2006 FRC Registration Opening Letter

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Kyle45

Not totally, remember, Boilermaker is a NASA regional. It will be interesting to see teams like 71 choose on where they are going.

If you are a NASA grant team, you are going where they are paying for your registration.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

aww man, FLR and buckeye on the same weekend.

With a regional happening in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Michigan and Hartford were going to be hard pressed to get 33 teams at RIT this year. Couldn't they move one or two of these regionals to week one?

[KathieK]

I wish everyone could meet with the head of the logistics company (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) and hear what these poor people have to go through to get 32 regionals coordinated with 32 venues, trucking to move the fields, etc. etc. It was enlightening to me. So many things I never thought about (having never been on a regional planning committee)....

Considering they are expanding the number of regionals but are constrained to only so many weeks so that the Championship can occur before many teams start final exams in May, it is amazing they can pull it off at all! How many other organizations do you know that pull off 32 major events, all on weekends, in a five week span of time? I give FIRST credit for publishing the dates so early in advance so that teams can meet and make choices based on their goals, budgets and desires.

[Ricky Q.]

Originally Posted by Raul

We will greatly miss team 45 and very likely team 71 (I think they also consider Purdue home) as we must also stick with our home regional. I first met Andy and the rest of the great 45 team in 1999 at the MWR in Harper when we teamed up that first year of alliances. And of course we played against 71 and 27 in those playoffs and got beat.

Anyway, does anyone know the specific venue for the Milwaukee regional?

Raul

We are very excited to have a regional in Wisconsin now. It will indeed be held at the US Cellular Arena in Downtown Milwaukee. Hopefully the inaugural year of our regional goes as well as we hope.

Team #269 now also faces the tough choice of choosing regionals. The Wisconsin Regional will now be our home regional. And we will probably look to attend either Midwest or Boilermaker the week before. If we choose Boilermaker it will mark the first time since our team's rookie year in 1999 that we have not attended the Midwest Regional. We have been proud to make it a tradition to attend this regional for the last 7 years, winning it 2 twice, once with team 45 and once with 111 and 71. Our team would not be where it is now without the Midwest Regional.

[Kyle Love]

Originally Posted by Raul

We will greatly miss team 45 and very likely team 71 (I think they also consider Purdue home) as we must also stick with our home regional. I first met Andy and the rest of the great 45 team in 1999 at the MWR in Harper when we teamed up that first year of alliances. And of course we played against 71 and 27 in those playoffs and got beat.

Anyway, does anyone know the specific venue for the Milwaukee regional?

Raul

45 will sadly miss seeing the tye-dye. Maybe this is a reason for a push for red and blue tye dye for 45?

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by KathieK

I wish everyone could meet with the head of the logistics company (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) and hear what these poor people have to go through to get 32 regionals coordinated with 32 venues, trucking to move the fields, etc. etc. It was enlightening to me. So many things I never thought about (having never been on a regional planning committee)....

Considering they are expanding the number of regionals but are constrained to only so many weeks so that the Championship can occur before many teams start final exams in May, it is amazing they can pull it off at all! How many other organizations do you know that pull off 32 major events, all on weekends, in a five week span of time? I give FIRST credit for publishing the dates so early in advance so that teams can meet and make choices based on their goals, budgets and desires.

I totally agree!! My first thought at seeing this announcement, and then looking through all the info is that I was totally amazed that FIRST had managed to get all this info out to us so early... I can remember waiting for it last year, and trying to explain to my rookie team why we might have to choose regionals etc etc.. but now its easy, they released ALL of the info... even awards submissions dates!!! BRAVO FIRST It makes it so much easier for teams to plan and put their calendars together when they have all the dates ahead of time.

Sure some of the scheduling seems a bit odd, but Im sure they either have reasons or just do the best that they can! Im just so excited that we have all the info!! yeah!!

[nobrakes8]

Originally Posted by IMDWalrus

It could be, but I'd just assume that it's a logistics issue. Maybe those eight regionals each had to be in the second week because of prior bookngs, or maybe FIRST was trying to keep a given region from having two competitions in the same week.

