[FRC Blog] 2015 Events are Being Posted!
 

Posted on the FRC Blog, 6/25/14: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...e-being-posted

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Greater Toronto Central Regional!

I guess we're up to 6 Ontario regionals now.

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Either those are typos on the website, or events are now 4 days instead of 3?

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It looks like they may be counting load in day (Wednesday) as part of it.

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From FIRST's point of view the events are four days, day 0 is field build and pit setup, etc. They have to have the venue reserved!

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Welp, guess we can book our rooms for Palmetto now! :D

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Looks like the new regional as capacity for 32 teams. Is there a reason the Ontario regionals are seem to be typically smaller than other regionals?

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Regionals usually start with a low cap and raise it later in the registration timetable, to reserve spots for rookies, local teams, etc. This cap will likely go up at a later date.

GTR West last year (2014) was only 30 teams, and was hosted at Crescent High School, where 610 originates. It's possible that the venue for GTR Central is also smallish, and they only plan to invite 30-40 teams.

As Ontario continues to develop their infrastructure (fields, volunteers, etc.) I could see that they are gradually moving towards something like a district system, with more, smaller events hosted in venues which aren't quite as fancy as expensive, and which keep the competition pool small and each team's match count high. Even if they aren't officially a district, they can still get some of benefits while slowing building towards the transition. But someone from FIRST Canada would have to say more about this, if it's even anywhere close to the truth at all. Merely speculation on my part.

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5 years ago, we would never have gotten to see which events were secured early on.
I'm glad FIRST is doing this. It sure helps teams that travel outside their area, plan a lot earlier. Fundraising when the school year starts makes more sense than waiting until September/October to decide where to go.

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I'm pretty curious about how this event will work. The venue, listed as Mattamy Athletic Centre, has a basketball court with seating for 1000 on the second floor and a hockey rink with seating for 2500 on the third floor. Their website has pictures showing the ice rink covered and in use for other events. There's a lot of space on the fourth floor, which circles the rink.The venue also has Google Streetview of some of the interior, but I don't see any large ramps or a way to move robots between floors other than the elevators. Load-in might be fun if you're limited to what would fit in a standard elevator (unless I'm missing a freight elevator or some large ramps). I'm concerned about queuing involving moving between floors, assuming that the pits are in the basketball court and the field is over the hockey rink or vice versa.

Also, one side-effect of smaller Canadian Regionals is that a higher percentage of Ontario teams make it to the Championship than in other regions. If they switched to districts they might actually lose spots. Last year Ontario had 115 teams and 5 Regionals, giving them a maximum of 30 unique spots at CMP, which comes out to 26% of Ontario teams. Just under 15% of all teams made it to CMP last year. I can't think of any way that that over-representation would cause any problems, especially given that CMP is growing for next year. Then again, if 26% of all teams went last year, there would have been 704 to deal with.

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This. Palmetto is listed with capacity at 54; last year, we had 67.

(Now, would I mind if it really was 54? Not at all--the 60-some-team events are just a little too big for my taste. But I had to provide a data point.)

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Good I can start planning my 2015 tour early.

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I have no insight into how this regional will run, I'm sure there are elevators between the floors. I'm just really excited by the location, right in the heart of downtown Toronto, the 'Mattamy Athletic Centre' is actually the converted old Maple Leaf Gardens, holding a regional at the Gardens is going to be amazing (maybe we can put up some new banners :)). Congrats to FIRST Robotics Canada for getting access to this great space!

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^^^ THIS ^^^

Great to hear this. Planning travel early will really help keep our costs down for sure!!

Looking forward to, hopefully, doing some beta testing this summer.

Aloha!

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Two more events have been posted:

Lake Superior - Week 1
Northern Lights - Week 1

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Hey, that's new.

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Any guesses on why they moved from week 2 to week 1?

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People are suggesting this GTR Central is a sixth Ontario regional. It may very well be, but I've not seen anything to suggest that it isn't simply a renaming of GTR West, which was somewhat of a misnomer in 2014 based on its location East of Yonge.

Anybody seen any evidence yet that there will be GTR East (Oshawa) West (Mississauga somewhere?) and Central (Mattamy Athletic Center [formerly Maple Leaf Gardens])?

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Just a guess: I've heard rumors of adding another event in Minnesota, and maybe this makes the schedule nicer.

Seems more likely it was just when the venue was available (it's a really nice venue).

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From my understanding they had a scheduling conflict at the DECC arena. Which is probably hockey related or some other big convention.

