2nd Regional

[Nate Edwards]

My team has been thinking over the past year or so whether or not it would be a good idea to go to a 2nd Regional in addition to the Pacific Northwest Regional and Championship Event. We are a small town team so its hard to get the money but if we set out to do I think it can happen. Is it a good idea to go to a 2nd Regional? Or is there a problem with kids going oh well we have another shot. I know alot of teams go to Mulitiple Regionals. We don't have very many options so our second regional has to be San Jose or Sacramento and i'm trying to set a budget for next year but I need some feeback i guess on whether or not its a good idea. My team never seems to be opinionated and Chief Delphi Forum members are so, please feel free to give your opinions.

Thanks,
Nate

[Max Lobovsky]

We are a rookie team and it was defenitley great that we went to two regionals. At our first regional (NJ), we had many malfunctions and ended up being 4-4-0 in the qualifying rounds (only thanks to getting lucky with partners). At our second (Annapolis), we had almost all bugs worked out and managed to be 5-2-0 and be the alliance captains for aliiance 8. I know we would have been very disappointed if all 6 weeks had led to only what we did at NJ, and we defeintley needed one regional to get all the bugs worked out.

[Nate Edwards]

Originally Posted by maxlobovsky

We are a rookie team and it was defenitley great that we went to two regionals. At our first regional (NJ), we had many malfunctions and ended up being 4-4-0 in the qualifying rounds (only thanks to getting lucky with partners). At our second (Annapolis), we had almost all bugs worked out and managed to be 5-2-0 and be the alliance captains for aliiance 8. I know we would have been very disappointed if all 6 weeks had led to only what we did at NJ, and we defeintley needed one regional to get all the bugs worked out.

but the problem with that is... you need to always be aiming for the top at your first regional... thats what im worried about if you start off like 0-2-1 or something your team will be like oh well we dont need this one we can rely on the next one and slack off the rest of the time. i saw a team do this is portland. but the next one might not be rewarding either. We came back from 1-2-1 to win the competitoin and the other team got 3rd or 4th from last so theres a bit of a difference. But does this happen often with other teams?

[Crop-Circles]

The main downside that I see for going to another regional would be the expense. Your team would have to do a lot more fundraising. However, I have found that fundraisers are great team building events. Therefor, your greatest con has the side effect of creating a more tightly nit team. Not to mention that more fundraising means more community interaction and a second regoinal will let you interact with teams you wouldn't get to otherwise. I say go for it!

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by Nate Edwards

but the problem with that is... you need to always be aiming for the top at your first regional... thats what im worried about if you start off like 0-2-1 or something your team will be like oh well we dont need this one we can rely on the next one and slack off the rest of the time. i saw a team do this is portland. but the next one might not be rewarding either. We came back from 1-2-1 to win the competitoin and the other team got 3rd or 4th from last so theres a bit of a difference. But does this happen often with other teams?

I think if any team member gives up on the team, especially during a regional, than they should not be allowed to be a part of the team. If you start out 0-3, there's all the more reason to try to turn it around. It's much more satifying to take a bad situation and come out on top. There are plenty of teams willing to help you out.

[Nate Edwards]

Originally Posted by Ogre

I think if any team member gives up on the team, especially during a regional, than they should not be allowed to be a part of the team. If you start out 0-3, there's all the more reason to try to turn it around. It's much more satifying to take a bad situation and come out on top. There are plenty of teams willing to help you out.

yeah its really sad to see something like that happen but it was like the whole team it was kinda odd. I don't think it would happen to our team but theres alot of things I didn't think our team would do but they proved me wrong.. Sometimes good but sometimes bad..

Nate

[Gabe Salas Jr.]

This will be my third and (unfortunately) final year on a FIRST Robotics team. Each year I was on the team, we have been fortunate enough to attend two regionals as well as Nationals. Our team does year round fundraising in order to make this possible. If you guys have trouble coming up with methods of gathering money, I could make a nice list for you.

Going to a second regional will give students an opportunity to visit new places around this wonderful world. I have been to Toronto, Seattle, and Houston. This week the team plans to head on out to New York for our second regional. Many students are excited, and cannot hardly wait. Many of them have never seen snow, and hopes to see some at New York City. Visiting each city gives you more insight about this world, and how different it really is compared to your usual corner of your world. Not only does attending a second regional gives your team more time to work on the robot, but it also helps you see what other team's have done with there robot as well. The best thing about attending a second regional is talking to people. You can learn a lot by human interaction; customs, lifestyles, dialects, etc.

