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Originally Posted by codeoftherobot
Yeah I know that is the main concern this year. We are still trying to look for schools interested in the area however we haven't had too much success. If any rookie teams out there would like to come, feel free to sign up. It's a good-size regional, lots of action, and I think we need to do another cheering face-off.  It's going to be another great year like Alaina said. |
The BeachBot vote for the Sacramento regional was a landslide. No disrespect to the Arizona regional, which we've been attending for the past two years, they do an outstanding job there. But it has been quite a while since we've had a chance to play with some of our other old friends and we missed them. So we though we'd come up and visit the Cheesy Poofs, Monte Vista and Woodside, and maybe taste the Spicy Mustard
. We are looking forward to it.
I've been trying for years to get my sister, who teaches part time at Davis High, to get involved. But I couldn't even get her over to the fair grounds in Sac. Maybe now that the competition is right down the street that will change. At least my Mom said she'd come this time, and I get a cheap place to stay
Davis is very education oriented. (I can't imagine why, with all those PHDs per capita and all, you'd think they had enough all ready
) Make sure that there is plenty of publicity in the local papers etc. If you can get enough parents around to check out the competition, I'm pretty sure they will DEMAND a team next year.
Don't be too disappointed at a lack of rookies. One thing to remember is that it takes time to build infrastructure. In LA, the regional committee has been working to build our foundation of support so we have a stable community. We found that teams were disappearing as soon as their NASA funding ran out. We were also in danger of losing the regional due to lack of sponsorship, as NASA was taking their money elsewhere (as they said they would do from the start). Since most of our teams only attend the local regional, it was critical for their survival that the regional stay here. This project has taken three years. As I understand it, the Sac regional committee is where we were a couple of years ago.
We are finally at a point that next year we might begin actively working to start new teams. Not that we haven't welcomed and tried our best to help the teams that did come along, but we weren't going out of our way to start them either. I'd rather start one team that will keep going year after year, and spend two years doing it, than start four or five teams that fizzle after one year in the same period.
In the long run, I think the regional committee made the right choice. Our newer teams will be much more sustainable and we will be able to spend much more time with them during those first two or three critical years, because we won't be struggling to survive ourselves. BTW while the rookie year is critical, I think it takes at least three seasons for a team to be fully established.