How far does your team drive?

[Robby Unruh]

I'm just curious how long most teams drive to go to their regional competitions. The closest one to us is Boilermaker regional, nearly a 4 hour drive. This year though, we went to Cleveland, a 6 hour drive. Is it me, or does FIRST seem to neglect the whole eastern midwest/northern south (if I may use such words...). But the Knoxville addition this year was a great move, kudos for that.

[BACONDUDE1902]

We drive to Florida regional every year and its about 30minutes drive.

[cpeister]

We drive to Waterloo and GTR which are 2 and 3 hour drives on a school bus. This year we went to Buckeye for the first time and were on the bus for around 9 hours, but a coach this time. Part of that 9 hours was waiting at the border to get all of our stuff cleared.

We will be driving to St Louis on a coach. The bus company is projecting an 18 hour drive, including stops, but we think we can make it in a little less than that. We will be leaving Tuesday evening and arriving Wednesday afternoon.

[timytamy]

Well our closest regional is a Hawaii, it's a bit hard for us to drive 8000km (5000 miles) across the pacific...

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Robby Unruh

I'm just curious how long most teams drive to go to their regional competitions. The closest one to us is Boilermaker regional, nearly a 4 hour drive. This year though, we went to Cleveland, a 6 hour drive. Is it me, or does FIRST seem to neglect the whole eastern midwest/northern south (if I may use such words...). But the Knoxville addition this year was a great move, kudos for that.

It depends on concentration of FIRST team where they put their regionals. Unless your region has a sudden growth in a lot of teams you may just have to travel.

I drive 15 mins to our home regional of GSR with Boston and WPI about an hours drive away.

SVR is about 20 minutes from our school! One of our mentors lives so close he rides his bike there!

[Jon Stratis]

In the past, we've driven to St Louis and Kansas City (each about a 9 hour drive). With the introduction of the Lake Superior Regional, however, we now only go 2.5 hours . Of course, 10,000 Lakes and North Star are only about 20 minutes away!

[Chris is me]

WPI and Connecticut are a little over 2 hours away from us. Someone told me once that CT was closer, but I still don't understand the geography here very well.

I'm hoping for an RPI Regional someday. I'd love to just roll out of bed and go.

[Josh Drake]

We went 4 hours to Palmetto and 5 hours to North Carolina. Now it's 12 hours to St. Louis! Peachtree is the closest at 1.5 hours.

[Dancin103]

We are 1.5 hours from the Philly regional. When we went to the Jersey regional we were 1 hour from there. We have gone to the Chesapeake regional before and that is 4 hours. We have driven to Championships in Atlanta and that was a 14 hour drive. We also drove to Florida once for Championships, that was about 18 to 20 hours on a bus.

[Robby Unruh]

My family takes yearly trips to Disney World, and we always drive, so I'm use to whole thing about sitting still for 18-20 hours... but with FRC, it's like 10 florida drives just to get from Dayton to Cleveland. I guess it's just the anticipation.

- edit -
I long for the day I can drive from my home to the competiton in <1 hour. It'd be awesome to get a good night's sleep in your own bed before competing.

[Alex Dinsmoor]

We have drove in the past 4 years...
4 hours for Traverse City
40 minutes for Detroit
1 hour for Kettering
1.2 hours for MSC/GLR
6 hours for Boilermaker
14 hours for Atlanta

And those aren't even the closest competitions to us.

Within an hour of our school is...
Troy: 10 Minutes
Waterford: <20 Minutes
Livonia: 50 Minutes
Ann Arbor: Around an Hour

And of course St. Louis is a nice 9 hour drive, but we aren't going this year.

[big1boom]

We are doing 40 minutes to Midwest, 2 hours to Wisconsin, and 5 hours to St. Louis this year. (Wednesday crew is driving, everyone else is taking Amtrak)

Furthest we have done is 8 hours for 10k lakes.

[yarden.saa]

40 minutes bus to Israel regional

[Alan Anderson]

In recent years our drives have included ~1 hour to Boilermaker (West Lafayette, IN), ~3.5 hours to Chicago, ~5.5 hours to St. Louis, ~9 hours to Toronto, and 12+ hours to Washington, DC. The Boilermaker Regional is close enough that we make the trip there and back each day.