Back to back regionals

[sportzkrazzy]

Billfred is correct. Three events in total. I also forgot to mention another question I had. How did the robot you built hold up to all of that if you made it in to the championships?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by sportzkrazzy

Billfred is correct. Three events in total. I also forgot to mention another question I had. How did the robot you built hold up to all of that if you made it in to the championships?

Many Michigan teams do this - with two districts plus the state championship, they may be playing 60 or more matches before they get to CMP. It can be done. Plan for robustness, and for repairs when robustness fails.

[jtus]

Team 103 did 3 regionals one year. New Jersey week 1, Orlando week 2, & Philadelphia week 5. We were forced to use FEDEX overnight to get the robot to Orlando on time. I don't remember the cost for shipping but it was very expensive but it did show up o time.

[Flalex72]

1305 has done Waterloo and Toronto regionals back to back for as long as they have been in existence. We traveled about 200- 250 miles to each event. Shipping was never an issue because they were both handled out of the same warehouse. Now with bag and tag, we have to send a truck with the robot, and find someone near the regional who can ship it for us immediately after Saturday finishes if we qualify because FedEx doesn't ship LTL to our city. But the biggest issue for back to back regionals is missing school, it can be hard for students to miss 2-3 days of schoool 2 weeks in a row without marks falling a bit as a result.

[cpeister]

Like 1305, 781 has been attending back to back regionals at Waterloo and GTR as long as they have existed (2002 and 2003 I believe). Having two back to back has never been much of a problem for me to catch up from. This year we did WAT, GTR, and then Buckeye as a third consecutive week. This was too much, and the calculus test I wrote after showed my attendance record.

If you want to attend 3, I wouldn't let having 2 of them back to back stop you. Just never ever do 3 in a row, and then the championship after just a one week break.

[JohnBoucher]

237 has done it once. We will try to never do it again. The students did OK, but it's a big toll on the mentors. All our mentors are employed outside the school system. The three day break in between events is tough on a full time job.

[Cory]

254 rules of thumb:

week 1 regionals are the worst and are like paying $4,000 to beta test the game and field for FIRST.

back to back regionals are slightly less bad, but still awful. It's a ton of stress on the mentors; the kids and mentors have to miss school/work two weeks in a row. There's zero time to implement any modifications/upgrades/etc to the robot. If you're going to a non-local regional you all but have to pay a boatload extra for Shepard to get your robot there on time, as it traditionally has to arrive at the venue by Tuesday.

[Nick Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Cory

254 rules of thumb:

week 1 regionals are the worst and are like paying $4,000 to beta test the game and field for FIRST.

back to back regionals are slightly less bad, but still awful. It's a ton of stress on the mentors; the kids and mentors have to miss school/work two weeks in a row. There's zero time to implement any modifications/upgrades/etc to the robot. If you're going to a non-local regional you all but have to pay a boatload extra for Shepard to get your robot there on time, as it traditionally has to arrive at the venue by Tuesday.

1503 echos this idealism.

-Nick