How Many teams Attend 2 Regionals?

[1708xMr.Roboto]

We are trying to figure out weather we want to go, to two regionals this year.. This would be our first year attending two competitions, and we are trying to figure out what we are going to do.. I was just wondering how many teams went to multiple competitions, and if so what week's are they?


Thanks,

-Eddie

[BrendanB]

Our team is attending two regionals for the first time this year: BAE Granite State and North Carolina. We hope to have a fun season this year!

[ttldomination]

The thing about going to one, is that your season comes down to that one event. And if you have a good robot, and you end up falling short at that one event, you end up wondering what could've been...

Doing a second event has added much more fun to our season plus increased the longevity of our competition season.

[John G]

Just like the person above me said, my team had a good robot last year. We lost in the semi's in Long Beach. Everyone was disapointed. Then we won our second regional and eventually went to the finals on Curie. Going to two regionals really does help.

[BrianT103]

Our team always attends at least two regionals. Then we decide whether to attend a third regional or championships. If you have the money to do an extra regional, I recommend doing it. You're going to be spending the same amount of time working hard as a team to build a robot, so you may as well reward your team by having a good time and going to an additional event. However, I am also a strong proponent of attending nationals at least once per 4 year cycle of a team. If you have juniors on your team that have not attended championships yet, I would recommend saving some money this year by only going to one event so that way your team will have plenty of funds to attend championships next year in 2011, especially since it will be in St. Louis and will be only a 10 hour drive from your location.

[rdlevy1215]

1676 Always attends two regionals, and we've been doing that since our second year. We always attend our home regional (NJ) and at least one other event. (We have attended 2-3 Official Events every year we've been in existence) -- 2005 NJ Regional, The Championship Event; 2006 NJ Regional, Palmetto Regional; 2007 NJ Regional, Buckeye Regional, FIRST Championship; 2008 NJ Regional, Greater Toronto Regional, FIRST Championship; 2009 NJ Regional, Palmetto Regional, FIRST Championship.

In 2010 the team will be attending the NJ Regional and Virginia Regional (and hopefully the FIRST Championship if they qualify)

Going to two or more events (especially long bus rides) ends up becoming a huge team building exercise and let's your team function more like a team.

Highly recommended to do more than one event!

[Mark McLeod]

~27% of non-Michigan teams will attend 2 or more Regionals in 2010.

76% of Michigan teams attend two district events.
5 Michigan teams do both.
Up to 64 of them will also appear at the Michigan State Championship as a second or third event for their team.

Then there's the Championship too.

It'll be interesting to see how skewed your poll ends up from the actual numbers.

We've done two Regionals every year since 2002.
This'll be the first year we haven't done the Championship as well.

P.S.
Ed Law published a preliminary white paper showing where every team is going. You can sort by number of events to see if any teams you know are doing two Regionals.

[IKE]

If possible try to do two events. make sure you have at least 1 down week between the two. Ideally I would pick doing an event the 1st weekend, and then the week 4 or later.

Week 1 is neat because the game is really just being played for the first time, and there is something magical about it.

The later regionals involve a lot of strategy and refinement from watching and scouting a lot of other events. Doing a big gap between the two can give you some time to analyze what went right during the first event and what you would like to improve on or change during the second event. This is a curcial step in prototype development that often gets missed or overlooked.

P.S. if you can't afford two "in-season" events, I would highly recommend doing some off-season events. Similar benefits at a usually cheaper price.

[johnr]

"76% of Michigan teams attend two district events."
I hope that percentage is wrong. Don't michigan teams get two districts automatically with registration? If nearly a fourth aren't going to their second district that would be just sad.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by johnr

"76% of Michigan teams attend two district events."
I hope that percentage is wrong. Don't michigan teams get two districts automatically with registration? If nearly a fourth aren't going to their second district that would be just sad.

I would assume (I don't have numbers to back this up) that for some teams it is not cost effective to do 2 districts. Consider teams in the UP or on the west side of the state. They don't have many events near them and may only be able to swing enough money to go to one because lodging or travel would cost too much.

[Tom Line]

In addition, last I had heard via an FIM email, they are still putting teams into Michigan districts and shifting them around to make space for everyone.

