**FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Greetings Teams:

Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season! We hope you all have had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to another great year of robotics fun and challenge.

Please go to http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/reg_open.htm to view our opening letter which contains the 2005 Schedule and other important information. Please also click on http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/kfevents.htm for key Kickoff information.

Finally, don't forget that Pre-registration will begin on-line September 15th at 12:00 noon EDT!

We are looking forward to this season and hope you will all be joining us again.

Go Teams!

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

LAS VEGAS REGIONAL!
SWEET

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

"We are excited to be returning to Atlanta and have made changes to significantly improve the event. For example, the planned Pit area will be over twice as large as last year and the spectator commute is much shorter."

That will mean a lot to a lot of people. Especially the spectator commute.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Alright a Vegas Regional. Unfortunatly it clashes with the SoCal regional. Hmmm.... hard decision. Go to Vegas and pay for hotels, transportation, and stuff but probably have a good time. Or go the SoCal one and pay nothing for lodging and transportation and still have a good time. Very hard decision(im not being sarcastic). And why is there such a long wait between the last set of regionals and the Chamionship?

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Easter is normally in there.

Plus shipping time in from so many different locations.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Easter weekend is actually during week 4 of regionals this year, as easter falls on the 27th.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Wow, my bad, I wasn't expecting that at all. That's a first in FIRST I believe to have competitions through the Easter Holiday. I wonder how it will affect teams choices for Regionals? :confused:

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Let's hope it won't be too much of a problem. *crosses fingers* Seems to me FIRST really had no choice. =(
--Dori

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

There have been competitions on Easter weekend before. I think it was in 2002 that we had the Midwest Team Social on Good Friday.

I could be completely wrong though and just remembering the majority of them being during Lent and therefore not being able to eat meat at the socials.

Generally, the schedule looks good to me. I may or may not be able to make it to Nationals this year - it depends on when ASCE/Steel Bridge Regionals are. And if I end up going/volunteering at Midwest, St. Louis, Lafayette, and/or West Michigan...I'm going to miss a lot of Fridays in a row =(

Time will tell I guess!

Kev

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Wait... what happened to all that discussion over how the new system was going to change for 2005 earlier this summer? Wasn't the 2004 system based on points? ::confused::

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

2005 Rochester, New York Finger Lakes Regional!!!! come see our awesome state and regional!

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

I like the new safety award a lot.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

that does sound very interesting, can anyone explain what the Canadian Regional did that FIRST sought was amazing enough to add to every regional?

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

No, the 2004 system was not based on points, although teams that earned enough points in 2003 were grandfathered in. The criteria was explicitly stated long before now.



Regionals were held Easter weekend in 2002, as RoboHottie remembers

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

I figure that the extra time is so that non-prequalifying teams that win regionals in the last week can have more than a week to get transportation/hotels for Nationals.

My team always went out to dinner on Fridays during build/postbuild. After about the 10th Friday of Lent that I forgot about, having just finished having another steak dinner (or another nonLenten meal), I established "Robot-Lent" where I moved my non-meat eating to August, so I could not worry about it during Robot season. :D

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

He's my Ro-model =) I want to be just like dan. Its hard to not eat meat at a regional during a religious observation. And usually thats the only thing you can find around some not all regional venues. others you would be very lucky to find anything at all such as the J&J Regional venue where you had to walk some distance before finding something decent ------- This goes for when Lent either landed during build period or the start of the competition period

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

It would be very difficult for FIRST to plan around religious observances. But our family observes several religious traditions during Holy Week. If our team decides to attend a regional that occurs that weekend it will create some difficult choices for us.

That's not to mention the expense of traveling and lodging during Easter week!

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

someone please help me! im trying to register my team but im running into an issue. when i go to partners under people, it says "Team Name is Invalid - You must have at least one School Partner Contact". i cant figure out what to do and i want to hurry up and register for my regional! please help me! thanks.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

this means that you need to have someone representing the high school(s) (i.e. a teacher or principle, etc.) registered in TIMS. if you already have one, then they go under 'people'->'partners' and make sure they are marked as Representatives of the high school. good luck.

Re: **FIRST EMAIL**/Welcome to the 2005 FRC Season!
 

Last year we had a team of inspectors that went around the pits and playing field areas. They took note of positive safety issues as well as identifying some oversights (such as safety glasses). There was an award given at the end for the most safety conscious team. There were also prizes given out at the team party that were very nice.