Announcing the 1st Annual Robo Showdown in Austin, TX!

[StephBrierty]

FIRST Community,
I would like to formally announce the inaugural year of the Robo Showdown - an Offseason Competition hosted by National Instruments during our annual user conference, NI Week, in beautiful Austin, Texas.


Details:

• $300
• August 5-6
• Austin Convention Center
• Hotel rooms for $99/night (sleeps 4)
• T-shirts
• Rule changes TBD but will definitely include longer Autonomous or higher point values during Autonomous
• ~10 matches per team plus finals
• No team count limit (we have an entire room in the convention center)

AND as part of attending you will be able to go to the Exhibition Hall to see other types of robots, vision applications, and lots of other fun demos for free! Mentors will be able to pay an extra fee to attend the technical training sessions (cost TBD). Attendees will also be encouraged to watch the Keynote Thursday morning by Dr. David Barrett from Olin College on robotics.

Email me with questions or to pre-register! More info to come soon!

[Pjohn1959]

Team 1429 is planning on coming. We have a complete flooring (regolith) if you need it.

[Coach Norm]

Hey Steph,

Team 2468 is excited to be coming.

Originally Posted by StephBrierty

FIRST Community,
I would like to formally announce the inaugural year of the Robo Showdown - an Offseason Competition hosted by National Instruments during our annual user conference, NI Week, in beautiful Austin, Texas.

Email me with questions or to pre-register! More info to come soon!

Did the carpet and Regolith get here? I know they was some discussion about us storing some of it.

[StephBrierty]

We will be using the Regolith from the Dallas regional - thanks though Paul!

Norm - Lockheed is holding on to it for us still and haven't followed up yet about storage so I'll let you guys know soon. Thanks!

[JaneYoung]

Thank you for posting the thread, Steph. I am really looking forward to having an off-season in Texas and it's really cool that it is being sponsored by National Instruments during NI Week. Thank you to NI and thank you to all the folks who are planning (and will plan) to volunteer to help make this a fantastic and successful off-season event to participate in.

This might be a fun and helpful website to browse for more information about Austin, in general. (Please don't let this confuse you readers regarding the info/website that will be put up at a later date specifically developed for the Robo Showdown. It's just meant to give you a little view into our world here in Austin.)

Jane

[Ramiro_T]

Is there a registration deadline? Maybe team 842 might head there.

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by Ramiro_T

Is there a registration deadline? Maybe team 842 might head there.

That would be cool to have a HOF team there!

[StephBrierty]

We would be honored to have 842!!!

Registration will be up from May 18 - June 24th ( I just checked with our events guy) but again no limit to the number of teams that can come so no huge rush to sign up day 1!

[ginosoprano09]

Team #2585 will be there.

Are you going to need any volunteers?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by ginosoprano09

Are you going to need any volunteers?

I can definitely say yes to that. If Stephanie answers just consider my 'yes' a strong 2nd! We are still organizing that aspect of it but if you know you are interested in volunteering, let the committee know through Stephanie for now.

[Danny Diaz]

Team 418 is definitely going to be there. We can't wait to have an offseason in our own backyard!

-Danny

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

Team 418 is definitely going to be there. We can't wait to have an offseason in our own backyard!

-Danny

I vote for purple polos. That way I can find you guys. (I lost everyone in the stands on gray tee-shirt day. Not that I'm complaining....*cough*)

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

I vote for purple polos.

Yeah, I kept wondering who those gray guys were on alliance selection at LSR...

[JVN]

Unfortunately it sounds like 148 will be unable to attend. It isn't really feasible for our team to attend both this event and IRI due to their close scheduling. Even though this event is muuuuuuuuuch closer, our students put a lot of pressure on us to attend IRI, so that is where we'll be.

Hopefully a few of us will be able to stop down and see how it turns out!
-John

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by JVN

Unfortunately it sounds like 148 will be unable to attend. It isn't really feasible for our team to attend both this event and IRI due to their close scheduling. Even though this event is muuuuuuuuuch closer, our students put a lot of pressure on us to attend IRI, so that is where we'll be.

Hopefully a few of us will be able to stop down and see how it turns out!
-John

Yeah, I wondered about that after reading that you guys are attending IRI. I'm glad the team is attending IRI this year, though, and hope you all have a great time and help stir up some great competition!

It would be awesome if some of you could come stop by. The teams that participate in the Showdown would love that, I'm sure.

--
It's difficult to get a new off season off the ground in an area of the country that doesn't typically do off seasons. I'm sure in a few years, we'll all look back at this effort as a huge learning curve for the teams and for a corporate sponsor that is daring to jump on in and take this on, esp. in the middle of NI Week.

If anyone wants to volunteer and would like to know some of the positions we have available, please feel free to contact me via pm. We'd love to have you on board.

Jane