[IndySam]

We done two regionals for the last 4 years but because of the regional schedules this year we were unable too. Our school would never allow us to do back to back regionals and the other choices were just two far.

Instead this year we are going to do Boilermaker and The Championship (assuming we raise the funds.)

I'm gonna miss not competing in a first week regional but I will be going to Michigan to help out. I just can't not see the game played week one.

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by johnr

"76% of Michigan teams attend two district events."
I hope that percentage is wrong. Don't michigan teams get two districts automatically with registration? If nearly a fourth aren't going to their second district that would be just sad.

There is definitely more than 76% of Michigan teams doing two district events. I published that data after the December 5th payment due date. FIM is still holding some spots open because there are some districts that more teams want to go to than there are spots available. They are trying to decide which teams should go where. There should be 40 teams at each district event, but the 7 districts were only showing 37, 33, 35, 34, 32, 34 and 38. From what I heard Michigan has close to 140 teams this year. With 7 districts of 40 teams capacity each, we will be able to fill most of the districts with 40 teams. Last year, only 1 of the 132 teams in Michigan attended just one event.

[pschre]

Team 806 did two regionals for the first time last year, NYC and Long Island. They're geographically close, so I didn't consider it to be a long, team-building bus ride, though that sounds nice. When we went to Atlanta in 2004, the entire trip and stay was definitely a fun bonding experience, we need to do that again sometime.

I echo the sentiments of a bunch of people by saying that I considered the major advantage of 2 regionals to be extra real-game experience, the equivalent of which cannot really be found in any practice. (Maybe a full field scrimmage with a team who has the means to build a full field and invite teams who have a practicable bot by the end of build season, but we don't know any such team locally.) The only downside was that our teammates were almost, borderline, showing signs of getting sick of each other by the 2nd regional. It's just A LOT of time to be spending with the same people, meeting 46 consecutive days during build season as we did, plus regionals.

It's also never a bad thing to see and scout a different field of robots and teams than you're used to seeing, and making new relationships. I know the field crew at the NYC Mega-Celebration has a hell of a job and they do it very well, but we got several more qualifying matches in at Long Island and now we feel a little spoiled and want that at our home regional, somehow.

Unfortunately, our budget started off this year 1/3 less than what it was last year, which put a 2nd regional just out of our reach without some significant sponsorship...and getting sponsorship has always been an area of weakness for my team. So it's not over till payment deadline comes around, but I'm not positive we'll make 2 this year.

We've wanted to go to Las Vegas for a while, ever since I got a mini light-up Las Vegas sign and, for lack of anything else to do with it, made it a main fixture in our workshop. Kind of inspired everyone. But in addition to the lack of funds, the Las Vegas regional this year seems to be Easter weekend, and it's against team policy to compete that weekend. Catholic school and all. I'm interested to check out those aforementioned white papers to see how many team travel long distances between regionals, maybe bypassing several other geographically closer ones.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by pschre

We've wanted to go to Las Vegas for a while, ever since I got a mini light-up Las Vegas sign and, for lack of anything else to do with it, made it a main fixture in our workshop.

Weren't you driving that Las Vegas sign around on your robot at the Francis Lewis autonomous meet?

We also find that an "away" event is much more beneficial to the team than two events within daily driving distance. Last year, we too, did both LI and NYC and going into the city each day on the train wasn't as valuable as bonding each evening at a hotel. Too many events close together can be wearying on every one. I like a couple of events in March, one in April, and a couple off-seasons in the Fall.

As to the Michigan double districts, 76% is just where teams stand currently on the public team lists - 243 slots assigned, 138 Michigan teams.
I'm sure they'll improve, and travel to distant district events may be impacted by the continuing economic downturn, but at least a third of the one district teams are close to several venues. Mostly, it seems to be a scheduling problem.
As Ed mentioned, last year only a couple of teams (835 & 2153) did not end up attending their given two district events.

• 2153 in Chassell, MI is an 8 hour drive from their nearest district event in Traverse City, and 10 hours from the next closest in Flint (as Andrew mentioned, Michigan is a big state to get across).
• 835 chose to attend the Kansas City Regional in lieu of their second district event (see new people, make new friends).

15 teams were able to sign up for a third district event last year.