The second theory kind of falls apart when you notice that Buckeye and Great Lakes are the same week, though.

UTC, Finger Lakes, Great lakes, Buckey all the same week??? IDK sounds kinda like FIRST got stuck in a big scheduleing jam or something..

I am happy to see UTC is now at the brand new connecticut convention center (i think) the Meadows really outgrew FIRST.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by nobrakes8

I am happy to see UTC is now at the brand new connecticut convention center (i think) the Meadows really outgrew FIRST.

http://www.ctconventions.com/ I think the location will be pleasing to a lot of people.

[Covey41]

Has anyone thought that maybe they scheduled close regionals together for a reason! If you look at the areas that this is occurring in, they have a high concentration of teams. In the past years these regionals filled up fast, and some teams got left out. The teams that got left out had to spend more money to get to an event that was farther away. This also forces some of the better teams to go to different events than they normally would, there for giving other teams a chance to do better. Kinda levels the playing field at some events.

The one thing that surprised me the most was to see the letter signed by Bob Hammond. For those who have not heard, Bob has resigned from FIRST, effective sometime in September. (This makes the 3rd high level person to leave FIRST this year. Paul Shay, & Hut Snow. Kind of makes you wonder whats going on in Manchester.) We owe a lot to Bob, he is a true gentleman. I hope that everyone joins me in sending a "best wishes" note to him.

Bob: If you see this post, you are a true gentleman! The program owes you a lot. Best wishes were ever you go, we will miss you!

[nobrakes8]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

With a regional happening in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Michigan and Hartford were going to be hard pressed to get 33 teams at RIT this year. Couldn't they move one or two of these regionals to week one?

It's also RIT's winter/spring break so we won't even have many students on campus. I'm going to help with 1511 but then because of spring break odds are I'm going home since at that point I wouldnt have seen family or friends since January 8th. (guess that means I'll be at UTC for a day or two) I'd be interested in what RIT thinks since from my feeling here so far is that they love showing off the campus in full operation and I'd assume would like to see the compeition when classes are in session.

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by nobrakes8

It's also RIT's winter/spring break so we won't even have many students on campus. I'm going to help with 1511 but then because of spring break odds are I'm going home since at that point I wouldnt have seen family or friends since January 8th. (guess that means I'll be at UTC for a day or two) I'd be interested in what RIT thinks since from my feeling here so far is that they love showing off the campus in full operation and I'd assume would like to see the compeition when classes are in session.

The Finger Lakes Regional is intentionally scheduled for the spring break week. One of the earliest parts of the planning were to hold it then.

The reason to hold it during break is that the regional can have all the resources of RIT without having to comepte for them with students. There aren't students trying to use the field house. There aren't students trying to use locations for the team party. No one's trying to use the parking lot. No one's supposed to be in class or teaching classes (many of the event volunteers are RIT students or faculty).

I'm going to make a bit of a leap and assume that you're an incoming freshmen RIT student, and that's great. If you want to go home for spring break, my recommendation would to simply come back early for the regional. It's a great event and even more exciting when it's on your own campus.

Matt

[Noah Melamed]

As much as having all these regionals that are close together on the same dates is frustrating it also makes a lot of sense. If you look at last years attendance a small number of large regionals filled up fairly quickly and a proportionate number fell to the bottom at partial capacity. This new schedule should force FIRST teams to distribute themselves more evenly among events.

[Kevin Kolodziej]

With the new payment process (the pending list versus the registered list), am I understanding this correctly:

You could be the first one to register for an event in the second round (starting tomorrow), but if you send a check while everyone else pays with a credit card, you could get locked out because FIRST doesn't receive your check for a few days?

Someone please tell me I'm wrong...

Kevin

[Joe Lambie]

I was wondering the same thing. Taking it literally, thats how it seems things are, but at the same time having a process like that seems somewhat unfair, especially to smaller teams who may not recieve all their funding immediately. Hopefully it is setup such that you have at least a couple or three weeks to get your money in before you lose your spot.