CDI or OCCRA?.....CDI or OCCRA?.....CDI or OCCRA?

[archiver]

Posted by Mike McIntyre.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #1, Juggernaut, from Oakland Technical Center Northeast and 3 Dimensional Services.

Posted on 10/14/2000 8:45 AM MST


In Reply to: CDI or OCCRA?.....CDI or OCCRA?.....CDI or OCCRA? posted by S. Krussell on 10/13/2000 8:35 AM MST:



OCCRA is a shared dream of many people: to raise an academic competition to the same level of support and celebrity currently reserved for athletic competitions. Mike and Joe of the Chief Delphi team shared that dream and have been involved with us in OCCRA from the earliest planning stages. When OCCRA was first launched, they thought they might stop doing the Chief Delphi Invitational (CDI) but later decided to go ahead with it since most of the teams were from outside Oakland County anyway and they had sunk so much time and energy into getting it to be the class event that it is; they knew that many Oakland County Schools would opt out for OCCRA but they were not concerned as they expected to have a full tournament anyhow. Chief Delphi is participating in OCCRA. We at the Juggernauts are going to do both since we have 25 students on the team and it gives everybody a chance to play a bigger role in a robot build; in effect, we split our team. The OCCRA season began with kickoff on Sept. 11th and will have tournaments that run weekly from Oct. 21st to Nov. 11th; the CDI kit will be released this week, one month after the OCCRA start, and the CDI is to be held on Nov. 18th (their original plan to have it in Dec. fell through due to schedule conflicts). The OCCRA experience has been designed to get competitions into local high schools and we'll have 4 this year, probably a lot more next year. We have 22 member schools that have formed 17 teams. OCCRA will probably continue to grow as many teams that missed it this year have called to say they want to participate next year. The CDI will probably continue to flourish, also.
The $2,400 entry fee may sound like a lot at first, but it pales compared to most sports budgets, or even the budget of putting on an event like the 'Sweet Repeat'. You should also consider the fact that YOU GET TO KEEP THE ENTIRE KIT when the season ends, Innovatiion FIRST controls and all; next year, returning teams will probably have to pay only a couple hundred dollars! Finally, as I told you earlier this year, Sue, Oakland Schools (the parent organization), would want a team to sit out for financial reasons: they would have covered you until 'whenever' to make sure member school was denied this opportunity for their kids. It's too late to get involved this year, but if you want to order a kit to start preparing for next year, give me a call.