Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

Hey all,

Now that it's official and we are registered to the Long Island regional, we would like to address the FIRST community and it's NY area specifically.

After last year's season we've decided that we would like to raise our team's competitiveness, and decided to overcome the geographical limitation and compete in more than 1 regional.
For reasons of convenience and competition dates that work together with the Israel regional we've decided to compete in the 5th and 6th week in NY State area. We are already registered for the Long Island regional and are hoping to register to the Chesapeake regional next month.

Now for the reason I'm writing this post. We are still trying to raise money to ease the traveling costs on the parents as much as possible. If anyone has any contact to companies or private people who could help us in any given way we'll really appreciate it – whether its public transport companies that can donate a bus/mini-buses, food companies or hotels/motels nearby that can ease up the costs of stay; and of course any financial contribution to the flights themselves.

In addition, we were considering the possibility of being hosted by local teams in the days surrounding each regional. That way we would not have to "waste" money on hotels in the competition days, and most importantly – the kids would get the chance to get to know other teams better and possibly gather some new friends and better socialize with local teams.

We would really appreciate any sort of help!
You are welcomed to contact me either here or in private messages or via my email:
tomkertesz10@gmail.com

Thanks in advance to everyone,
Tom Kertesz – team Orbit #1690

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

The Chesapeake Regional is not in New York state. Chesapeake takes place in College Park, Maryland. It's roughly a 4.5-5 hour drive between Long Island and College Park. Geographically, they're roughly the length of Israel apart. If you're staying the whole week I'm sure that's not a significant issue. However, if you refer to College Park as being in the "New York state area," I'm sure you'll get plenty of confused looks. It's actually a suburb of Washington DC.

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

This is what I came here to say as well.

The closest regional is New York City - but you won't get the back-to-back you're looking for.

You could also go to the NY Tech Valley Regional, which is the week before Long Island. Those are about a 3.5 hour drive apart - which, as Sean mentioned shouldn't be an issue if you're going to be there for the whole week.

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

Im well aware, but in comparison to other options it's "in the NY area"

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

If it was possible without the risk of missing the Israeli regional that's what we would have done, but the Israeli regional date isn't really set yet, it will take place sometime between the 2nd-19th of March so we can't fly to any regional before the 21st or so...

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

FIRST site says 9th-12th of March for Israel. I assume that means they've locked it down...

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

No, the site info says that the date is tentative an subject to change.
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...A_SiteInfo.pdf

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

It is indeed tentative...

Reason for this is that the Israeli Regional is played @ the home of Maccabi Tel Aviv (where now Cavaliers coach Blatt was HC last year, btw :p ), Nokia Arena.

This is also part of the reason Israel does its regional mid-week (Maccabi Euroleague games are Thursdays, and Saturday is a day where religious folks cannot attend - hence the Mon-Wed scheduling).

This year there seems to be some issue with the scheduling of Maccabi Tel Aviv home games. So until they resolve THAT issue, it is indeed tentatively set for the above date.

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

How many people are you planning to travel with?

Re: Israeli team Orbit #1690 competing in NY regionals
 

We have proximately 30 students on the team, and along with about 5-6 mentors/parents we'll be about 35 people.

We are hoping to raise enough money to get everyone to go, and are mainly focused on that in this point of the pre-season.