Regional Selection Process

[kstl99]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

You must not have been around for the failed Hatch experiments. Those were some bad week 1 regionals. Both times.

I wasn't arround and now you got me curious. What were the failed Hatch experiments? (All I can think of is Orrin Hatch but I doubt you are talking about him.)

[Spirator]

We just want to go to a regional, although one of our mentors moved to IL, so we may choose to go to Midwest.

[KrazyCarl92]

With teams like team 20 (my team and notably JVNs alma mater) and team 148 (JVNs team) qualifying for the championship automatically as original FIRST teams from 1992, it seems natural that these teams would want to compete with the best competition. We don't need to consider our chances of qualifying for the championship in choosing a regional because we get to go to St. Louis in April regardless. But do other teams take into account their chances at qualifying for the championship when choosing a regional event? If so, how much would this play into the decision making process?

I'm not saying that winning is everything but there is something to be said for the magic of the FIRST Championship. It's also something I'd like to have insight to because our team simply does not even have to consider this because there is no necessity.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by kstl99

I wasn't arround and now you got me curious. What were the failed Hatch experiments? (All I can think of is Orrin Hatch but I doubt you are talking about him.)

A company called Hatch got the contract to do the field software for several years. By 2006, it was obvious that something was wrong--they still couldn't do the field and scoring software right! Evidence: instead of being able to rely on the goal counters for the winner of automode, human backups were used--and it took until Championships to get a suitable delay in to allow for checking the backups. This caused at least one redo that I know about in eliminations. (I forget if they were also responsible for the Algorithm of Doom in 2007 or not.)

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

You must not have been around for the failed Hatch experiments. Those were some bad week 1 regionals. Both times.

I was, but I think we got lucky at BAE and avoided most of the trouble. I remember we finished at 5PM in 2005 (Team 501 had just recieved the Chairman's award at 5:01 and the fire alarm went off), and I remember loading the truck while it was still light outside in 2006, which means we also got out by 5:30. By contrast, we left after 7:30 in 2009.

(Those were the years it was Hatch, right?)

[EricH]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

I was, but I think we got lucky at BAE and avoided most of the trouble. I remember we finished at 5PM in 2005 (Team 501 had just recieved the Chairman's award at 5:01 and the fire alarm went off), and I remember loading the truck while it was still light outside in 2006, which means we also got out by 5:30. By contrast, we left after 7:30 in 2009.

(Those were the years it was Hatch, right?)

05 and maybe 07 were Hatch. By 2009, 4FX had taken over the software/hardware for the field controls/scoring. The reason for a late departure in 2009 was probably teams having control system trouble...

[Manoel]

Here's our criteria for this year:

• We're going to two regionals.
• They have to be back-to-back - Maybe going home for two days and competing again is bad, but flying 6000 miles home then back in two weeks is just plain stupid.
• We drive from regional to regional. Less than 375 miles is doable, less than 600 miles is manageable, anything over that is stupid.
• We spend a lot on air tickets, so we have to go somewhere culturally relevant. Events in the middle of nowhere aren't really an option.
• We like tough competition.
• We're from a big city (~ 1.3 million people, 4 million metro area) and from a developing country. What most teams consider "big" or "violent" or "not suitable for students" isn't really much for us.

A personal criteria that some mentors share and that will have to be relayed to the school is that we'd like to go to Week 1-2 events this year. Being that Carnival (country pretty much stops during that time) is on Week 1, that means less work/classes lost by mentors, which surely helps. Yes, shipping the robot on Tuesday and catching a plane on Friday/Saturday will be a bit stressful, but should be a better option.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by KrazyCarl92

I'm not saying that winning is everything but there is something to be said for the magic of the FIRST Championship.

This has a lot to do with our event choice this year. We hope this will be the first year we can go to more than our home regional, and since we didn't go to Champs last year, we're planning to use that priority to register this year. I went to Champs with my dad last year, and regional events (while still really cool) just don't compare. We have a good number of seniors this year who are pretty devoted, so we'd like to go Champs. Also, with so many graduating, this would be a good way to get younger members excited about the team and keep some members coming in. And of course we want to try to make as much of a plan of this as possible, instead of qualifying in our week 5 home regional and having to raise the money and work out the logistics in 3 weeks. Lastly, Champs is far more convenient this year: we can probably drive to St. Louis, whereas Atlanta was definitely a plane trip.

