2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Registration details have been released! :ahh:

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2006/reg_open.htm

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

We now have several months fewer to fundraise for additional events. Awesome. :(

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

And they released several important dates/details too.

Regional List (with Dates)

Kickoff (no times yet though)

Also note that payment methods have changed too, and listen to FirstCast when it comes out to hear our thoughts on it too, and send you opinions in too.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

They have been busy at FIRST this summer. now that I see all the dates for the regionals I might have to try to get my time of entry into the Coast Guard moved back a bit to make it for some.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

I'm glad to see LV and LA are on different weekends this time around. Hopefully teams from each area will be able to go to the other since they are only a ~4 hour drive apart.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

:ahh: FIRST, welcome to Boston! :ahh:

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Notice the 4 regional events during the first week, the 8 the next week, and the 6 or 7 for each following week. That sounds like an unnecessary eighth playing field. :confused:

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

I think it sucks that SVR is the week before Sac/SoCal...but what can you do.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Heh, that's not as bad as NYC being the same week as SBPLI and Boston (new regional).

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

aww man, FLR and buckeye on the same weekend.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

It could be, but I'd just assume that it's a logistics issue. Maybe those eight regionals each had to be in the second week because of prior bookngs, or maybe FIRST was trying to keep a given region from having two competitions in the same week.

The second theory kind of falls apart when you notice that Buckeye and Great Lakes are the same week, though.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Question: I'm going to be registering a rookie team for next year. I'm also going to be in London (UK) on Sept 15th when pre-registration opens. What's the benefit of pre-registering that day versus waiting until the 19th when I get back to the States?

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Pre-registration is to only update records so that when registration starts the errors in the system regarding your team are corrected if there are any. This proves you can register so you cannot blame them for a computer problem.

I do not think we all have to rush to pre-register as long as we DO pre-register before the actual registration.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

The 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff will be held on January 8, 2006 at:

Southern New Hampshire University
2500 North River Road
Manchester, NH 03106

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2006/kfevents.htm

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

That is incorrect. Logic tells us it will take place on a Saturday, which will be January 7th, 2006. Also, Jan 7th is the date listed on the FRC Important Dates Calendar. :)

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2006/rgevents.htm
Was it the "New Jersey Regional" last year or was it still the J&J Mid Atlantic? Either way I like the old name.

This year the Finger Lakes, Great Lakes, Buckeye, & Pittsburgh are all the same weekend. That sure draws a lot of teams from the same general area. UTC New England is the same weekend also. This will be interesting to see where teams register to go.

I also can't believe they would schedule the Long Island & NYC Regionals on the same weekend. * As noted by Adam* I know they schedule events when the facilities are available but ...

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

It was the "New Jersey Regional" in 2004 and 2005 also - http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2005/rgevents.htm and http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2004/rgevents.htm

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Does anyone notice that Midwest and Boilermaker are the same weekend. That is gonna take a lot away from both of those regionals by doing that I feel. Anyway I am glad to see the new regionals good luck to everyone :] .

-Drew

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Not totally, remember, Boilermaker is a NASA regional. :) It will be interesting to see teams like 71 choose on where they are going.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

From what I recall, there were only a few teams that went to both Chicago and Boilermaker last year. So, doubt there will be too much impact on either regional.

But, there is Boilermaker, Chicago, and Detroit all on the same weekend. All in the same general area. There will be some decisions to be made for some teams, that's for sure.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Maybe that could be the point of having competitions at the same time in the known powerful regions? Maybe it's just coincidence?

Hopefully its the first, and if so, good job on FIRST's part for giving smaller regionals a fresh breath of life.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Hey now, you guys did! And so did we!

... that's two ...

But of course, we have the Milwaukee!!! Regional to look forward to the week after Boilermaker, which is also, might I add, a NASA regional.
Be prepared, y'all. Milwaukee will definitely be rocking people's socks off!

