One-Regional versus Multi-Regional teams

[Ian W.]

I've said it once, I'll say it again, FIRST is NOT about the robots.

It really hit me over the past few days, when hanging out with friends from acrosss the country, people I'd never even known existed if not for FIRST. I know tons of people interested in the same thing I am, I can sit down and talk to them and it feels like we've been friends forever. I agree with Dave Lavery that one of us will probably be the first humans on Mars, or at least designing the spacecraft that take the first humans to Mars. FIRST has changed my life, no doubt, and my robots never worked until after the end of the season.

FIRST is about inspiring, not about winning. Don't get caught up in the idea that FIRST is only about the robots and who can build the best one. If you've been inspired, and it's changed your life, even a tiny bit, then FIRST has done it's job.

[Solace]

i sincerely doubt that FIRST would ever be able to implement something like that. FIRST is usually strapped for cash as it is, and attempting to insure all teams access to something like this would simply be unreasonable

[KenWittlief]

personally I feel that a team gets the most out of the program at their first regional - thats where your 6 weeks of design and build gets put to the test, thats where many of your team mates get to meet other teams, and be at an event for the 1st time

at your second regional or the championship you get to refine your bot and strategy, and many teams do much better at their 2nd event performance wise

but its not the same as the first event of the year - nothing competes with that

travelling to events out of town is really a relic of the old days, when there were only a few teams and regionals, spread out across the country, and most teams HAD to travel to get to a competition

now that we have regionals at 26 citys and growing, most teams have a better chance of attending an event in their home town

is that enough? absolutely - I would not think any less of a team that only attends one local regional

if you have the money and support to travel to a second regional, or the championship, should you go? absolutely

should you goto 3 or more events? I think after the second one your 'returns' diminish rapidly - if our team had that much money I think we would start to look at spawing a second team at another school.

thinking like an engineer Im temped to start drawing graphs or inflicting some data driven analysis on this topic, but to keep it simple, what is the real goal here?

would it be better to have one team that attend a regional every week, and the championship

or

to have several teams that attend one regional each, and maybe one of those teams goes onto the championship?

from a goal oriented perspective, I would rather see every HS in my state have a FIRST team, attending our new local regional in Rochester, NY than to see a handfull of teams in our state attending several events.