How Many teams Attend 2 Regionals?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Rc Soarer

I think the poll will favor two events because teams who go to two regionals are more involved and the more involved teams are the ones with people on Chief Delphi.

418 just traveled to 2 regionals for the first time in 2009. We have typically traveled to Lone Star Regional in Houston and if it was our year or we qualified, we traveled to the Championship. Last year, we traveled to 2 regionals because of the Dallas Regional and the time frame. Our lead teacher, Mr. Bertucci, thinks very carefully about students missing school and their academic load. We have talked about attending more than one regional for several seasons, but this past season was our first time to experience it. So much was learned.

To travel to 2 (or more), a lot of planning has to go into it and a lot of time and effort given to fundraising, obtaining money, resources, and team support, in order for the team to compete well. It's hard but it can be done. We are signed up for Dallas and Lone Star again this year and the team has worked hard all year long to make it possible.

Jane

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by johnr

"76% of Michigan teams attend two district events."
I hope that percentage is wrong. Don't michigan teams get two districts automatically with registration? If nearly a fourth aren't going to their second district that would be just sad.

I would assume (I don't have numbers to back this up) that for some teams it is not cost effective to do 2 districts. Consider teams in the UP or on the west side of the state. They don't have many events near them and may only be able to swing enough money to go to one because lodging or travel would cost too much.

[Tom Line]

In addition, last I had heard via an FIM email, they are still putting teams into Michigan districts and shifting them around to make space for everyone.

[IndySam]

We done two regionals for the last 4 years but because of the regional schedules this year we were unable too. Our school would never allow us to do back to back regionals and the other choices were just two far.

Instead this year we are going to do Boilermaker and The Championship (assuming we raise the funds.)

I'm gonna miss not competing in a first week regional but I will be going to Michigan to help out. I just can't not see the game played week one.

[robohiker]

My team is looking into a second competition as well. Does anyone know if this is still possilbe to enter a second regional. Thanks

[qwertyuiop[]\]

Our team only goes to one competition for the following reasons:
1. Money - Going to a second regional is alot of money, not just in the fees for registration but also for food, hotels, and travel. for a 50 member team traveling by bus to a competition is about $20,000. if you have to fly the number jumps again. you either need to get a sponsor to pay for this ( which i think is a waste of sponsor ship considering how some rookie teams as well as veteran teams have trouble getting sponsors), fundraise, or shift the burden on the members.

2. Students missing school - I dont know how intense your school is but in northern virginia a student taking 3-4 AP classes (the vast majority of my teams juniors and seniors) cant afford to miss that much school without seeing a reflection in their grades. Even those taking regular classes would feel a burden. Just going to one regional is an academic burden for my fellow teammates and i.

[waialua359]

I'm pretty shocked that the majority only do 1. My guess would have been at most 1/2 the teams only do 1.
I remember seeing a few teams doing as much as 4 regionals (non-Michigan teams).
We usually do 2 mainland regionals before coming back to the Hawaii one.

[AcesJames]

Our team usually does a home regional here in CT, and an away regional somewhere relatively close to us. This coming year we're going to Washington DC as our away regional, same as last year. In 08 we went to Toronto. It varies by year, mostly depending on where the students choose to go, but obviously money is a very large part of the equation. For instance, it wouldn't really be possible for us to fly across the country for an away regional, so we usually try to limit our choices to something accessible by train or bus.

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by johnr

"76% of Michigan teams attend two district events."
I hope that percentage is wrong. Don't michigan teams get two districts automatically with registration? If nearly a fourth aren't going to their second district that would be just sad.

There is definitely more than 76% of Michigan teams doing two district events. I published that data after the December 5th payment due date. FIM is still holding some spots open because there are some districts that more teams want to go to than there are spots available. They are trying to decide which teams should go where. There should be 40 teams at each district event, but the 7 districts were only showing 37, 33, 35, 34, 32, 34 and 38. From what I heard Michigan has close to 140 teams this year. With 7 districts of 40 teams capacity each, we will be able to fill most of the districts with 40 teams. Last year, only 1 of the 132 teams in Michigan attended just one event.

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

The thing about going to one, is that your season comes down to that one event. And if you have a good robot, and you end up falling short at that one event, you end up wondering what could've been...

Doing a second event has added much more fun to our season plus increased the longevity of our competition season.

