Question of the Week!!! (6/14/04)

[Andy Grady]

Hello everyone!

Yeah, I know, I forgot to do the question last week, but I'm still relearning to get back into the swing of this. Anyhow, with Battlecry and IRI looming on the horizon, I figure this weeks question would revolve around offseasons...

Question of the Week (6/14/04):

Do you feel that your region of the country has become overly saturated with offseason competitions, or do you feel your area needs more?

Once again, all suggestions for Questions of the Week are welcome. Contact me through PM, E-mail (skrach42@aol.com), or AIM (QuietRiverRage1) if there is a question you would like to see posted.

Have fun!
-Andy Grady

[Joe3]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

Hello everyone!

Yeah, I know, I forgot to do the question last week, but I'm still relearning to get back into the swing of this. Anyhow, with Battlecry and IRI looming on the horizon, I figure this weeks question would revolve around offseasons...

Question of the Week (6/14/04):

Do you feel that your region of the country has become overly saturated with offseason competitions, or do you feel your area needs more?

Once again, all suggestions for Questions of the Week are welcome. Contact me through PM, E-mail (skrach42@aol.com), or AIM (QuietRiverRage1) if there is a question you would like to see posted.

Have fun!
-Andy Grady

Actually, I do believe that in the Mid-Atlantic region, there has become an over saturation of off-season competitions. There are easily 10+ events in PA, DE, NJ, and there simply aren’t enough teams to support this number of events. I believe that 222 hosted the first event in our area, and since then, other teams have experienced 222's event (PARC), or another off-season comp, and figured that it would be fun to do, or would be a good fundraiser, but in my opinion, the explosion of events in the last 3 years has really been a negative. I know that on our team (MOE 365) we have numerous projects that we try to work on over the summer and during the fall, and we simply don’t have the time to go to all of the events, as that would just be asking too much of the students and mentors in addition to everything else that we do. Also, by the time our robot is done with the official season, its pretty beat, and all of the components are extremely worn. It seams like every year at PARC (the first off-season comp we go to), the robot suffers some kind of catastrophic breakdown due to the wear and tear of the season. The breakdown is fine, but the massive time commitment it would take to keep the robot running through all of the demos that we do AND 10 off-season competitions would be simply too much.

I think that fewer off-season comps would be much more manageable for the teams and our area, and teams’ participation in events have shown this. Host teams are beginning to have trouble filling events, and others are having difficulty deciding which to go to. It is possible that after this great growth period in the past 2-3 seasons, there will be a collapse in the number of off-season comps around our area because many events will be operating below capacity, and thus in the red financially. I hope this doesn’t happen, but I fear that it will. Time will tell. Sorry if this came out choppy, but I just had a lot of ideas that I wanted to fit in this post.

But, then again, that's just my $.02.

[akaria]

my team doesn't go to any off season events, mostly for us the big part of the cometition is the build, we don't care that much about the competition. during the off season we are working on different designs for drives or the programing or just teaching the newbies the ropes. i don't put much emphasis on any of the competitions(though it was hard after being the alliance captian for my team an nationals in 03 ^_^) i don't see the point in the off season competitons. i would much rather spend money in design or even in getting involved with the sumo robots, one 587's projects this summer.

but that's just my take on things

[Erin Rapacki]

I was chatting with the WPI team at Mayhem last weekend... and I think that team is proof in itself that there are almost too many offseasons. They told me that since the Blitz, they have been to an offseason every weekend, except Memorial Day weekend.

Ok, so that's a bit nuts. But then, I wouldn't count Canada's Wonderland as being 'local.'

[Jessica Boucher]

At least for New England, I think it's at the right size for what we as a community want offseasons to generally function as.

What do they do now?
-Give teams a chance to use the robot again
-Test new drivers, functions, systems
-Meet new people, see new places

With offseasons utilizing those primary functions, an offseason every weekend is ideal, and I see no problem with it. Face it, running an offseason is a surefire way to get recognized in the community. As long as the awards still take it into account, and people still want to satisfy the other functions listed above, there will always be a heavy demand for running them.

Should they be every weekend? Absolutley. This weekend I had to go home, and because of it I missed out on going to Mayhem. Did I miss not going? Of course, Mayhem is a great competition that I love going to. But I also knew that Battlecry was the next weekend, and thus my FIRST fix wasn't too far off.

[Marc P.]

