Wanna ask why...

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Is there THREE (3!!!) regionals scheduled in the same relative area (Midwest) at the same time??? Each regional had average of 30 or so teams. I just got back from Midwest Regional. 12 rookie teams... It was a nightmare for us on 648... our first 3 matches fell into place being allianced with good teams, i.e. 71 and 111 along with some others. But from there on we had hardly anyone to work with. Okay, back to my point... why would you schedule them on the same weekend when teams are few and far between unless you are in MI. I mean come on, take the fun away.Anyone else have a problem with this too?

[KenWittlief]

you do realize that at a regional with 30 teams, vs one with 60, you get to play twice as many seeding matches?

and you are twice as likely to win any and all awards, including the regional itself?

Something similar happened in our area. The FLR, Pittsburgh, and Buckeye regionals were all in the 2nd week of events. Ive been told they book the venues based on when they are available.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I do realize this... but I'd rather see the teams I'm used to seeing. Half the teams at MWR I had never seen before. I miss 45, 269, 234, ect ect. So many teams were missing that I forgot about them. I mean, at least they know their capabilities. Ego ran rampant at MWR. We had teams telling us that they could shoot better than anyone out on the feild. And of course, they were all rookie teams that did that. Their needs to be some kind of "Think Rationally" book handed out when becoming a team.

Just my $.02 you don't have to listen to it.

[Rombus]

Heck, i think untill you get out there on the field and play the game, you have a great ammount of confidence in your bot. It happens to every team. Then if you do loose or dont preform well, it becomse "Well, we would be amazing if it wasnet for X" X being any part that dosnet perform to your specifications.

Personally i would love to see same area regionals spread out more. Our team has decided that if Buckeye and Pittsburg are on the same weekend next year, we will probably go to pittsburg for a change of pace.

[Richard Wallace]

Week 1 -- 4 Regionals (BAE, NJ, VCU, Pacific Northwest)

Week 2 -- 8 Regionals (Arizona, Buckeye, Finger Lakes, Florida, Great Lakes, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New England)

Week 3 -- 6 Regionals (Boilermaker, Chesapeake, Detroit, Midwest, Peachtree, Silicon Valley)

Week 4 -- 8 Regionals (Boston, Sacramento, New York City, Long Island, So Cal, Waterloo, Wisconsin, plus Israel)

Week 5 -- 7 Regionals (Colorado, GTR, Las Vegas, Lone Star, Palmetto, Philadelphia, Western Michigan)

So if you wanted to move one of the three midwestern regionals (MWR, Detroit, Boilermaker) to another weekend, where would you put it?

Anyway, Ken is correct above; the weekends are mainly set by venue availability.

Im just really confused also on why they made boilermaker and midwest on the same weekend. Ive heard many reasons and i dont know if they are true and all that. I do miss the teams that used to be at the midwest like technokats and thunder chickens baxter bomb squad all those teams. Its kinda sad now lol There were so many matches too. its was good and all but like crazy cool. Midwest was awsome and sweet, but with the majority that werent there that were usually there int he past years, it wasnt the same idk. But its ok i guess. Everything worked out well.

-Court-

[Kevin Sevcik]

First has a heck of an interesting scheduling dilemma on their hands with regionals. They have to deal with venue availability, spreading out the regionals, and keeping the number of necessary fields as low as possible. To top it off, there's just a ton of teams and regionals in the midwest. I'm pretty sure they do the best they can with the limited resources and timeframe available to them.

[Koko Ed]

You think it's bad now? What happens when new regionals are made? They're not going to expand the season. They're just going to pile the regionals up in the five week window. It's going to reach double digits.
What's really going to happen is the regionals are truly going to become more regional.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I have heard that it's based on when the venues can be booked. For example, for the Boilermaker Regional, we can use the Armory here at Purdue because it's during our spring break. Midwest could probably only get their venue on the same weekend as well. I do wish that they were on seperate weekends, but I think Ed is right. Teams are going to have to really pick and choose to go to which regionals they want, and most will pick the ones closest to home. That's why BMR was loaded with Indiana teams and Midwest was full of Illinois and Michigan teams.

[Jessica Boucher]

Kevin is right in that there are a bunch of reasons that decide when a regional is slated.

Dean once stated that he would like to see a regional in every state. This is alinged with his desire to put FIRST in every high school; you are going to have to have state tournaments. This is the price we pay for growth, but I would not necessarily call it a bad thing. Moving regionals towards a more limited availability will shorten the amount of time a team has to take off from school, it will drive growth of off-season competitions.