The students on our team does not have the mentality of, "Oh, we have another regional to go to...." The students on our robotic's team have worked their butts off (many since last summer) to go to these competitions. Why slack off now? We have built a robot, raised a lot of money to go to these competitions, and we want to really see our work paid off. Motivate your students to get genuinely excited about robotics. So much, that they are willing to sacrifice their "social lives" to fundraising, so they can go to a second regional and enjoy themselves. Trust me, it is worth it.

[Nate Edwards]

I'm really into the 2nd Regional thing I just hope the rest of the team will be too. I hope we have enough people, because it will be my Senior Year and we have been to the PNW Regional each year. But we also go to the Championships because of our Pre Qualifying each year so thats a good experience and I hope this years inspires the kids on my team to work for it.
Nate

[Stefan]

I say go for 2 regionals if you can. Last year was our rookie year and we only went to one (Peachtree). Our last match our robot finally worked perfectly and we did really well and got picked for an alliance, but we got eliminated early in quarter finals.

This year we went to 2 regionals VCU and Peachtree.

At VCU we did 5-2 mainly b/c our humman player is really good and in qualifying rounds we did not end up going against the top robots that worked 100%. We had bugs and what not. We only hung and worked as intended once maybe twice.

At Peachtree the robot worked the way it was supposed to even when it was broken. Yes even when it was not supposed to work it did. We finally got an auto. However Thursday was spent entirely working on fixing stuff that broke during shiping and stuff that broke in our final match at VCU. Mostly all of the bugs were pinned down and noted at the first regional. We ended up 11-1-1 at Peachtree and overall both regionals 16-3-1. The first regional was well worth it. We won the second regional and sent two other teams that other wise might not have gone to Championships to it.

Last year while talking to a veteran team we were told about how going to 2 regionals helped them alot. As a result we made it a priority to attend 2 this year. In addition, to improved robot preformance we got to experince "robosars", see other teams, and go some place not local to compete. Also, if you do 2 regionals have at least a week between them and have your "non-local" one first that way more of your team and others like parents, sponsors, your princpal, etc. can go to the better preformance one.

If you can find a way to go to 2 and afford Champs b/c you might end up qualifying for Champs at the second one. Then I say you should. Its really well worth it if you can.

Note: If taking a big bus and you cannot fill all the seats try getting another team to go with you or opening up seats to some rookies (or and other teams) who are going to one regional and want to see what the game is like in person before hand. This can help decrease the cost per person.

[Natchez]

Nate,

We've had the do we go to a second regional? conversation 18 million times and we always come to the same decision. We are fortunate to have great sponsors thus funding is not a factor. Our decision is based upon our goals which are, in order of priority,

1. Expose and educate our team to the world of engineering
2. Expose our community to the world of engineering
3. Win on the field

Therefore, we always decide to use funding and time to expose our community to engineering. Along with the many events, festivals, conferences, workshops, etc., we host/assist with the EARLY, BEST, Botball, FIRST, and FLL robotics competitions each year.

So, my recommendation is that if winning on the field is more important than outreach to your team, then you should try to attend another regional. On the other hand, if outreach is more important than winning, then maybe try to do something like starting/expanding FLL in your community. Please understand that there is no right or wrong with this decision. For example, some teams have a significant amount of pressure from sponsors/organizations to win on the field therefore their priorities differ from ours. Also, the two options are NOT mutually exclusive. Even though we only attend one regional, we are still a very competitive team and hopefully we'll take home a trophy one day. I think that if your team agrees upon goals and priorities, the answer as to whether to attend another regional will be easy.

Hope this fuzz helps,
Lucien

[OneAngryDaisy]

Definitely. Here's the perfect example.

We competed in the Chesapeake Regional this past week. Weighed in at 143 on thursday, missed all the practice matches, didn't drive in our first four qualification matches, and never really got our act together. Both software problems and mechanisms contributed. Now, if this was our only regional, we'd be crushed. Fortunately, we're going to Philadelphia this week.

It's a fresh start, and our fundraising was well worth it. I'd reccomend you do whatever it takes to go to two regionals, what's the harm of trying?