Re: Food at regionals?
 

I think i cheated at the portland regional but i found cheap sodas :) If you dont remember, there was a vending machine by the side entrance to the pits near the dressing rooms. You know... by the autonomous testing grounds. I paid .50 for a 12 oz can of coke! The way it should be!!!!!

Technically, I did buy this in the arena, and thus was in no violations of any rules :)

FYI i spent about 7 bucks on soda between thursday and sat :)

Re: Food at regionals?
 

I heard about water costing $3 a bottle that's crazy, we only get much money a day to eat at the venue how are we suppoesed to buy a slice of pizza for 4 bucks and buy a drink for there when you only get like 7 bucks a day.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

I agree with everyone. The food is to high for students. I'm an engineer for GM and the food is too high for me, let alone a college & high school students. I'm not sure anything can ever be done about it. The food last year at the championship was the worst food I have ever had.......anywhere. At least at Disney the food was expensive but Good. Now we have the worst of both evils. :(

Re: Food at regionals?
 

I would pay a heavy price for food, if it tasted descently good. but most of the food i ate was just over cooked, or cold, or not enough syrup in my soda. It was just really bad food and not worth paying what we did. Next time i suggest we smuggle alot of food and then they might get the hint. :cool:

Re: Food at regionals?
 

The price of food is one of the sacrifices you make when you go to a regional. All of these wonderful places that host us need to make money- it is how they stay open. Even with other non-profit groups, they still charge what they charge for food. FIRST is no different. If you want food on site, you will have to pay those prices.

On the other hand, smuggling in food is not the answer. If you honestly think food prices are too high, you have 2 options. The first is to construct a large arena, staff it with at least 100 people and deal with the mess of 3,000 people and charge more reasonable prices for food.

Your second option is rather simple: DON"T BUY THEIR FOOD! Rather then complain about food prices, just don't eat there. These businesses will get the point much more quickly then smuggling in food, anyway. If they observe their profits drop, they will cut prices. Most of the regionals are very close to or right in cities. Most of these have restaurants within walking distance that offer good food for a reasonable price. If you don't want to walk, then you will have to pay for the convenience of having food on site.

Those are your only two effective options. Smuggling in food is against the rules, just like putting an extra motor on your robot. Sure, you may get away with it, but how will you feel afterwards? Instead be glad that FIRST has been able to secure these wonderful venues. Think of how big the program would be if it was still regulated to high school gyms...

Re: Food at regionals?
 

Ah, the ultimate debate every year about food prices. As regional director for the Lone Star event in Texas, I can tell you everyone in the FIRST community is aware of the food situation. All of the venues have concession/catering contracts that have been negotiated. It doesn't matter if it is a college venue or sports facility. It is the same all across the nation. I agree with all of you that the food, drinks, snacks etc are overpriced for what one is used to paying at a high school venue. There are options. At the Lone Star, teams can bring their own food and tailgate in the parking lot or green space at the arena, the Houston committee has a list that is distributed to teams that has 60 eating places in the area or one can purchase the stadium. There are water fountains that can be used in lieu of bottled water. Our committee is trying to work with the catering company to get a nutrious meal for the teams. We'll see if we are successful or not.

In regard to VIPs and volunteers getting better food etc., we still are ordering food from the same catering company. We pay higher prices than you guys do. FIRST staff, volunteers etc. are not allowed to bring in their own food. We purchase it like everyone else. As stated so eloquently in the previous posts, smuggling in food is not the answer. It reflects badly on all of us when teams do this.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

the food was outragiously over priced at the NJ regional

Re: Food at regionals?
 

I did the same thing last year at Championships. They had vending machine when you went into the reliant stadium on the way to the fields. I guess they were exclusive though. You had to have your bright colored drivers button to make it that far. Those machine where cleaned out by Saturday.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

As I've always said: The easiest thing in the world to do is to simply point your finger and judge. Which most of the people in this thread are doing. If FIRST gets driven out of the venues are all of you going to be happy then? Let's try taking Amanda's suggestion and try comming up with viable soloutions that can solve the problem instead of just simp;y whine about them. Let's do that voodoo that we do so well.
Here is my suggestion: Teams get together and make a community pool to assist with cost be that via a fundraiser or donation and teams are given an allowance to be used towards the purchase of food. Sure you have to buy the same nasty food but we cannot do anything about that. Perhaps a direct appeal to the vendor to provide apprpriate choices for those who cannot eat fried food or are on a diet could be made. At least just this once.
I would not want to lose the use of these venues because people want to be defiant and make some sort of point. If they say we can't do it, then don't. If your mentors made those rules would you blow them off?
Let's be reasonable.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

good point Ed

the best solution for this problem, if most people are not happy with the food at an event, is for FIRST to talk with the facilites people, explain to them that we are not there for a few hours and munching on a pretzel or processed pizza slice is not going to sustain us

and see if we can have catered food brought in - These arenas are run by business people. as long as they can make a profit they dont care where it comes from.

