usually isnt it the first weekend of January?

Nope. There's a NASA grant available once the season starts... You fill out a 10-ish question survey thing and NASA looks at it and decided if your team should get the grant (I think this year it was given to thirty teams or something like that). There are a few catches (you only get the money if you attend a NASA sponsored regional, something about putting their name/logo first or something, etc.) But other than that it's cool. We were supposed to get it this year but we could not attend a NASA regional (by the time we found out, the regionals were all filled up). Oh well, maybe next year! :)

- Katie

ya but for a team from up in the NE area to attend a NASA sponsored event wouldnt they have to spend the ten grand just getting a team there between having airfare costs hotel costs and registration fees it all adds up quick

January 4th, 2003


- thanks for the info. about the grant

Kickoff Date
 

According to Sue, KC, and Hut at the MI forum, kickoff is Jan 4.

In 2003 NASA will be sponsoring or co-sponsoring regional competitions in:

- Annapolis
- Atlanta
- Cleveland
- Los Angeles
- Seattle
- St. Louis

For each of these events, we will be issuing 20 "challenge grants" of $6000 to teams attending the regionals (120 grants in total). To qualify for a grant, the requesting team is asked to submit a very short proposal (it is actually a brief questionaire) that describes their situation, why they want the grant, and that they are ready to participate in the FIRST competition. They are then screened, evaluated, and selected based on the merit of the proposal. The award of $6000 is used to fund the registration fee for the team to attend the regional competition ($5000) and $1000 to cover travel costs for a team member to attend the kick-off meeting, for local team travel to the regional, and/or parts and supplies to build the robot. In return, each funded team is asked to:

- guarantee that they will build a robot and participate in the selected regional competition (we have to do this due to a bad experience in the early years, when a team took our money and then never completed their robot or attended any event)

- have team members complete a brief survey before and after the competition, to help NASA and FIRST assess the impact of the program

- include NASA in the formal list of team sponsors (we don't insist on being listed first, but we do ask that we are listed somewhere as one of the team sponsors)

- provide a copy of the team's Chairman's Award submission to NASA, to help us assess the impact of the program and advocate the program to NASA partners (if the team does not submit a Chairman's Award nomination, we ask them to send in a brief two-page "story" of their team experiences)

Teams are eligable to receive a NASA Challenge Grant for up to two years. As the purpose of the NASA Challenge Grant program is to foster the growth of the FIRST program and the formation of new teams, grant selections are intentionally biased toward rookie teams. Veteran teams that are selected for a second year of funding are also asked to agree to mentor a rookie team (either by e-mail or telephone, if their partner team is not local), and to demonstrate that they have matching funds of at least $6000 from another source that will be available for continued financial support for the team once the two-year NASA funding is complete.

More details on the application process for teams wishing to apply for a NASA Challenge Grant for 2003 will be available in September. Watch the FIRST web site for an announcement of when the information is released.

-dave

Mult regionals
 

At the MI forum they announced that there will be a system for teams registering for multi regionals. Here is what I copied:
10/1 - register for Championship and 1st regional
11/3 - register for 2nd regional - based upon availability
11/17 - register for additional regionals based upon availability - unrestricted
12/6 registration closed
12/10 payment required
2/14 registration all events ( not sure what this means )

Space reserved for regional winning teams to go championship event.

Some regionals will have reserved spaces for rookie teams that will be released on 11/17 if not used.

When asked how many regionals a team could register for this was the answer given.

Anyone hear anything different?

Events
 

Hey! Did anyone notice the Championship event had TBD,

At the MI forum it was announced as May 1, 2, 3,

What do you think is up?

Re: Events
 

From what was posted here as to what was said at some of the other forum sites, it sounds like the May 1-3 date may have only been a tentative one...with as many regional sites still TBD as there are, it may be that FIRST is trying to determine which week in April will be the definite end of regionals, and base the Championship event weekend on that. If the 1st weekend of April(as the schedule stands now) ends up being the last one, then they could pull the Championship ahead a week or two, and have it fall on roughly the same weekend as last year. When I talked to someone at FIRST on Friday(not about this issue, but a few other things), it was mentioned that the schedule was near completion. So, I'm guessing we will know in a week, or two at the very most, how the schedule is going to fall.

Re: Mult regionals
 

Just to clear things up(hopefully)...if I remember correctly, this was actually the date by which payment for all events was due.

Yep...the typo was that it was supposed to say march 6-8, but somebody at FIRST goofed and put in April 6-8 instead....if you look at the page now http://www.usfirst.org/frc/public/FM...s.htm&-findany it's been corrected.

another thing they changed the date of the NYC regional to TBD

Just a hunch but I think since all the weeks in march april are taken up i think the first 4 regionals J&J Mid-Atlantic, NYC FIRST!, Pittsburg, and Sacramento Regionals will be held the weeks of Febuary 27 - March 1 and then The Championship will be either April 17 - 19 or April 10 - 12 or April 24 - 26. Could be wrong those dates seem pretty reasonable!

blah, I think FIRST enjoys screwing with our minds to much. They need to stop changing comps around. blah, they hate us all! That will be interesting if MidAtlantic is that early...it's usually St. Patty's Day weekend, or this year, it was the weekend past St. Patty's Day. Heheheh, that will be cool and pure evil if they put those 4 Regionals the last weekend of Feb. Let's see, kick-off is Jan. 4 and we ship out the Tuesday after President's Day, like the 18th... meaning that we just missed around 5 days of school to build, then the next full week we leave for a competition! :) Won't this cause issues with shipping?

For logistical reasons such as shipping(which has been previously discussed), I have a feeling that the remaining regionals will be scattered throughout the existing 5 week season...after all, the current schedule is as follows....

With only 3 events in weeks 2 and 3, they both seem to be good candidates to add another event or two...with only 4 events to fit in, if weeks 2 and 3 were both put to 5 event weekends, that would cover all of the scheduled regionals. Now, as to which events you would put when, that's another story...