More than One Regional?

[lilBcos]

CougarTech choose to attend more than one regional this year and it paid off. during the FLR our robot preformed poorly but during the buckeye we had time to fix everything and had a great robot. so the extra regional gave us a chance to have a good season

[Daniel_LaFleur]

We go to one regional every year, BAE GSR. We only go to one because we can only afford to go to one.

We will only go to the championships if we win the regional, like we did last year.

[deshirider430]

For the amount of work our team puts in, we can't just let it end after three days of competition. We've been going to two regionals for threes year now and have been hooked. After your first regional you learn a lot about the game and how your robot will perform and what changes you need to make.

On the note of team members we take the whole team to our home regional, NASA/VCU, and we take any team members willing to go to the second. Usually the whole team is unable to go to the second due to school and other things.

If you continue going to a second regional try to pick a new regional to attend every year. We have gone to Chesapeake, Philadelphia, Buckeye and will be deciding on a new one next year. Unless we use the money for both regionals for hawaii

[Carlee10]

1529 only goes to one regional, but would gladly go to more or go to championships if we had the financial capbilities. It does seem like a let down, after going to one amazing regional for three days(Boilermaker)then not doing anything more. If I were you, I would go to more than one. I would try two regionals, then a regional and championship, to see what you like. I think playing with other teams before ship seems like a good practice, even though its not really a regional.

[David Brinza]

Team 980 has attended as many as three regionals, the Championship and two off-season events in a year. That's a lot of competing and rather expensive!

Our preference is to attend two regionals, at least two weeks apart. We generally perform better at the second regional because the initial regional reveals the kinks in our design. Also, we benefit from seeing how other teams have tackled similar problems we've encountered. We like to "flatter" those more clever teams by borrowing from their effective designs. We make good use of "fix-it" windows.

Our "home regional" is the Los Angeles regional, so we get better attendance there from parents and classmates but our relatively small team is basically intact for all of the competitions. The additional cost ($4K) for the second regional is well worth the experience of competing with a robot that performs as intended. It's more than twice as much fun competing in two regionals rather than one!

BTW, by winning in the LA Regional, we've qualified for the Championship as well.

[KTorak]

We always have enough money for two events. However, due to students money situations, we opted for two regionals (closer than ATL) last year. So we did our normal GLR then hit up BMR. Last year, after being a two time regional finalist, we regret not going to ATL. Usually we do GLR and ATL.

[Scott Carpman]

1155 is in its second year of two regionals. NYC has been, and always will be, our home regional. Due to financial limitations (we don't charge a team fee) we only consider second regionals that are close to home . Last year we did NJ, this year we did CT, next year we're probably doing NJ, CT, or LI. We also bus down to Champs only if we qualify, as we did in 06 and 07.

If you have the means to go to two, do it.

[Chrisms]

Originally Posted by George A.

For most years 11 goes to two regionals, one of them being the NJ regional (our home town regional) and then the Championship depending on the year.

The second regional usually varies from year to year (04-06 they went to Palmetto, 07 was NYC and 08 was Chesapeake) and my advice is that if your team can afford it, go for it.

The second regional, especially events farther away from your area gives the students an opportunity to see teams, and interact with people that they normally wouldn't. For instance, if an east coast team went out to play in the MWR or Boilermaker it would be far different, than if they stayed local the whole time.

As far as qualifying and cost? With NJ anyone on the team is allowed to go, buses take us to and from the event Thurs/Fri, and the students are responsible for getting their own rides on Saturday, since it's free most students go. For the events that require travel, it usually boils down to whoever contributes the most gets first shot. We're not punishing the students that don't contribute as much, we're just rewarding the students that contribute more.

With cost always being an issue, the students are encouraged to go out and fundraise for the team, and for every dollar they fund raise, a dollar is deducted from their trip. So in the end a student could wind up traveling for next to nothing.


Myself, I go to 3/4 events and the Championships, but usually as a volunteer so it's a bit different.

But that's just my advice, let us know what you decide.

to add to that. My advice as a senior, is to go to a travel regional. Yeah, we kids are a lot to handle.. and we will have fun.. and might get a little loud. but in all honesty, it brings the team close in my opinion. last year we didn't go to a travel regional, and something seemed missing.

my two cents

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by deshirider430

For the amount of work our team puts in, we can't just let it end after three days of competition. We've been going to two regionals for threes year now and have been hooked. After your first regional you learn a lot about the game and how your robot will perform and what changes you need to make.

On the note of team members we take the whole team to our home regional, NASA/VCU, and we take any team members willing to go to the second. Usually the whole team is unable to go to the second due to school and other things.

If you continue going to a second regional try to pick a new regional to attend every year. We have gone to Chesapeake, Philadelphia, Buckeye and will be deciding on a new one next year. Unless we use the money for both regionals for hawaii

save your funds to do the Hawaii one, stay longer and enjoy the beaches/sites. It'll be well worth it.
Our team is actually going to the beach tomorrow morning to relax before a stressful and exciting Hawaii event.

[adman]

Thought you guys might like to kinow why 1024 did 3 regionals this year.
Well it was money. Atlanta often had openings and we got lucky and got
to go. It was a lot of money.

We decided this year that the team would do Chicago to get ready for
our backyard brawl in Indiana at Purdue. We scheduled Cleveland as our
finisher since we really like the Buckeye for fun and excitement.

Who knew we would win in Chicago. We spent all of our money on the
three regionals. We asked if we could swap Cleveland for Nationals
only because of a lack of Funds. ( We really like the Buckeye!)

