[MrForbes]

We generally go to a "far away" regional during our spring break, and a closer one during a normal week, so the students miss only two days of school at most. We don't have much of an issue with mentors missing work...I let my wife support me (yay for female engineers!) and our other engineering mentor retired last year.

We've been doing two regionals all ten years we've been a team. Every time we've won a regional, it was the second one. It makes a big difference, going to more than one regional.