[BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

The List & a New Region
Good Afternoon Teams,

I’m back. I was suitably impressed by the potential capability of the new technology I was shown and have high hopes for future FRC events. Engineering will continue to look for new and exciting things to add to our ever evolving 5 year technology plan. Unfortunately I can say no more. Except rest assured; our competition field will maintain a 27’x57’ footprint for the foreseeable future.

While I was out, an email blast was sent to team main and alternate contacts asking each team to take a survey regarding your FRC team’s experience with FTC. This comes from the group who are building a 5-year strategic plan for all of FIRST. Your team’s input will be very helpful, so if a representative for your team has not yet completed the survey, please encourage them to do so by Tuesday, Sept 27.

Not to confuse everyone, but FRC has a survey out to FRC teams at the same time asking about your team’s experience with FRC Awards. For this survey I would like everyone’s individual input. Please encourage everyone you know on an FRC team to take the survey by Wednesday, Sept 28th.

As of this morning, there are 45 local kickoffs listed on our website. Registration for Kickoffs opens Friday, Oct 7th. Have you decided where you want to go?

New Jersey, Delaware and the eastern half of Pennsylvania have joined forces to create the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region and will be holding Qualifying Events leading up to a Region Championship in a new model based on lessons learned in the Michigan district pilot. Welcome MAR!

TIMS is now scheduled to open for Event Registration on Thursday, September 28th. as of this morning, 341 FRC teams have completed the pre-registration process in TIMS and are ready for Registration. Are you ready?

Here’s the FRC event list as it stands today. Not every event has a signed contract from the venue so there are a few TBDs listed below. When the commitment is firm for each, the details will be added to TIMS.

As we add more double field events each year, I want to remind you: FRC reserves the right to ‘balance’ teams at any of the double event competitions. For instance: if every rookie team interested in playing in Minnesota registers for the 10,000 Lakes and there are no rookies at North Star, or if all the teams interested in playing in Dallas register for Dallas West leaving only four teams registered at Dallas East. We haven’t had to ‘balance’ double events in the past, and won’t if things work out on their own, but be aware, we still reserve the right to level the playing field if need be.

Week One
March 1-March 3, 2012
Alamo Regional, San Antonio, TX
BAE Systems/Granite State Regional, Manchester, NH
Greater Kansas City Regional, Kansas City, MO
Smoky Mountains Regional, Knoxville, TN

March 2-3, 2012
Hatboro-Horsham MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Horsham, PA
Kettering University MI FRC Qualifying Event, Flint, MI

Date TBD
Northville MI FRC Qualifying Event TBD, MI

Week Two
March 5-7, 2012
Israel Regional. Tel Aviv, Israel

March 8-10, 2012
Autodesk Oregon Regional, Portland, OR
Chesapeake Regional, Baltimore, MD
Finger Lakes Regional, Rochester, NY
Greater Toronto East Regional, Toronto, ON Canada
Lake Superior Regional, Duluth, MN
Orlando Regional, Orlando, FL
Pittsburgh Regional, Pittsburgh, PA
San Diego Regional, San Diego, CA
WPI Regional , Worcester, MA

March 9-10, 2012
Chestnut Hill MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Philadelphia, PA
Traverse City MI FRC Qualifying Event, Traverse City, MI
Waterford MI FRC Qualifying Event, Waterford, MI

March 10-11, 2012
Rutgers MAR FRC Qualifying Event, New Brunswick, NJ

Week Three
March 15-17, 2012
Bayou Regional, Westwego, LA
Boilermaker Regional, West Lafayette, IN
Los Angeles Regional, Long Beach, CA
Peachtree Regional, Duluth, GA
Festival de Robotique FRC a Montreal Regional, Montreal, QC Canada
Sacramento Regional, Sacramento, CA
Utah Regional sponsored by NASA & Platt, Salt Lake City, UT
Virginia Regional, Richmond, VA

March 16-18, 2012
New York City Regional, New York City, NY

March 16-17, 2012
Detroit MI FRC Qualifying Event, Detroit, MI
West Michigan MI FRC Qualifying Event, Allendale, MI

Week Four
March 22-24, 2012
Arizona Regional, Chandler, AZ
Boston Regional, Boston, MA
Buckeye Regional,. Cleveland, OH
Colorado Regional, Denver, CO
Hawaii Regional sponsored by BAE Systems, Honolulu Hawaii
Midwest Regional, Chicago, IL
Seattle Cascade Regional, Seattle, WA
Seattle Olympic Regional, Seattle, WA
Palmetto Regional, TBD, SC
St Louis Regional, St. Louis, MO
Waterloo Regional, Waterloo, ON Canada
Wisconsin Regional, Milwaukee, WI

March 23-24, 2012
Lenape MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Tabernacle, NJ
Niles MI FRC Qualifying Event, Niles, MI
Possible MI FRC Qualifying Event, City TBD, MI

