FCAT dilemma -- your opinion?

[VEI Dude]

Hi all,

I mentor team 1889 (formerly the Haze, but new name chosen and will be announced when we have a logo in South Florida. Our regional would be the Orlando one, but the FCAT blackout period is always an issue, and this year the school officials were apparently not happy that many students went anyway, and a memo was just sent out stating that there will be absolutely no travel outside of the county during the FCAT period anymore. So what are the options?

(1) Ignore the school's mandate? Nope.

(2) Go to a different regional? It'd be a much longer drive and I expect we'll only get a small showing from our team. Yes, I know that teams come from other countries, but I'm being realistic based on what parents have stated already, etc.

(3) Form the club outside of the school? Major issues there, such as finding a space to work, being able to fundraise at school (which is a good revenue source for us). Costs would go up, and money is already an issue for us.

(4) Go to another competition grade (FTC or another competition altogether)? I'd love to hear about other competitions you know of that may be interesting and challenging.

(5) < insert other idea here >

Would love to hear thoughts on this, other than ignoring the school and going anyway. We'd really like to keep the robotics program going at this school, and the competitions are a great goal. We're going to start our own small-scale in-house competitions, but would definitely want to participate in something bigger, so if you know of other robotics competitions, do spill the beans. Other ideas welcome too.

Cheers,
-Neil.