I agree with Jess. As long as there are teams willing to go to off-season competitions, the sky is the limit! Not all teams need to attend every competition, but there are plenty of teams that would attend as many as possible, especially if they are local (less than an hour or two drive away). For many teams, off-season competitions represent another chance to show off their 6+ weeks of work, at a very small fraction of the cost of a regional, or without qualifying for the championship. This can be invaluable to rookie teams, eager to experience more of FIRST, and a great opportunity for veteran teams to meet new faces and enjoy a friendly FIRST atmosphere. It's also a great time to introduce new potential sponsors and friends/family to the marvels of FIRST, who were unable to attend a regional. And heck, it's the summer- many FIRSTers are out of school, and it's nice to have something to do on a boring summer day

[jpsaul7usa]

In Arizona we have none at all, so enjoy the ones you all have! There are only two events I know of in our region that involve students and robots, and both of those are promotional for Microchip, our region's big sponsor. My question: how long did it take for other regions to start off season competitions? I'm hoping to go to IRI this summer and learn about how other regions make off-season events happen and get teams working more together.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Down in Florida we only have one event, the Robot Rodeo. We definatly could use another. (Possibly in South FL. I wonder is any team is planning on doing this )

-formerly sigmakid108

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by jpsaul7usa

My question: how long did it take for other regions to start off season competitions?

The best way to figure out exactly what FIRST goes through on a much smaller scale is to host an off-season competition. If you'd like to get one started, PM Andy Baker (45 founded the IRI) Libby Ritchie (393 helps host) Chris Fultz (234 helps host-he's the lead this year) or Scott Ritchie (234 also).

They can get you the info that you're looking for. Of course...you could come to IRI and talk to them in person...they're always ready to help. Libby did a session at the FIRST ROBOTICS CONFERENCE about hosting off-season comps i think.

As per my answer...the midwest is perfect...as always.

[Dorienne]

Answer:
Our area is definitely lacking off-season competitions. The problem is, we lack places to hold any. I mean, we have universities, but we're unsure of money and if they would actually let us have one. I think Maryland really needs competitions...We used to have the Maryland State Fair competition, but they stopped it this year since it was too much money to keep going. Our team tries to be as local as possible, so I think it would be good to have more competitions here in MD than having to go out of state for every competition. Going out of state is worth it, but it'd be nice to have local ones.
--d0ri

[Alex Pelan]

We have gone to WPI every year since it began except for last year, due to a robot problem. In addition to that, we have gone to River Rage once or twice, but those are the extent of our offseason activities. The problem with having so many is that many teams do not have the kind of funding necessary to go to competitions every weekend. Add that to the bureaucracy necessary to go on field trips (WPI is the day after graduation this year, but we still need it to be an actual field trip with forms and whatnot to bring the robot. One of the novelties of FIRST events is that there are not too many, which helps make each individual event special. If there are too many events around, then the events all get blurred in your mind and you do not get the full experience. In addition to all these problems, there is the issue with those teams which are holding offseason events. If there are too many in the area, then those that are held, for many of the above reasons will not get enough attendence. As for CT, however, I do not feel that we have been oversaturated. Only a few major offseasons would be considered reachable for us, including WPI, Beantown Blitz, and Bash at the Beach.

[Steve W]

We just had our first offseason event at Wonderland. It was a great event with 20 teams from Cnada and the US. This was the 3rd year for the Canadian Regional so it was not long coming once we got started. Out team has gone to Kettering I believe in the past. I am pushing to try Sweet Repeat in the fall but we have to see how fundraising goes.

My feelings are that if you provide, they will come. The good thing about offseaon comps is that you don't have to mortgage the house to go. Now about the time factor .................. Gotta go my wife just caught me on CD again.

[Cory]

We absolutely need more. For years all we had was Cal Games, now we have Cal Games, SCRRF Fall Classic, and this year, the San Diego Scrimmage.

All of these are in CA and are quite a trip for lots of team in state, let alone out of state on the West Coast.

Cory

[Nate Edwards]

We don't have any off season comps in Oregon that I know of, we have a few mini things and sponsor mock competitions but nothing really that more then 5 or 6 teams come to and its kinda hard for 5 or 6 teams to do more then a presentation.
Nate

[Billfred]

Dude, we've really got to get some off-seasons down South.

I mean, the nearest ones to our team are some five or eight or more hours by car away. I've got some doubts as to our team's ability to stand that for a regional, much less an off-season.

C'mon, someone here's gotta want to have Revenge of Palmetto. (yeah, the name stinks. it's all I could think of.)