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One more event has been posted:

Dallas Regional - Week 1

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OMG!!! So many powerhouse teams playing at a week 1!! I'm am willing to place the bet that so many game stratgies and do's and don't will be found out from this event! I'm so ready!

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But many teams hate week one events with a passion.

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Hey one teams hate is another teams trip to worlds! But in all seriousness if the all the power house teams that signed up for dallas last year sign up again it going to be an interesting ride. Regardless team 2950 will sign up for dallas again.

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Last year, we purposely chose a week 1 event to light a fire under our buts and get a robot built. Turns out, it worked really well. I. Don't think we had ever bagged a complete robot before this year. There was something we always had to take in our allowance.

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I can guarantee there won't be a 5th regional in Minnesota this year. We all want one (especially with space at our current regionals getting to be so tight), but we don't have everything in place for one yet.

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I know there are a number of venues that already have had contracts on them for months, but it's weird the dates for them have not popped up. Is there some sort of vetting process RPCs have to go through with HQ to get them on the schedule?

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According to the FIRST Calendar by September 25th we'll all know what events are when because that's when initial registration opens up.

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Bayou still hasn't been added to the list official list, but the venue has been booked and the regional director has told us it will be March 19-21, 2015 at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner, Louisiana. This makes it a week 4 regional.

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Old habits die hard - here are four events that seem to be firmly locked in and have been posted for several weeks or longer on various venue event calendars or sponsoring organizations' websites:

VA Regional: week 4 / 19-21 Mar 15, Siegel Center @ Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

NC Regional: week 4 / 19-21 Mar 15, Dorton Arena @ NC Fairgrounds, Raleigh, NC

SBPLI Long Island Regional: week 5 / 26-28 Mar 15, David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex @ Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

FRC Championship: 22-25 Apr 15, America's Center Complex, St Louis, MO

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More events have appeared today. Looks like it's the time of year when we get most venues confirmed.

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

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Any ideas as to when? Or where?

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I could certainly repeat all of the various rumors I've heard (seriously... if you believe all the rumors, the 5th event started last year and is happening in 6 different locations simultaneously!), but that doesn't get us anywhere. Needless to say, though, the Regional Planning Committee is well aware of the desire and need for another regional as MN continues to grow! There are, of course, always difficulties in this sort of thing... Finding an accessible location for a sufficiently large number of teams (travel access and hotel accommodations), scheduling a venue, finding sponsors for the event, supporting it with volunteers, etc... it's no small task to start a new event somewhere!

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Judging from the Avanti's Dome calendar of events, Central Illinois could only be either week 1 or week 7...assuming it's the same venue. For reference, it was a week 1 rookie regional last year.

http://www.avantisdome.com/index.php...r&Itemid =489

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One more addition to the list:

Virginia Regional - Week 4

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That sounds like a very interesting event to attend. Eagerly awaiting news on the new teleportation technology from DEKA that will make this possible.

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Don't get too excited. It's probably just telepresence. Six locations, six robots -- coincidence? Not likely. Each robot will be on its own field, with five "virtual robots" representing the actions of the robots on the other five fields.

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In order to get kids ready for the "real engineering world", all competitions will now be done via teleconference.

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Funny, but is this actually everyone else's experience with video-conferencing?
This past build season, there was an unprecedented amount of snow days during Week 1 that forced my team to do much of our design on google hangout, and our only real problem ended up being a couple of distractions, such as when one of the student's doge made a few guest appearances onscreen.

I'm a big fan of this post early stuff. The more time to plan the better.

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Its more making fun of phone conferencing (no video except screen sharing presentations), and from my limited experience, it's pretty accurate.

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For personal use? No. My experience has been quite positive. Google Hangout/Skype are good tools.

For business use? Yes. The first 15 minutes of every meeting is spent debugging Lync. I've had it crash at least 3 times today (in 2 meetings). There was even a long period in which Lync refused to log in (this was about 2 months) and IT couldn't do much about it.

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Is this the new inter-district competition system we've been waiting for?

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you mean....regionals? :p

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From the San Antonio Convention Center Website, Alamo is scheduled for Week 3.

http://www.sahbgcc.com/default.asp?sanantonio=15

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"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Andrew Schreiber again."

Hilarious - it reminded me of a call today at work. But they missed the pleas, "Would everyone not talking please put their phones on mute?"

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2 new additions today:

Utah Regional - Week 3
Greater DC Regional - Week 5

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Wisconsin posted as Week 4. Looks like a new venue.

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The event is now much smaller. It has 15 less slots than last year.

