[Erin Rapacki]

Teams usually attend more than one regional. Typically, everybody is invited to attend to the closest and most convenient Regional event. The way to get somebody hooked on FIRST is to let them see a competition, so it's a very good idea to get the under-involved rookie to a competition so they have more motivation to stay involved the following year.

As for the Regionals that involve travel expenses, the students who know the robot really well (usually the students who spend the most time in the shop anyway) get to travel and attend the further-away events. It's really really difficult to sit at a Regional and not have anything to do... so when it comes to deciding who should go, start with who is absolutely needed to achieve the team's goals and work from there.