I would like to one day see a sattelite link between the chunk of events in a weekend to increase interactivity between the events.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Budda648

Is there THREE (3!!!) regionals scheduled in the same relative area (Midwest) at the same time??? Each regional had average of 30 or so teams. I just got back from Midwest Regional. 12 rookie teams... It was a nightmare for us on 648... our first 3 matches fell into place being allianced with good teams, i.e. 71 and 111 along with some others. But from there on we had hardly anyone to work with. Okay, back to my point... why would you schedule them on the same weekend when teams are few and far between unless you are in MI. I mean come on, take the fun away.Anyone else have a problem with this too?

This is actually a great situation for a veteran team to be in, if you are thinking beyond the robot competition. The regional can be a proving ground for your robot, and it can also be a proving ground for your students. We have attended Pittsburgh the past two years, which is often the smallest of Regionals. While our robot has performed well both years, it has been the work of our students helping other teams that has been the greatest pride to our mentors. It validates the skills we teach them during MOE University as they help other teams get their robots to perform correctly. A larger regional populated with many long-standing resource-rich teams, such as Philadelphia or Chesapeake, just would not offer as many opportunities for our students.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Ladies and gentlemen, a venue is nothing without its managers. Those managers like event organizers that clean up the venue and keep it undamaged, and especially they enjoy it when there is media attention to be had. FIRST does those things - we, as participants, do them well.

Let's be optimistic rather than focusing on a weekend already past. We have to make FIRST Regionals events that everybody wants to host - we need to be a priority if we want good venue availibility. Maybe that's a distant dream, but it's still something important to shoot for.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

you do realize that at a regional with 30 teams, vs one with 60, you get to play twice as many seeding matches?

You also get less than half the time between matches to make repairs and adjustments and software tweaks and autonomous mode tests etc.

That's the single thing I wasn't completely happy about at the Boilermaker regional we just attended. We were plagued by a small but effective failure in a difficult-to-repair mechanism at the end of practice Thursday, and the students in the pit spent much of the non-playing time Friday morning fixing it in interrupted bursts of frenzied activity. With less than fifteen minutes between matches at times, the drive team almost never had a chance to do a complete "preflight" of the robot before they were practically dragged out of the pit by a queuing agent.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Bill Moore

While our robot has performed well both years, it has been the work of our students helping other teams that has been the greatest pride to our mentors. It validates the skills we teach them during MOE University as they help other teams get their robots to perform correctly. A larger regional populated with many long-standing resource-rich teams, such as Philadelphia or Chesapeake, just would not offer as many opportunities for our students.

I can't speak about Philadelphia, but I sure can about Chesapeake. There were 15 rookie teams (13 of them had never attended a FIRST event) and 24 robots that had not passed inspection by Thursday afternoon. It was the pot at the end of the rainbow for any team that wanted to "help other teams get their robots to perform correctly." And the teams there jumped in with both feet. There was a whole lot of helpin' going on. Teams like 237 should be feeling pretty proud today of all the help they gave at the Chesapeake. All those bots were up and going by mid-morning Friday. 64 fantastic teams at the jet-lag regional, from Alaska to England, representing each year from first to the veteran 11th year team. The karma in Halsey was rockin.

[Richard Wallace]

Adding numbers of participating teams to the summary in my earlier post:

Week 1 -- 4 Regionals (225 teams): BAE(52), NJ(63), VCU(64), Pacific Northwest(46)

Week 2 -- 8 Regionals (336 teams): Arizona(45), Buckeye(42), Finger Lakes(30), Florida(51), Great Lakes(63), Pittsburgh(25), St. Louis(40), New England(40)

Week 3 -- 6 Regionals (242 teams): Boilermaker(29), Chesapeake(64), Detroit(33), Midwest(31), Peachtree(45), Silicon Valley(40)

Week 4 -- 8 Regionals (296 teams): Boston(44), Sacramento(40), New York City(33), Long Island(39), So Cal(50), Waterloo(30), Wisconsin(34), plus Israel(26)

Week 5 -- 7 Regionals (361 teams): Colorado(48), GTR(74), Las Vegas(43), Lone Star(54), Palmetto(48), Philadelphia(46), Western Michigan(48)

So Week 1 average was 56 teams per event, Week 2 average was 42 teams, Week 3 average was 40 teams, Week 4 average will be 37 teams, and Week 5 average will be 52 teams. Average for all regionals is 44 teams.

What is a "good" number of participating teams at a regional event?