Well long story short we went to Cleveland and had a great time and
enjoyed seeing everyone and having terrific competition.

We decided to take a small group of our students to Atlanta since we
are scraping for funds.

Two regionals are really the minimum we would do. We like a road trip
to enjoy the bus and other teams in other cities.

By the way since First reserves space for 3 regional winners to go to
Atlanta at each regional and we got fortunate to win all three with our super alliance partners we just freed up two spots for some of you guys who can still get on the list .

Chicago, Purdue, Ohio thanks for the great 2008 memories!

Mentor Team 1024
get on the list.

[StevenB]

1519 has only gone to one regional each year. (We did attend the Championship in '06, after winning the GSR.) However, we attend four or five off-season competitions around New England. Personally, this is a direction I would like to see more FIRST teams move in. An off-season competition usually costs around $200, and provides nearly as much fun and excitement as an official regional.

I don't mean this as an indictment against anyone, but I think rather than spend 5-10K on attending another regional, you could fund another team for one regional and go to several off-season competitions. While going to a second regional is definitely a valuable and worthwhile expereince, I think other options can give you even more inspiration and excitement for your buck.
Just my two cents.

[Nawaid Ladak]

i love this hawaiian push going on by 359...

1402 used to go to two regionals and or the championship

2004: Florida and Palmetto
2005: Florida, Philadelphia, and Atlanta
2006: Florida and Atlanta

My team in 2007 went to Florida and Atlanta (1694)

This year, 945 went to Florida and is now on it's way to New Orleans for the Bayou Regional

I think 2 regionals is well worth it, but really consider going to a different regional every year. in 2006. 1402 was considering the Greater Toronto Regional, but because of border issues, we opted not to attend

This will give the drivers more practice time, the mechanical crew more time to toy with the machine and give your scouting team more first hand experience in preparation for Atlanta. not to mention a better shot of winning a regional, or awards.

[vince2171]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

After reading posts about teams like 1114 and 1024 which won 2 and 3 regionals, respectively, I'm wondering how many regionals most teams attend each year. How many does your team attend?

We're a sixth-year team, and for all six years, we've only attended one regional (the once UTC New England, now Connecticut Regional). We started going to the Championship Event our fourth year (2006). After winning this regional for the third consecutive year, we're starting to think about broadening our horizons.

With this, I have some questions:

• Why does your team choose to/not to attend multiple regionals?

For teams that attend more than one regional,

• What is that experience like?
• Is it worth the extra expense in time and money?
• Do you send the entire team to both/all regionals? If not, how do you determine who goes where?
• How far apart (weeks) do you like to space your regionals?
• Do you do multiple regionals and the Championship Event?

Thanks for the input!


(I apologize if a post like this already exists- I searched, but I didn't find any similar posts. Also, none of the more specific forums fit as a place to post this from what I can see- the mods are welcome to move it if they see fit.)

TEAM 2171, CROWN POINT INDIANA - 2nd year team
1) Last year we made the comment that going to one regional was like a football team putting the time and effort to play one game. IRI was a great second competion, which we plan on attending again this year. It was well worth the expense. Our first regional was the Boilermaker Regional. We did well, qualifying 27th, getting picked for an alliance, and advancing to the semi-finals before getting beat by a great alliance. We did not get our autonomous working correctly until the last practice match. We practiced in our cafeteria before shipping. Practicing in an arena, on carpet, with a real overhead rather than our PVC rack, made a big difference. We spent a good part of the regional tweaking our software control. Our second regional was the West Michigan Regional. We pulled our robot out of the box, plugged in the controls, and everything was debugged. We had expierence from the week before, which ended up being priceless for the drivers and myself, the mentor. We ended up finishing 8-0 in qualifying. I admit you have to get lucky to do that, but the confidence I saw in our drivers between the Boilermaker and Western Regional made a huge difference. Some students had conflicts and could not go to both regionals. The bus only allowed for 13 students and some got the opportunity to go to only 1 regional. We are now planning on going to Nationals with the win at the Western Michigan Regional. We won the regional by being teamed up with Team Hammond that has mentored us and helped us tremendously. It was a great experience being allied with them and 2604, a great rookie team we shared a hotel with. We both learned a tremendous amount by playing with and following the lead of TEAM HAMMOND 71 with THE BEAST.

[waialua359]

I'm going to make sure we post pics of the team social to entice teams to come to Hawaii in '09 and beyond!
Here are some perks already.
1. Every team will have FREE lunches sponsored by the Hawaii regional!!!
2. The team social is supposed to be this big luau (feast) FREE!
3. During your spare time, enjoy the 70-80 degree weather on the clean white sand beaches with snorkling, surf, and fun.

What better excuse than saying for school, you HAVE to go to Hawaii to participate in the culminating Robotics activity event.
Any questions?
Sign up for Hawaii and experience it yourself!!!!!

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by waialua359

I'm going to make sure we post pics of the team social to entice teams to come to Hawaii in '09 and beyond!
Here are some perks already.
1. Every team will have FREE lunches sponsored by the Hawaii regional!!!
2. The team social is supposed to be this big luau (feast) FREE!
3. During your spare time, enjoy the 70-80 degree weather on the clean white sand beaches with snorkling, surf, and fun.

What better excuse than saying for school, you HAVE to go to Hawaii to participate in the culminating Robotics activity event.
Any questions?
Sign up for Hawaii and experience it yourself!!!!!

We almost signed up for Hawaii as our first-ever second regional. I think we're enticed enough to go next year. Too bad I'll be off at college somewhere. I'll have to come volunteer.