Quote:
Originally Posted by smurfgirl
After reading posts about teams like 1114 and 1024 which won 2 and 3 regionals, respectively, I'm wondering how many regionals most teams attend each year. How many does your team attend?
We're a sixth-year team, and for all six years, we've only attended one regional (the once UTC New England, now Connecticut Regional). We started going to the Championship Event our fourth year (2006). After winning this regional for the third consecutive year, we're starting to think about broadening our horizons.
With this, I have some questions:
- Why does your team choose to/not to attend multiple regionals?
For teams that attend more than one regional, - What is that experience like?
- Is it worth the extra expense in time and money?
- Do you send the entire team to both/all regionals? If not, how do you determine who goes where?
- How far apart (weeks) do you like to space your regionals?
- Do you do multiple regionals and the Championship Event?
Thanks for the input!
(I apologize if a post like this already exists- I searched, but I didn't find any similar posts. Also, none of the more specific forums fit as a place to post this from what I can see- the mods are welcome to move it if they see fit.) |
TEAM 2171, CROWN POINT INDIANA - 2nd year team
1) Last year we made the comment that going to one regional was like a football team putting the time and effort to play one game. IRI was a great second competion, which we plan on attending again this year. It was well worth the expense. Our first regional was the Boilermaker Regional. We did well, qualifying 27th, getting picked for an alliance, and advancing to the semi-finals before getting beat by a great alliance. We did not get our autonomous working correctly until the last practice match. We practiced in our cafeteria before shipping. Practicing in an arena, on carpet, with a real overhead rather than our PVC rack, made a big difference. We spent a good part of the regional tweaking our software control. Our second regional was the West Michigan Regional. We pulled our robot out of the box, plugged in the controls, and everything was debugged. We had expierence from the week before, which ended up being priceless for the drivers and myself, the mentor. We ended up finishing 8-0 in qualifying. I admit you have to get lucky to do that, but the confidence I saw in our drivers between the Boilermaker and Western Regional made a huge difference. Some students had conflicts and could not go to both regionals. The bus only allowed for 13 students and some got the opportunity to go to only 1 regional. We are now planning on going to Nationals with the win at the Western Michigan Regional. We won the regional by being teamed up with Team Hammond that has mentored us and helped us tremendously. It was a great experience being allied with them and 2604, a great rookie team we shared a hotel with. We both learned a tremendous amount by playing with and following the lead of TEAM HAMMOND 71 with THE BEAST.