BTW _ this whole food issue is an excellent example of the difference in quality you experience when people are donating their time and resources for something they believe in (like FIRST, the students, the mentors...)

and when people are just there for the money - ie, the food service people.

the difference is night and day.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

Uhhh what happens at a venue like the that at chesapeake? Held on the naval academy...heck we have to take shuttles to and from our cars. So are we going to be forced to pay absurd food prices? Or since this is not a major arena and owned by the gov, the prices are going to be acceptable.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

You may say don't smuggle food in and go to another place to get food. But when you pressed for time, there is no time to get that nice cheap nasty food that was served to us. I barely ate cause i was so busy with judges, news media,other teams, the robot, pictures, and just having fun. When you are on the go then you need something good and cheap to eat. I am out raged by the food served at the Trenton regional. Food may be one vendor but still is an outrage. There are alot of problems with this world, one is the price of water. I was smart to bring my water bottle. And i really do not feel bad for smuggling cause of the over priced and nasty food and drink served. This is not the first time this whole matter has happened before. last year at houston we also received nasty food as well. Stuff that is not cooked or over cooked is not worth eating. All i ask is that they increase the selection of food and the quality of the food. That is all i ask. Then i would pay the higher prices for "GOOD" food. So far the Annapolis menu looks better then any other menu, i have seen so far. :ahh:

Re: Food at regionals?
 

At least this isn't a problem so much at the Midwest Regional. We have Mustard's only a few feet away and that place is awesome! It is the only FIRST event where I actually look forward to the great food.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

We have a very large team (Probably like 70 people if you count everyone who shows up for a couple meetings). Basically, we have committees for everything. After we started using our Wobblies (noisemakers made from Lexan and painted green), someone came up and asked if we had a committee on Annoying Noisemakers. Well, ya sort of. The same huge committee, the MOE Boosterz, is in charge of food and lots of other things. They are mostly parents and engineer's wives who do many of the tasks needed to run the team, so the engineers can focus on the robot.

So when so many people whose job is to get food for the team are at a regional with overpriced, poor quality food, they quickly turn into the MOE Tailgating Authority/Pizza Smuggling Syndicate. They are particularly concerned about the poor Pit Crew, who slaves away all day fixing the bot, and The Pit Lord does not let them leave the Pit to go stand in line for bad food (waste of time, there are always things that need to be hit with lead hammers :D ). Same goes for the Comp Team. If they are out of sight for a couple minutes, someone goes looking for them.

I rarely eat competition food, anyway. Every year at Philly, I run down to 30th Street Station to eat at all the restaurants. I now get free volunteer food at Philly and I still eat there atleast once because it is tradition. I highly recommend it. Even if we didn't eat pizza in the parking lot at NJ, I would runto McDonalds to order a bunch of $1 Double Cheeseburgers and take them back to competition. I prefer 6 McDonalds double cheeseburgers to one $6 Sovern Bank Arena burger any day.

Re: Food at regionals?
 

The situation in NJ, which has been mentioned many times above was:
1. There was NO healthy food available. ZIP. The food groups were fried and grease.
2. There was one water fountain that I could find in the entire arena.
3. There was no tailgating allowed as the parking lot was considered part of the arena.
4. Besides a McD a few blocks away, the only lunch places I could find were 5 blocks away; chinese and a decent pizza place. I did order a couple of sandwiches there, and ate them with some of the team in the rain (some of the poor pit crew), on the edge of the arena grounds, furtively hoping we wouldn't be busted.

I realize how hard you all work organizing these events. We do appreciate all the work the volunteers have done. But this is a big issue and it sounds like there is great variability among venues. Sounds like Annapolis is giving us some healthy options at least. Last year we were allowed to bring in a cooler of water each day. I guess they are changing the rules this year. I am most concerned, as a nurse, of the effects I see of dehydration on the team. Given the choice of paying $3 for a small bottle of water, most of the teams don't. Teams should be allowed to bring in water if there are not fountains available.