More than One Regional?

[Frenchie]

Team 469 has been lucky enough to have enough funds to attend 2-3 regionals and championship every year.

As weird as it may sound, I've always enjoyed the regionals more than nationals. Why? Well, 1) it is closer, which means that family and friends can come with us to support us. 2) There are less teams attending, which means more game time. 3) You can meet people there you will be able to see again some day (as they live in the same area as you - if you go to home regionals. 4) You can see the games better! 5) it's easier on the drive team: Last year, I spent more time running between the pits and the dome than actually on the field or meeting people. ATL is huge! 6) You don't feel like just a number. Every team attending is its own.

Now, don't get me wrong, Atlanta is fun. If anything, the bus ride down with the team, living in the hotel and spending so much time with your friends makes it all worth it. But given the price, and the open alternatives... My choice is made.

Also, if I had extra cash, I would probably choose going to Hawaii over championship. Same team bonding experience, closer nit community and the sea is right there!

Francois

[Chrisms]

Originally Posted by George A.

For most years 11 goes to two regionals, one of them being the NJ regional (our home town regional) and then the Championship depending on the year.

The second regional usually varies from year to year (04-06 they went to Palmetto, 07 was NYC and 08 was Chesapeake) and my advice is that if your team can afford it, go for it.

The second regional, especially events farther away from your area gives the students an opportunity to see teams, and interact with people that they normally wouldn't. For instance, if an east coast team went out to play in the MWR or Boilermaker it would be far different, than if they stayed local the whole time.

As far as qualifying and cost? With NJ anyone on the team is allowed to go, buses take us to and from the event Thurs/Fri, and the students are responsible for getting their own rides on Saturday, since it's free most students go. For the events that require travel, it usually boils down to whoever contributes the most gets first shot. We're not punishing the students that don't contribute as much, we're just rewarding the students that contribute more.

With cost always being an issue, the students are encouraged to go out and fundraise for the team, and for every dollar they fund raise, a dollar is deducted from their trip. So in the end a student could wind up traveling for next to nothing.


Myself, I go to 3/4 events and the Championships, but usually as a volunteer so it's a bit different.

But that's just my advice, let us know what you decide.

to add to that. My advice as a senior, is to go to a travel regional. Yeah, we kids are a lot to handle.. and we will have fun.. and might get a little loud. but in all honesty, it brings the team close in my opinion. last year we didn't go to a travel regional, and something seemed missing.

my two cents

[Richard Wallace]

My team has been competing for seven FRC seasons. We started the same year as the St. Louis Regional, and have competed there every year.

We recognized early on that a second (or third) event each year helps to build the team by giving our students more playing time and exposing them to a wider variety of competitors. And road trips are fun.

We've been to the Championship twice, in 2003 and 2005. We've been to road regionals five times: Midwest in 2004, Buckeye in 2005, Waterloo in 2006, and Boilermaker in 2007-2008. And we've been to IRI in 2006-2007.

Our team has enjoyed road regionals more than Championships, mainly because road regionals offer more matches and the same exposure to variety*, for less cost and easier travel. I'm sure we'll want to go back to the Championship some year, though.

And as I've said before, I should have gone to IRI years ago. It has been a blast the past two years, and we'd love to go back again.
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* the Championship has the potential to offer much greater variety, but its logistics and venue make that potential difficult to realize.

[David Brinza]

Team 980 has attended as many as three regionals, the Championship and two off-season events in a year. That's a lot of competing and rather expensive!

Our preference is to attend two regionals, at least two weeks apart. We generally perform better at the second regional because the initial regional reveals the kinks in our design. Also, we benefit from seeing how other teams have tackled similar problems we've encountered. We like to "flatter" those more clever teams by borrowing from their effective designs. We make good use of "fix-it" windows.

Our "home regional" is the Los Angeles regional, so we get better attendance there from parents and classmates but our relatively small team is basically intact for all of the competitions. The additional cost ($4K) for the second regional is well worth the experience of competing with a robot that performs as intended. It's more than twice as much fun competing in two regionals rather than one!

BTW, by winning in the LA Regional, we've qualified for the Championship as well.

[vince2171]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

After reading posts about teams like 1114 and 1024 which won 2 and 3 regionals, respectively, I'm wondering how many regionals most teams attend each year. How many does your team attend?

We're a sixth-year team, and for all six years, we've only attended one regional (the once UTC New England, now Connecticut Regional). We started going to the Championship Event our fourth year (2006). After winning this regional for the third consecutive year, we're starting to think about broadening our horizons.

With this, I have some questions:

• Why does your team choose to/not to attend multiple regionals?

For teams that attend more than one regional,

• What is that experience like?
• Is it worth the extra expense in time and money?
• Do you send the entire team to both/all regionals? If not, how do you determine who goes where?
• How far apart (weeks) do you like to space your regionals?
• Do you do multiple regionals and the Championship Event?

Thanks for the input!


(I apologize if a post like this already exists- I searched, but I didn't find any similar posts. Also, none of the more specific forums fit as a place to post this from what I can see- the mods are welcome to move it if they see fit.)

TEAM 2171, CROWN POINT INDIANA - 2nd year team
1) Last year we made the comment that going to one regional was like a football team putting the time and effort to play one game. IRI was a great second competion, which we plan on attending again this year. It was well worth the expense. Our first regional was the Boilermaker Regional. We did well, qualifying 27th, getting picked for an alliance, and advancing to the semi-finals before getting beat by a great alliance. We did not get our autonomous working correctly until the last practice match. We practiced in our cafeteria before shipping. Practicing in an arena, on carpet, with a real overhead rather than our PVC rack, made a big difference. We spent a good part of the regional tweaking our software control. Our second regional was the West Michigan Regional. We pulled our robot out of the box, plugged in the controls, and everything was debugged. We had expierence from the week before, which ended up being priceless for the drivers and myself, the mentor. We ended up finishing 8-0 in qualifying. I admit you have to get lucky to do that, but the confidence I saw in our drivers between the Boilermaker and Western Regional made a huge difference. Some students had conflicts and could not go to both regionals. The bus only allowed for 13 students and some got the opportunity to go to only 1 regional. We are now planning on going to Nationals with the win at the Western Michigan Regional. We won the regional by being teamed up with Team Hammond that has mentored us and helped us tremendously. It was a great experience being allied with them and 2604, a great rookie team we shared a hotel with. We both learned a tremendous amount by playing with and following the lead of TEAM HAMMOND 71 with THE BEAST.