I wonder what this and Indiana going to districts will do to the Midwestern Regionals this year.

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New additions for today:

Greater Pittsburgh - Week 2
New York City - Week 3
Wisconsin - Week 4

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It's not a new venue, the arena was renamed.

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Since it is the same venue (with a new name), I'm sure they will end up booking the same number as last year.

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It's not necessarily smaller as many events have a lower initial capacity for initial registration in order for the event to be able to include as many rookies and local teams as possible before teams that travel sign up for a second regional. My guess is that the Midwest regional will be fine as it only had 3 Indiana teams sign up for it.

Edit: compwiztobe beat me to it.

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Then again, WI was full to the brim last year, and even had 40 teams submit for Chairman's. The judges were judging presentations straight from 8am to 5pm Friday and 8am to lunch Saturday. Maybe they are aiming for a lower number of max teams.

Guess we'll all see in time :)

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I wonder if the amount of teams that submitted for Chairman's there last year was related to the fact you could present at as many regionals as you attended. I know if I was at team attending multiple regionals I'd present at every event as it's good practice even if you are not entirely ready.

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Well, that's nice and late for Greater DC. I'll take it.

Hopefully they fix the sight lines problem this year. Other than that, I thought it worked out great last year.

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Oh, for sure -- however from the data we collected after the season (which is not all, I know), no other regional even hit 30 submissions:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...s5Y/edit#gid=0

Percentage-wise there were competitions with more submissions, but when we are talking 15 min set aside per team, 10 more teams is 2.5 more judging-hours.

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It has certainly been noted and I believe a solution has been worked out.

Wetzel

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Two more have been posted in the last few hours:

Orlando - Week 3
Hawaii - Week 5

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Hoping we get some info on the South Florida Regional soon, there were some concerns about it this year at the south florida frc meeting. :]

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According to their facebook page, week 1 and week 6 are both being considered, if you have a preference either way you should go and comment.

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Appears Greater Kansas City may be 3/11 - 3/14.
http://www.kcfirst.org/events

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Having SFR week 1 would stink in one aspect, but would also make it very interesting for teams that are able to spend a minimum amount of money for both SFR and Orlando; making them able to attend a later regional as well.

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Good to hear!

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Yeah, it would make going to the three closest regional events to us *and most teams that attend Orlando/SFR* quite easy. Go SFR, take a break/improve parts, go to Orlando, same thing, go to Peach Tree or any other late regional. Peach tree just happens to be the closest non Florida regional, making it easier for less wealthy teams to make it there :)

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There are also rumors of a regional event in southern Georgia, as I know a friend of a friend who's mentor's brother's uncle is apparently on the secret RPC.

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Interesting, first I've heard of that. Though, I prefer confirmed facts to rumors :P. IF sfr is a week six regional, going to all three would still be possible, but would be more like, Orlando, break, Peachtree, SFR, giving us less time to rest and less time to work on parts/strategies.

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Week 1 for the win! We get to break stuff first :yikes: (including stuff that's not ours!)

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Three new ones today:

Central Valley - Week 2
Greater Kansas City - Week 3
North Carolina - Week 4

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It's not just rumors, two member of the RPC I've spoken to said the plan is to have another georgia regional. I think the contract for the venue is being worked out still.

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It's always rumors until it's official :P

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This is an interesting event we would consider if Australia falls through.

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I think I would rather go to Australia. :D

We would love to host a HOF team in Kansas City. I bet we could even find you some BBQ.

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Alamo Regional - Week 3

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Greater Kansas City has always been a great and memorable event since it's creation in 2007. Last year it changed locations to Metropolitan Community College. Plus, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong and this was discontinued with the venue change, they do a pancake breakfast one morning with Chris Cakes whose owner Steve Hamilton formerly held the Guinness Book of World Records record for flipping the most pancakes in 1 hour (956 if you were curious). As I just discovered his record was broken last year.

I was unable to attend last year due to moving out of the area so I'm unsure of how the new venue is set up. That being said, the RPC and the KC STEM Alliance who house KC FIRST are absolutely wonderful in making great events. Although I might be a bit biased as I worked closely with both organizations as a volunteer before I moved.

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I'm pretty sure there was a pancake breakfast at GKCR. I remember being there. I don't remember much else about it, it was very early in the morning.

Ivan

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359 should try to come to California this year, as it's the last year of regionals in California. There's going to be 7 this year, so plenty to choose from, and each one offers a unique experience.

