I just checked FIRST's "important date" section. Registration for the first regional and championships starts on Sept. 29. That's not that far away!

"We're so Canadian we've been to their regional more than some of the Canadian teams..." :)

Heh, yeah, Canadian Regional is really moving along - I think 639 will keep the tradition of going every year (possibly so we can keep claiming that Candian-ness).

Because there's a lot of teams :P

Only one NASA comp?? That so can not be right!!!
Peachtree!! Yahoo!!!!! that was one fun comp last year!!!
To bad though its no longer at KSC...those were the days!!

We will be receiving a 'starter kit of parts' upon payment this year. I wonder what will be in this goodie bag?

Also here is the important date link:

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/frc_time.htm

Where'd you get the info that there is only one NASA comp? Did I miss something?

I didn't notice earlier that April 14 is a Wednesday. Are they going to implement the threatened extra day of competition this year?

maybe they are!!!! or maybe the game will involve some intricate tuning and they need more time for working on the bot...no i dont think thats it....with nationals being smaller i dont see why they would add an extra day. We will know soon though!

If 210 is the open capacity, that could be the number of slots allowed for teams who will qualify by performance during the season, or during last season, as well as any extra slots. Teams that automatically qualify might not be counted in that figure.

Cory

Andrew, about the NASA thing I went here

http://www.usfirst.org/frc/public/FM...s.htm&-findany
and only one had the new of NASA under Event... unless that is the only one that will be held on a NASA location

The committee was very happy to get the Arena and maybe it will encourage some of the local schools down there to participate. It is going to be a tremendous event.

WC

For those wondering how the competition worked back in the day when every competition had two fields here you go:

One match would be on one field while the other field was setting up. As soon as one competition ended Woodie would run across to the other field and start the competition while the other was being scored and set up again. This way of doing things cut back on the down time and let everyone view all the competitions.

I don't know if this is how they are going to do it in Canada but it would make sense. It would allow twice the number of matches to be played in the same amount of time.

Guys, just a reminder that this isn't "official" yet.
There is no link to this list from off the FIRST main page.
Until we see that, we should assume that this information is subject to changes, and may contain certain errors.

Within a week or 2, we should see a more "official" version.


Just try not to make any plans/assumptions based on data that may, or may not be correct.

Each match in the FIRST competition have a 5 mins cycle. Due to last year's autonomous mode, which will probably happen again, the match length is about 2 mins 18 seconds. The rest of the 5 mins is used for clearing the field and setting up the robots.

So, I suppose they can alternate the matches in each cycle, so you start match 1 in cycle 1 for the first 2 mins 18 seconds while match 2 in cycle 1 is being prepared, then as soon as match 1 cycle 1 ends you start match 2 cycle 1, and you let the first field get cleared off and setup for match 1 cycle 2.

That will make sure matches doesn't happen at the same time for the audiences. I am interested in finding out how they are going to make the scoring software works for 2 fields. Maybe they will program one field to do odd number matches and the other field do even number matches.


I hope to see more 2 fields regionals in the coming year. That's one way to enlarge capacity of regionals while keeping the cost low. I like it :-).

Looks like they're not. It has now been changed back to the originally announced April 15-17.

It is offical now! As i check the main page now its in the FIRST Robotics news section, i guess they came through with their promise and gave us regional dates in August. Now just we have to wait and see about some other minor things.

~Mike

OK, I have a bit of an update:

It has been clarified to me that "Open Capacity" does not necessarily mean facility capacity. If a regional has an open capacity of 40 teams, their facility capacity may be more, depending on how many spots the regional coordination committee are being saved for rookie teams (who often register late) Grant teams, local teams and sponsor teams.

Also... from my observation and experience, it looks like FIRST has done a very good job with scheduling. I am suprised to see people complaining about having certain regionals on "back to back" weekends. You guys should know that there are many variables involved with scheduling these facilities (spring break, athletic events, corporate events, vendor availability, regional load balancing, FIRST staff availability, regional planning member timing conflicts, etc.). Think about this stuff before you complain that two regionals which are 150 miles apart are scheduled on back to back dates.

There are 26 regionals here. During the past three years, FIRST has presented us with more conflicting schedules than they did this year, that is for sure.

I say this: good job FIRST.

Andy B.