I can't agree more. Having spent that kind of money and time into getting ready for the contest, then having it end in just 2 days, somehow leaves a feeling of wanting more.

1429 has been attending at least 2 regionals for the past 3 years, with the last 2 that included the Championship.

We are going to 2 again this year, Dallas and Lone Star, with hopes of going back to the Championship. We also have 3 VEX contests we will be attending as well. Our calendar is pretty full.

[pschre]

Team 806 did two regionals for the first time last year, NYC and Long Island. They're geographically close, so I didn't consider it to be a long, team-building bus ride, though that sounds nice. When we went to Atlanta in 2004, the entire trip and stay was definitely a fun bonding experience, we need to do that again sometime.

I echo the sentiments of a bunch of people by saying that I considered the major advantage of 2 regionals to be extra real-game experience, the equivalent of which cannot really be found in any practice. (Maybe a full field scrimmage with a team who has the means to build a full field and invite teams who have a practicable bot by the end of build season, but we don't know any such team locally.) The only downside was that our teammates were almost, borderline, showing signs of getting sick of each other by the 2nd regional. It's just A LOT of time to be spending with the same people, meeting 46 consecutive days during build season as we did, plus regionals.

It's also never a bad thing to see and scout a different field of robots and teams than you're used to seeing, and making new relationships. I know the field crew at the NYC Mega-Celebration has a hell of a job and they do it very well, but we got several more qualifying matches in at Long Island and now we feel a little spoiled and want that at our home regional, somehow.

Unfortunately, our budget started off this year 1/3 less than what it was last year, which put a 2nd regional just out of our reach without some significant sponsorship...and getting sponsorship has always been an area of weakness for my team. So it's not over till payment deadline comes around, but I'm not positive we'll make 2 this year.

We've wanted to go to Las Vegas for a while, ever since I got a mini light-up Las Vegas sign and, for lack of anything else to do with it, made it a main fixture in our workshop. Kind of inspired everyone. But in addition to the lack of funds, the Las Vegas regional this year seems to be Easter weekend, and it's against team policy to compete that weekend. Catholic school and all. I'm interested to check out those aforementioned white papers to see how many team travel long distances between regionals, maybe bypassing several other geographically closer ones.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by pschre

We've wanted to go to Las Vegas for a while, ever since I got a mini light-up Las Vegas sign and, for lack of anything else to do with it, made it a main fixture in our workshop.

Weren't you driving that Las Vegas sign around on your robot at the Francis Lewis autonomous meet?

We also find that an "away" event is much more beneficial to the team than two events within daily driving distance. Last year, we too, did both LI and NYC and going into the city each day on the train wasn't as valuable as bonding each evening at a hotel. Too many events close together can be wearying on every one. I like a couple of events in March, one in April, and a couple off-seasons in the Fall.

As to the Michigan double districts, 76% is just where teams stand currently on the public team lists - 243 slots assigned, 138 Michigan teams.
I'm sure they'll improve, and travel to distant district events may be impacted by the continuing economic downturn, but at least a third of the one district teams are close to several venues. Mostly, it seems to be a scheduling problem.
As Ed mentioned, last year only a couple of teams (835 & 2153) did not end up attending their given two district events.

• 2153 in Chassell, MI is an 8 hour drive from their nearest district event in Traverse City, and 10 hours from the next closest in Flint (as Andrew mentioned, Michigan is a big state to get across).
• 835 chose to attend the Kansas City Regional in lieu of their second district event (see new people, make new friends).

15 teams were able to sign up for a third district event last year.

[Big Kid]

816 attends NJ and Philly Regionals normally. with Philly being so much more enjoyable being our second one.

[Josh Drake]

MiM has mainly stuck to 2 and the championship. One year we tried 3 plus championship.
Next year will be interesting since the championship will be in St. Louis. It's been a while since MiM was there

[JVN]

Something piqued my interest, so I did a quick analysis with the data from the Blue Alliance.

In 2009 10 / 12 division winners attended more than 1 regional.
In 2008 10 / 12 division winners attended more than 1 regional.
In 2007 11 / 12 division winners attended more than 1 regional.
In 2006 7 / 12 division winners attended more than 1 regional.

That means in the past four years only 10 teams attended only one regional and made it to Einstein (of the 48 teams that made it to Einstein.)

Only 2 teams (296, 971) in the last four years have attended only one regional and gone on to win a Championship (of the 12 that have won in the past four years.)

I won't editorialize.

-John