District/Regional Format

[Foster]

I'm a big fan of getting more for my money, but I'm a bigger fan of getting more robot competition time for the robot team.

We do 2 regionals (one away like FLR, CT, Pittsburgh, Chesapeake, etc. Some place thats a few hour drive for us) and one "home" event, Philadelphia (45 min drive so the families can all come and watch). Cost $10K+overnight stays

We also do 5 'off-season' events. Three in the spring (PARC, Monty, BR-BR) and two in the fall (Ramp Riot and Duel). Cost $1250+gas money

From what I see the 5 off season events (one day) are just as much fun as the big regionals. In our area (NJ, Eastern PA, DE) there seems to be enough teams to fill all the off season events. Which is a long way to say I think that smaller one /two day events would work and that bag and tag would also work in our area.

At a regional it appears that "most" teams spend the first day completing their robot and passing inspection. (First regional that they attend in a year, and no disrespect meant to your team). So I'd like to suggest that the teams that hold pre-ship scrimmages also have inspectors. If you pass inspection at one of the pre-events all you need to do is pass weight/dimensions at the regional. Inspectors could make spot/random checks if wanted. But it would cut down on the inspection process and be more of an inducement to be ready to play at the event.

One of the things that pops out in this thread is where teams are and how far they need to travel. For teams in Philly events in Rochester, Pittsburgh, Richmond and Boston (and all the places in between) are all a ~5 hour drive. So we have a huge range of choices. That makes it easier here to do regionals vs CA where there is 5-9 hour drive times.

One of the neat things is being able to see other teams at other places (like going to FLR this year and seeing Simbiotics and GRR in action). While it's fun to play with Chuck, Moe and Miss Daisy (which we do 6 times a year) playing with others is also very cool. So It would be nice to be able to pick which "district" event we go to.