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Finally I can talk about the Milwaukee Regional!!! (whoops :p )

With Midwest and Boilermaker being the same weekend, and Milwaukee being the weekend after, I think we'll see quite an impressive roster for the inaugural event...but time will tell. One way or another, it's going to rock and I invite everyone to check it out!

Unfortunately no regionals fall during my break, which means I'm going to have to very careful with my attendance choices this year with senior design and masters classes going on...but such is life. At least with Milwaukee, I can always go to class if I really need to and then get back to the arena! :ahh:

Have a great season, everyone!

Kev

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

AW, we have spring break during April this year....no regional falls during it...argh, and neither does nationals...so in trouble...oh no, nationals are during ap exams

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

No they are not, exams are the week after nationals. See the following for schedules on AP exams.

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/ex...68-0-0,00.html

I have to agree with Andrew that having Midwest and Boilmaker the same weekend will make many teams think about which one they should go to. Honestly I also want to know where some of the teams I admire like 45, 71, 111 are going to be :confused: :confused: . Either way im sure all regionals will be great because ALL FIRST Regionals are the best experience anyone could have. :D :D

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

The TechnoKats Robotics Team has attended the Midwest Regional for 9 straight years. We've stuck with the venue changes from Harper College to Northwestern University to University of Illinois-Chicago. Along the way, we have made great friends and competed against some of the best FIRST teams. During these years, the Midwest Regional has always been a great Regional and it will continue to be. We've eaten chicken with our fingers at Midevil Times and fried chicken wings during breakfast tailgating. We've had the good fortune to win this regional 3 times and win the Regional Chairman's Award once.

Sadly, team 45 will not be attending the 2006 Midwest Regional. We are committed to the Boilermaker Regional, as we call it our "home regional". Since these two regionals take place during the same weekend in the 2006 FIRST Regional competitions, we had to make a choice. Since we are so close to Purdue, this choice was not difficult, but still sad.

Knowing the people who run the Midwest Regional, I know that we will be missing out on a great competition. We hope to return soon.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

We will greatly miss team 45 and very likely team 71 (I think they also consider Purdue home) as we must also stick with our home regional. I first met Andy and the rest of the great 45 team in 1999 at the MWR in Harper when we teamed up that first year of alliances. And of course we played against 71 and 27 in those playoffs and got beat.

Anyway, does anyone know the specific venue for the Milwaukee regional?

Raul

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

It says here the US Cellular Arena.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Wow, this is exciting! Two regionals within a reasonable distance from Maine!

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Arggg...... Now I have to choose between the SPBLI or Boston regional.:( Ooo well. I'll probably end up at the SPBLI regional if everything happens according to my plans. I would have loved to see the Boston regional especially when it probably was occuring right down the street from where I live there.As a side note they spelled the venue of the Boston regional wrong. I searched for it on google and there is two g's

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

If you are a NASA grant team, you are going where they are paying for your registration.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

With a regional happening in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Michigan and Hartford were going to be hard pressed to get 33 teams at RIT this year. Couldn't they move one or two of these regionals to week one?

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

I wish everyone could meet with the head of the logistics company (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) and hear what these poor people have to go through to get 32 regionals coordinated with 32 venues, trucking to move the fields, etc. etc. It was enlightening to me. So many things I never thought about (having never been on a regional planning committee)....

Considering they are expanding the number of regionals but are constrained to only so many weeks so that the Championship can occur before many teams start final exams in May, it is amazing they can pull it off at all! How many other organizations do you know that pull off 32 major events, all on weekends, in a five week span of time? I give FIRST credit for publishing the dates so early in advance so that teams can meet and make choices based on their goals, budgets and desires.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

We are very excited to have a regional in Wisconsin now. It will indeed be held at the US Cellular Arena in Downtown Milwaukee. Hopefully the inaugural year of our regional goes as well as we hope.

