New FIRST Word: MEGA-REGIONALs
 

New FIRST Word: MEGA-REGIONALS

Definition:
MEGA-REGIONALS (ME-GA RE-GION-AL-S; or just say BIG)- Regional competitions that are BIGGER then existing regionals with multiple playing fields. Most likely choosen in regions with high concentration of FIRST Teams. Locations TBD. They are planned for 2006.

(this soooooooo exciting I almost **** my pants)

:D

Soo.... kinda like the Canadian Regional this year, eh? :)

hmm... could this be the next step for qualification for championship events? makes me wonder...

-Ken Leung who seems to have lots of questions in his head lately

HAHAHA, we got two playing fields and a huge Hokey arena as pit area.

Mrs
 

One question: where did you hear this word? I might have missed it, but I don't remember FIRST saying anything about "mega-regionals" publicly.

Re: Mrs
 

Thats why this is in the Rumor Mill. If it was posted on the FIRST site it wouldn't be a rumor now would it. Until a couple weeks ago the new robot controller was just a rumor started mid season last year (something Lavery said at one of the comps started it I think).

The first buzz I heard about MEGA Regionals was at the Chesapeake Bay Regional when many people noticed the Naval Academy could easily hold two fields and over a hundred teams. Unfortunately teams would no longer be able to play hackey sack in between pits:) Also notice the J&J Regional changed to a bigger venue. It appears these MEGA Regionals are already falling into place. Since the Championship Event can no longer accommodate all the teams that want to go, open-invitation MEGA Regionals make sense.

Re: Re: Mrs
 

Stupid me for going through the portal and not noticing the forum it was posted in...:o

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in 2006...

This could be interesting, but what could the implicatons be? Also would this mean less overall regionals? Could this mean multiple regionals being combined for one of these mega-regionals? Though the idea is very interesting.

Re: Re: Mrs
 

YA... what he said!
;)

Am I the only one who thinks that this whole Mega-Regional idea for qualifications sounds stupid? MANY good teams cannot go to more than one regional, let alone nats. So, how would you guys like to have only the big-rich macho teams at Nationals?

Plus, why am I calling it Nationals? Because it's NATIONALS, where every team can go, not Championship, that sounds more like only the good teams can go.

*end rant*

Re: Re: Mrs
 

Rumor Mill aside.....This might be a nice idea but so far I have not heard any proclamation from FIRST that a tiered system or Megaregionals were being planned.
Our rationale behind expanding NJ was to accomodate many more NJ teams (50 x05) and allow a more widespread recruitment of NJ teams via the RINOS program. There will be quite a few new ones in the regional this year and next.
I have heard that by improving the regionals it might take some of the emphasis on all teams attending the Nats. Eventually, if FIRST continues to think in the small numbers they do now, there will be very limited space at Nats to attend due to dozens of Regional contributors being limited to a few teams each. I can see that day when Nats are based on that season's qualification.

If somebody else heard different I would like to know. The idea of going through tiers over many weeks to qualify for nats is undesirable and scary. The expense would be huge and the need to remove students from class even longer would be prohibitive.

WC

(from Dictionary.com)
hok·ey adj. Slang hok·i·er, hok·i·est [list=1][*]Mawkishly sentimental; corny.[*]Noticeably contrived; artificial.[/list=1]
I think you meant hockey.;)

"Americans go to Nationals, everyone else goes to The Championships." Steve W. Team 188 (Im pretty sure it was him at WMR 2003, if not it was a member of 188)

Its not Nationals anymore, technically it hasn't been "Nationals" since 1998 when the first Canadian team joined in. It's now an International Competition. Thats how it is. Deal with it.
-------------
Not necessarily, for some reason I've seen Canadian publications spell it "Hokey" Aparently "Hokey" is the true spelling, and it eventually evolved into "Hockey"

I just have an objection that people think that it should be the best since it's the Championship, but it was originally the Nats. See what I'm saying? Ok.

I believe they changed it to Championship because of international teams. The purpose behind the event is the same as day one. A chance to celebrate winners. I still believe that every competitor in FIRST is a winner. :)

Sorry, it's my typing mistake

Can you cite a reference? Doing a Google search, I could find no credible instances (in English) of hockey being spelled hokey, though I found several pages in French and Turkish with that spelling. Maybe the Canadian pubs you saw were in French?!;)

Now, Dictionary.com cites Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary saying that "Hockey" also refers to "The stick used by the [hockey] players." And that it is also written "hookey and hawkey." So I'm not ruling out your assertion. I just haven't found any evidence to support it yet.

