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

[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