Obviously, this is contingent on raising enough cash to register for more than one event. If we can, we plan to also register for the new Lake Superior regional in Duluth (week 2), since it's close by and might get paid for by NASA.

This event schedule would somewhat ideal. We would have a week 2 away regional to right away test and compete with our new 'bot, then 3 weeks to implement changes for week 5 at home, where we might qualify, then another 4 weeks to Champs. 2 or 3 events, we'd get to Champs with a good amount of experience with our machine, and some touchups besides.

[jsasaki]

shucks! only west coast regional before Hawai‘i is San Diego. we'll have to wait and see if we can travel further???

[Chris is me]

Here's Shaker's process.

First, we go to the WPI Regional. It's as close to a home regional as we have and we had a great time last year. We really like the small event size, the fact that it's on a college campus (students can see the campus and potentially tour if need be) and that the field has some strong teams in it (last year included 20, 190, 230, 2079, 3280).

However, we have enough flexibility that we can strongly consider eschewing the WPI regional. Back when we thought we'd have a budget this year one consideration was attending both Waterloo and GTR, using the days in between to tour college campuses, visit science museums, and generally be educational. Unfortunately we found this wasn't really feasible this year, but it's on my list of regional paths I want to take.

For our second regional, we pick anything we can drive to from Shaker High on Thursday at 3 AM. Connecticut, Finger Lakes, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Long Island are the main choices here.

[Mike Soukup]

Originally Posted by kstl99

I wasn't arround and now you got me curious. What were the failed Hatch experiments? (All I can think of is Orrin Hatch but I doubt you are talking about him.)

In addition to the issues EricH brought up, at least one event in the first week of 2005 had incorrect rankings (see this thread for more info), and in 2006 matches had to be restarted when teams scored too many balls in autonomous. I still remember when we paired up with 1625 for the eliminations and we each scored all 10 of our balls in autonomous, only to have the foghorn sound. Multiple times.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Manoel

Here's our criteria for this year:

• We're going to two regionals.
• They have to be back-to-back - Maybe going home for two days and competing again is bad, but flying 6000 miles home then back in two weeks is just plain stupid.
• We drive from regional to regional. Less than 375 miles is doable, less than 600 miles is manageable, anything over that is stupid.
• We spend a lot on air tickets, so we have to go somewhere culturally relevant. Events in the middle of nowhere aren't really an option.
• We like tough competition.
• We're from a big city (~ 1.3 million people, 4 million metro area) and from a developing country. What most teams consider "big" or "violent" or "not suitable for students" isn't really much for us.

A personal criteria that some mentors share and that will have to be relayed to the school is that we'd like to go to Week 1-2 events this year. Being that Carnival (country pretty much stops during that time) is on Week 1, that means less work/classes lost by mentors, which surely helps. Yes, shipping the robot on Tuesday and catching a plane on Friday/Saturday will be a bit stressful, but should be a better option.

Sounds like Trenton/NYC would be a perfect fit.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Sounds like Trenton/NYC would be a perfect fit.

I think a little love for FLR in Rochester, NY is needed.

We like outside teams!

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

I think a little love for FLR in Rochester, NY is needed.

We like outside teams!

Good event, but hours away from the next, so I doubt it would be accommodating for 383.

Shaker enjoyed going but the drive relative to WPI, Boston, and Trenton makes it not our first choice, and being only 1 week before WPI makes it taxing on everyone (except me who would have spring break for both!)

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup

In addition to the issues EricH brought up, at least one event in the first week of 2005 had incorrect rankings (see this thread for more info), and in 2006 matches had to be restarted when teams scored too many balls in autonomous. I still remember when we paired up with 1625 for the eliminations and we each scored all 10 of our balls in autonomous, only to have the foghorn sound. Multiple times.

What I remember most about Hatch was the 2nd week regionals being as bad or worse then the 1st week because one thing would be fixed and 2 things broken. The Arizona regional (referenced in that thread) was week 2. The FLR regional was 1st week and had no rankings for most of the event.

Not that any of this Hatch discussion is relevant to choosing a regional for 2011.