There was some discussion of making the Annapolis regional a super regional, I seem to recall several important people with decision making ability being supportive of the idea.


I think it is a splendid idea. It makes the smaller FIRST from the old days remain, sorta, while allowing more teams to participate.

Joseph, and all the others that want everyone to goto Na, The Championship, you need to face reality. As of right now, there are 687 teams registered for at least one event. This many teams would require 8 fields, with 84 teams in a division, and there are likely to be 200+ more teams that register in the coming months Some places are big, but I don't know any that are that big. Also, FIRST dosn't buy that many fields, nor have the man power to run an event that size.
If this dosn't become a physical impossibility this year, it will within the next few.

Super regionals allow something approaching the feel of nats from the late 90's, while allowing FIRST to continue growth. I hope the Canadian Regional this year is just a test, and that it goes well and FIRST will expand that concept.


Wetzel

I wouldn't expect you to find a Canadian "slang-like" (its more of slang now, but many years ago it supposedly wasnt) term in an american dictionary ;)

In a way you are kind of right, they were Canadian publications in english, but quite a few were school reports from french-canadian providences schools. Its more of an accepted thing and its starting to die out, but its still used.

------------------

Back to the thread ;)

For the past few years it seems to have headed that direction anyhow, because of some of the high costs just to get into the team party and having to go through things like "The Meeting Place" which teams (like ours) could not afford... and therefore we had to make our own "Team party" that cost much less, but unfortunatly we were seperated from the rest of the teams. I understand the costs to FIRST and all, but still... unless you have a really nice budget, you aren't going to be able to do much at nationals other than compete and get by in a low-cost hotel you find somewhere (we stayed almost 20 miles from the competition in Houston, and on Day 1 our bus broke down... taking a rental car back and forth with 3 people and some tools was a tedious task) but we had to do that cause of low budget, it just seems too hard to pay for many things. Plus to add a "MEGA-REGIONAL" (if the rumor comes true) would probably take many teams (most likely us) out of a possibility of going to Championship even if we were the best robot that year simply because of costs. I'm not criticizing FIRST, it's just that many teams are running on budgets even lower than ours and they wouldn't be able to go at all. Everyone saw this last year when many good teams couldn't go to Houston simply because they couldn't afford it, even if they were great teams.

Re: New FIRST Word: MEGA-REGIONALs
 

Well, here is the follow-up:
FIRST Mega Event with International Participation in 2006
at the New York City Javitts Center.

:)

They did say during one of the presentations at the Naval Academy how they were looking to enlarge the competition to two fields because they did have that entire other gym complex in the building. I would be interested to hear what happened to that....if its still in the works or whatever.


-Pat

Re: Re: New FIRST Word: MEGA-REGIONALs
 

more updates (or hot rumors)-

The NYC Regional is planning to move to the NYC Javitts Convention Center (a MEGA big place) in 2005. Then in 2006, it we become a Mega-Regional with International Participation from Europe (and other countries)!

:D

The Naval Academy does have the room to hold 2 fields in the main room with the pits located in an auxiliary gym about 15' - 20' away. Eventually I'm guessing that the regional will grow in size. It's just a matter of time and funding. I hope to see even more people coming to Annapolis in the future.


Steve

In 1999 the Johnson and Johnson regional in New Jersey had two fields. Was this common at other regionals that year?

The fields were smaller and square, so it made it possible to fit more -- but, given the size of some of our venues, I've often wondered why we haven't seen them increase throughput by adding a second field.

Is it just a matter of staffing like everything else?

The controllers are very expensive. There are a limited number of them that go from regional to regional. I bet that's part of the reason for having just one field. Staff wise I think they could handle it. It would be a little tough, but they could always just ask for more volunteers from teams at the event.

Before the design of the "standard field" (i.e. the basic perimeter that's been used since 2000), FIRST used to set up two fields at every event. The matches would then alternate between the two. This was simply to lower the down time between matches.

Matt

super!
 

Exactly...



From http://www.firstcanadianregional.org/main.php

I know that some of you don't like the Idea of the MEGA Regional but I thinks it's going to happen. There are just too many teams to keep running the way they are. They had to hold the championships in TWO stadiums last year and some areas were still crowded.

With more teams signing up you'll have a greater number of good teams not going to the championships any way so why not have a step in between? Why not give teams a chance to compete at a HUGE event instead of none at all.

As for teams not having enough money?! We were allianced with a ROOKIE team last year that had one mentor and 5-6 students. They had built the thing by themselves, no mentor help, just supervision, and had to spend all their money on registration and the kit. Hardly anything was spent on the robot. If your finding yourself low on cash and you really want to go, there is always a way.