating there is, and you get pretty close to NCAA basketball courts at 50x94ft. This is easily seen at Waterloo, where we play on an NCAA-spec Basketball Court. Pits needs another area that size minimum. Then people need somewhere to sit.

Crescent school has ~135 parking spaces based on the satellite image on Google. There is no nearby public parking facilities. 30 teams plus event staff? Never mind that the school will presumably still need some of its parking for staff and students not involved in the event, I can't see how enough cars will fit.

Certainly, I don't see this event being able to have capacity >28-32 teams, same as Waterloo.

This is a problem, as its replacing an event that had 60+ capacity.

Yes, Ontario as a whole has gained some capacity this year with the addition of Windsor and North Bay, but its lost about 30% of its former capacity in the Toronto area. Of the 73 Ontario teams registered in 2013, this relocated event at Crescent is geographically the closest to 40 of them. Additionally, almost 44% of Ontario's 73 teams were multiple regional attendees in 2013.

I don't see this leaving much room for growth in Ontario in 2014, especially in the Toronto area. This also completely ignoring the ~23 Ontario teams that were lost in 2013 to the Teacher Strike who may return.

All in all, cool, I'm excited for an event at Crescent, but if they were axing half of GTRWest's capacity, they should have added a 3rd similarly-sized GTR, perhaps in the Mississauga area (Rick Hansen SS maybe?)