Week Five
March 29-31, 2012
Dallas East Regional sponsored by jcpenney, Dallas, TX
Dallas West Regional sponsored by jcpenney, Dallas, TX
Greater Toronto West Regional, Mississauga, ON Canada
Minnesota 10,000 Lakes Regional, Minneapolis, MN
Minnesota North Star Regional, Minneapolis, MN
Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut Regional, Hartford, CT
Oklahoma Regional, Oklahoma City, OK
SBPLI Long Island Regional, Hempstead, NY
Silicon Valley Regional, San Jose, CA
South Florida Regional, Boca Raton, FL
Washington DC Regional, Washington, DC

March 30-31, 2012
Livonia MI FRC Qualifying Event, Livonia, MI
Mount Olive MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Flanders, NJ
Troy MI FRC Qualifying Event, Troy, MI

Week Six
April 5-7, 2011
Central Valley Regional, Madera, CA
Las Vegas Regional, Las Vegas, NV
Lone Star Regional, Houston, TX
North Carolina Regional, Raleigh. NC
Queen City Regional, Cincinnati, OH
Spokane Regional, Cheney, WA

Week Seven
April 12-14, 2011
Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship Event, Philadelphia, PA
Michigan FRC Region Championship Event, Ypsilanti, MI

FIRST Championship, April 26-28, 2012 St. Louis, MO

106 days until Kickoff
See you then

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Will be interesting to see how MAR goes...somewhat excited for it.


Also, I'd just like to add that the Montreal Regional, without a doubt, has the coolest name.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

I have been biting my tongue for a month or so now. I'm so glad the list is out and we can talk about the new Queen City Regional in Cincinnati!!!!!

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Midwest and Wisconsin the same week? I understand the potential contractual issues with the venues, but both events will be significantly weaker. I believe there were 8 teams who went to both last year, including 111, 1625, 1675, 1732 and 2826. I'm disappointed because now we will have to decide to play in front of our sponsors, families and schools at our home regional or travel to Chicago and compete with teams we love like 16, 71, 111, and 1625. Obviously no one to blame, but still a tough situation.

On the bright side, we now get to travel someplace new and make new friends (hopefully its Lake Superior so I can stock up on Surly and some Vikings gear)

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Wow, I'm not trying to be rude over placement of regionals but having the South Florida Regional week 5 kind of screws up picking regionals for most Florida teams. Having Orlando week 2 then skip 3 and 4, then South Florida week 5 negates us being able to possibly going to a 3rd regional because our schools wouldnt let us do back-to-back week regionals.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

If you think that's bad, the MAR schedule almost locks teams into certain events.

But whatever, at least they published a list.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Weeks 1 and 2 for the two PA events is what I find confusing.


EDIT: Also, upon further reading, it seems as if they decided on "Qualifying Event" for the tiered competition structure name, as well as referring to the championships as, "XXXXXX FRC Region Championship". I like that change.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

FLR, GTR east, and Pittsburgh in one week :O these are the regionals we were considering. Why are they all on the same week when they are sooo close to eachother??

EDIT: Is this "Kettering University MI FRC Qualifying Event, Flint, MI" regional a Michigan championship qualifying regional, and teams outside of Michigan (like from Windsor Ontario) can not attend

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Yes. They're called qualifying events now.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

That's right, Kettering has been closed to the outsiders since 2009, with the exception of off season events.

Also that potential Northville Michigan Qualifying event is still in the very very early stages of developments.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Wow that kinda sucks. I could literally walk down my street, jump into the Detroit river, swim across the river (not legally) to the states for the Detroit Qualifying event :(
Now my team has to travel a minimum of 3.25 hours to our closest regional. YAY! oh well its worth every hour/day of travel!

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

I don't get this complaint. I looked up 772, and it doesn't appear they ever went to an event in Michigan even in the 7 years before Michigan went to the District structure.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

First shoutout to the Mount Olive MAR qualifying event. I'm stoked to be able to watch an official qualifying event at the place I went to high school!

Scheduling is definitely becoming more of a challenge as more events are added, which kind of seems backwards to me?

-Brando

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

Well so much for going to Orlando....
DC and GTR West are the same week.
and Boston and Midwest are on the same week too.
.....choices...choices....


Leaning towards....

Alamo or Smoky Mountains over BAE (BAE has several capable veteran volunteers to choose from so they do not really need me. Alamo and Smoky Mountains look like they could use a hand)
FLR is a big DUH (sad to be missing out on my yearly Sunshine Infusion)
Montreal is a facsinating option but I have relatives in Atlanta.
Midwest and Boston both want and need me but I have relatives and friends I can stay with in Boston so it's the most likely choice.
GTR West is an old standby but now that my mom lives in Hagerstown I'm only 40 minutes away from DC so that's my most likely destination.
Lost Wages seems like a good make up for doing without Florida.
It'll be great to return back to the MSC even if just as a spectator (my participation as a volunteer depends on my leftover vacations days)
And obviously the championships.

Re: [BB] The List & A New Region 9-23-11
 

We were considering going to Detroit, or Flint this year. I know we haven't in the past but we could keep costs way down if we went to one of them. When we were a younger team I believe we didn't have as good of sponsorship and only went to Toronto, and a few others. I don't know why they didn't pick Michigan, i wasn't a member of the team until the 2010 season, but i helped when i was in grade school