Team #269 now also faces the tough choice of choosing regionals. The Wisconsin Regional will now be our home regional. And we will probably look to attend either Midwest or Boilermaker the week before. If we choose Boilermaker it will mark the first time since our team's rookie year in 1999 that we have not attended the Midwest Regional. We have been proud to make it a tradition to attend this regional for the last 7 years, winning it 2 twice, once with team 45 and once with 111 and 71. Our team would not be where it is now without the Midwest Regional.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

45 will sadly miss seeing the tye-dye. Maybe this is a reason for a push for red and blue tye dye for 45? ;)

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

I totally agree!! My first thought at seeing this announcement, and then looking through all the info is that I was totally amazed that FIRST had managed to get all this info out to us so early... I can remember waiting for it last year, and trying to explain to my rookie team why we might have to choose regionals etc etc.. but now its easy, they released ALL of the info... even awards submissions dates!!! BRAVO FIRST :) It makes it so much easier for teams to plan and put their calendars together when they have all the dates ahead of time.

Sure some of the scheduling seems a bit odd, but Im sure they either have reasons or just do the best that they can! Im just so excited that we have all the info!! yeah!!

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

UTC, Finger Lakes, Great lakes, Buckey all the same week??? IDK sounds kinda like FIRST got stuck in a big scheduleing jam or something..

I am happy to see UTC is now at the brand new connecticut convention center (i think) the Meadows really outgrew FIRST.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

http://www.ctconventions.com/ I think the location will be pleasing to a lot of people.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

Has anyone thought that maybe they scheduled close regionals together for a reason! If you look at the areas that this is occurring in, they have a high concentration of teams. In the past years these regionals filled up fast, and some teams got left out. The teams that got left out had to spend more money to get to an event that was farther away. This also forces some of the better teams to go to different events than they normally would, there for giving other teams a chance to do better. Kinda levels the playing field at some events.

The one thing that surprised me the most was to see the letter signed by Bob Hammond. For those who have not heard, Bob has resigned from FIRST, effective sometime in September. (This makes the 3rd high level person to leave FIRST this year. Paul Shay, & Hut Snow. Kind of makes you wonder whats going on in Manchester.) We owe a lot to Bob, he is a true gentleman. I hope that everyone joins me in sending a "best wishes" note to him.

Bob: If you see this post, you are a true gentleman! The program owes you a lot. Best wishes were ever you go, we will miss you!

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

It's also RIT's winter/spring break so we won't even have many students on campus. I'm going to help with 1511 but then because of spring break odds are I'm going home since at that point I wouldnt have seen family or friends since January 8th. (guess that means I'll be at UTC for a day or two) I'd be interested in what RIT thinks since from my feeling here so far is that they love showing off the campus in full operation and I'd assume would like to see the compeition when classes are in session.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

The Finger Lakes Regional is intentionally scheduled for the spring break week. One of the earliest parts of the planning were to hold it then.

The reason to hold it during break is that the regional can have all the resources of RIT without having to comepte for them with students. There aren't students trying to use the field house. There aren't students trying to use locations for the team party. No one's trying to use the parking lot. No one's supposed to be in class or teaching classes (many of the event volunteers are RIT students or faculty).

I'm going to make a bit of a leap and assume that you're an incoming freshmen RIT student, and that's great. If you want to go home for spring break, my recommendation would to simply come back early for the regional. It's a great event and even more exciting when it's on your own campus.

Matt

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

As much as having all these regionals that are close together on the same dates is frustrating it also makes a lot of sense. If you look at last years attendance a small number of large regionals filled up fairly quickly and a proportionate number fell to the bottom at partial capacity. This new schedule should force FIRST teams to distribute themselves more evenly among events.

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

With the new payment process (the pending list versus the registered list), am I understanding this correctly:

You could be the first one to register for an event in the second round (starting tomorrow), but if you send a check while everyone else pays with a credit card, you could get locked out because FIRST doesn't receive your check for a few days?

Someone please tell me I'm wrong...

Kevin

Re: 2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter
 

I was wondering the same thing. Taking it literally, thats how it seems things are, but at the same time having a process like that seems somewhat unfair, especially to smaller teams who may not recieve all their funding immediately. Hopefully it is setup such that you have at least a couple or three weeks to get your money in before you lose your spot.