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Glenn, we would love to have you all out here at the Central Valley Regional to join our party of an event. ;)

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If Australia falls through, CVR and IE are 2 must do events on our to do list of regionals to experience.:)

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Actually, you never know....we were involved at least in part, of the discussions to allow Hawaii teams to join in on the California district system.:rolleyes:

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Shhhh, let's not feed the rumor trolls!

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CA is going to Districts in 2016? Source?

-Mike

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CA has been 2 years away from districts since 2010.

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Really? I've heard 1 year away since 2009! ;)

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I believe that Jim Beck stated during the opening ceremonies on the Saturday of the Silicon Valley Regional that there would be 7 regionals in California for 2015 (the new one being in Ventura), and beginning in 2016, California would switch to a "qualifier" system. He didn't want to call it a district system, but it seems that would be the case.

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Ah yes, the "California System", as some may wish to call it. It's like districts, but it isn't, whatever that means. ;)

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The likelihood of FIRST approving something other than the current District System is extremely slim. FIRST had the Michigan and MAR models and then created the current District and Unified Points System based on those experiences and input from the PNW, NE District organizers and other interested parties. The only potential significant change might be allowing inter-district play for the 2015 season.

Note Indiana is piloting a mini-district model but the only real difference is the number of teams in the district.

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How likely is this regional going to happen? And would it be more metro, macon, or south? If it were to happen that would be amazing.

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It'd be the district system, he's just trying to brand it as a different name for some reason.

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In Virginia we add a year for every time someone mentions it.

#disrtictsin2076

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Just a quick observation comparing last season and this season on event postings:

Early release of the 2014 events dates was begun on 14 Aug 2013 with a very comprehensive list of both Regional and District events (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh....php?t=118446).

Early release of the 2015 events dates began on 25 Jun 2014. As of 15 Aug 2014, dates are posted for only 20 Regional events.

Postings for this season started out seven weeks earlier than last season, but the posting this season have been painfully slow. Last season at this time, we knew four times as much as we do this season.

Re: [FRC Blog] 2015 Events are Being Posted!
 

3 things to keep in mind:

1) FRC Headquarters can only put up the dates as fast as the RPCs give them up in some cases.

2) Some dates are already somewhat locked in but not officially reported (The Virginia Regional in 2014 was up on the venue's calendar for what had to have been a month+ before HQ posted it)

3) HQ has made the option this year to not post events yet until they are 100% confirmed. I believe not ALL districts have not reported ALL of their dates and ALL of their confirmed venues, and that made up a fair portion of the list as well.

So far 10 fewer regional dates have been confirmed at this time for the 2015 season than there was this time last year for the 2014 season.

And for what it's worth, both are light years ahead of the insufferable date-bomb FIRST used to drop on us around Labor Day in the past, where you got all your dates at once. As it stands, teams are able to process calendars around one or two regional events a month ahead of time (and a crucial month, since all schools are back in session by September and some are starting now).

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Peachtree regional (Atlanta) will be March 27-29. Fri-Sun, if I wrote the dates down correctly, at the GWCC. It will be a little smaller plus a second Georgia regional tentatively in Perry, GA early season. This was announced in the mentor advisory meeting last Sat (2014.08.16).

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Los Angeles is a Week 3 competition this year? Moved up a week.

Nothing up yet on the LVR... or a new California regional.

But now LA and Hawaii are two weeks apart. Maybe we can go to Hawaii!?!?

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On top of these two, we got a few more:

Pheonix East Arizona - Week 4
SBPLI Long Island - Week 5
Finger Lakes - Week 5

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Any idea what drove the decision to move it to a Friday-Sunday event?

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MAR schedule was announced on their website:

Week 1: Feb. 27-March 1 – Hatboro-Horsham, Horsham, PA
Week 2: March 6-8 – Mount Olive, Flanders, NJ
Week 3: March 12-14 – Springside-Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA
Week 4: March 20-22 – Seneca-Lenape, Tabernacle, NJ
Week 5: March 27-29 – Bridgewater-Raritan, Bridgewater, NJ
Week 5: March 27-29 – Upper Darby, Upper Darby, PA
Week 6: April 2-4 – North Brunswick, North Brunswick, NJ
Week 7: April 8-11 – MAR Championship, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA

It's nce to see a Pennsylvania event later in the season.


Also fun fact: This is the fourth different name the district at Seneca High School has gone by.

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Now here's to hoping FiM follows soon...

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Mainly I'm overjoyed to finally have a central NJ district. Now we can guarantee one event without travel costs! :)