Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr V
We were quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that more teams are not attending a 3rd event. Fewer teams are playing at a 3rd district event than played the more expensive 2nd regional. I sent out a couple of emails encouraging teams to attend a 3rd event but of those people who responded their concern was the time from school and work that was the deciding factor.
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The time away from school and work does accumulate, especially if you are planning on attending world championships, but the two-day events are designed to mitigate that, and the local events make for a huge savings on travel.
I am curious to know what percentage of teams from the PNW have never attended a second regional - I hope and suspect that this year will be a real eye opener for them in regards to the opportunity to make continuous improvements between events. A big part of development is reflecting on what worked, what didn't, and how it can be improved - this process starts as early as during prototyping, but it can be difficult to do in a formalized manner early on. Following an event is a great opportunity to reflect on how things turned out, draw inspiration from other teams, and develop a plan for improvements - having a second chance at another event can give a tremendous amount of motivation to the team to improve.
From the beginning our team made it a priority to attend 2 regionals - with the idea that we would see twice as many robot designs each year, and we would have the chance to make improvements. Every single year we would experience a dramatic improvement at our second regional, sometimes after significant rebuild and modification on Thursday.
The growth of more regionals in the PNW has made it easier to attend two, and there are many teams who are known for consistently doing this, but I suspect there is a huge percentage of teams who have never had the opportunity to go to two events. It is great that districts gives more matches and two chances for one registration fee. It will be interesting to see how teams evolve between events and over the next few years.
BTW: I love the district ranking website, as well as the new splash screens at events with upcoming match listings and robot highlights. It is great to see that the PNW is not only adopting the district model, but making improvements to it in our first year. Thanks so much to all those involved in these efforts (building up two competition fields for the district is no easy feat either, excellent work in that regard as well). Looking forward to our first event in Oregon City this weekend.