Hey, I was just wondering, this is my first time going to this Regional as a Mentor/Team and I was just wondering if any of those that went last year, have any great insight to this area?
I’m told this is a great little area since it’s in Hunstville and one of my previous mentors will be there, so I’m sure I can ask him. But wanted to know if any other teams have gone to this regional and if you knew the in’s of it. Thanks in advance!::rtm::
I am a mentor for team 3319 Grissom Robotics here in Huntsville. I would be happy to try and answer any specific questions you have about the regional, places to eat etc.
The VBC is located in downtown Huntsville. It takes just a few minutes to get to what we call the “parkway” that will take you to restaurants, hotels, Home depot, lowes, Walmart and just about any other place you may need to go when you are here.
I would recommend your team get tickets to the team social on Friday at Space and Rocket center. Ths will be a geat opportunity for your team to see some very cool things associated with our country’s space exploration. Not to mention dinner is included.
If you need any assistance at the Regional just come by our pit we would be happy to assist in any way we can.
We’re sad we can’t make it this year (SMR same week) but the Space & Rocket Center was the highlight of the trip last year.
Eating dinner under a Saturn V alongside astronauts, and then getting to look around while it was closed to the general public. It was just awesome and it’s a shame we can’t make it this year.
The Space and Rocket Center is the best aerospace museum I’ve ever been to. An absolute must see.
Better than both the Smithsonian air and space museums in DC? How about Kennedy?
Haven’t been to the Udvar-Hazy annex and didn’t get to see all of the air and space museum but it’s for sure better than the Saturn V Center at KSC and I think it’s a little better than the shuttle exhibit at KSC, though close.
I’m excited to get things going this year at the Rocket City Regional. I’ll be your LRI again this year. If there’s anything I can do to make your Inspection process more enjoyable, please do not hesitate to reach out to me for assistance.
I’ve lived in the Huntsville area for about 35 years now and can point you in the right direction if you need assistance finding things like Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s, BBQ joints, etc, etc, etc. 
Do people have any recommendations for places to eat within walking distance of the venue? A quick Google search didn’t yield all that much, perhaps I’m just looking in the wrong spots.
According to an alumni, Pints & Pixels is a video game arcade/restaurant. About a 10 minute walk, but worth it in his opinion.
We went last year and it was awesome! The Space and Rocket Center is an absolute must see! The event and staff were top notch! If it wasn’t the same week as the Bayou Regional we would have went again this year.
We (1108) arrived in Alabama (staying in Madison) and are headed to the US Space & Rocket Center this morning. If others are going today, we hope to see you there. From what I can tell we should be there for a while to see and take it all in. If we have time after we’ll look around Huntsville, but I think we’ll be busy with pit load-in, supper, etc. Our group on this trip has 7 students, which made travel pretty easy but keeps them all pretty busy.
Tomorrow, I look forward to our first Rocket City regional. We’ve traveled to many different regionals over our history but we’d heard that this regional is well-run and the tie-in with NASA made it a nice choice. Last year we had a 10+ hr trip to Denver so the 12 hr trip in the other way didn’t seem so daunting. Although we hit rain yesterday (some heavy) and rush hour traffic in Nashville, it was better than last year’s trip (when the highway was closed due to blizzard conditions near the Colorado border).
Good luck to everyone coming to the regional. Our team packed our spare parts for our No Robot Left Behind program for teams that could use assistance. We’re looking forward to a fun and exciting competition.
My team attended Rocket city last year and had great time! It sucks that we won’t be back. 3397 ate at a golden Corral which was alright since I personally had never been to one. You absolutely have to go to the space and rocket center! The team social is amazing. Also, if you have the opportunity to take one of the NASA tours I would highly recommend it!
Thanks everyone for another great event at the Rocket City Regional. Those of us on the Regional Planning Committee are planning to have a wrap-up meeting this Thursday to go over what we can do to make the event even better. If you would like to have some input, please PM me with your comments … I’ll pass them along.
A huge thank you to S.P.A.M (180) and the Children of the Swamp (170) for having faith in our team MECH TECH (3959) to provide defensive support and an awsome Airship Pilot. We look forward to working with you in the near future and reforming the Flora-Bama alliance.
See some of you in Houston (with some HW/SW improvements …)
I want to echo what Ed said above. We had a great time and made lots of new friends. We also learned a lot. We’ll dig in and make improvements for Houston.
Thank you to 180 SPAM and 179 Children of the Swamp for inviting us to join your alliance. You guys are awesome. We loved playing Steamworks with you. We’ll see you in Houston.
Congrats to 6491, Short Circuits, on your Rookie Inspiration Award. It’s great to see the newest member of the Alabama gang get off to a good start.
A special good luck and congratulations on your Team Spirit Award to 4707, TEAM FORCE, our new friends from the Dominican Republic. We had a great time getting to know you. Please come back next year if you can.
Thanks to Robotz Garage (4451) and Royal Robotics (5842) for inviting us to join their alliance. We were impressed by both of your teams, and wished we’d had finished a little better than we did. Wish you both best of luck, especially 5842 at Lone Star North, and hope to play with your teams in the future.
Thanks to the Rocket City regional for a great event. The social was as good as advertised. Things went smoothly and the local and visiting teams were all welcoming. Thanks to the volunteers, particularly to the inspectors including LRI Ed Sparks for helping us through some issues with our robot. I think we’ve learned some lessons there. Thanks to spare parts for helping us to find an additional solenoid after we broke one during competition and to the machine shop for making us a backup roller after one broke. And thank you to all the other volunteers and the regional committee who made this event possible. And thank you to the judges who shared their time with these students and honored our team with the Gracious Professionalism award.
Congrats to 179, 180, and 3959. I was impressed with Mech Tech and glad to see them get picked with their fun to watch robot. Our drivers also had some great talks with 179 and I know our scouting team enjoyed watching SPAM’s pilot work. Also, congrats to both the Dean’s List Award winners, including the world’s fastest Dean’s List winner and also to Clockwork Mania (4013) for the impressive track record that your team has created and your well-deserved Regional Chairman’s Award (keep it up and you’ll have a run at the championship Chairman’s).
I also wanted to thank our pit neighbor Chuck from 1319 for his help and conversations which gave us new wisdom, and wish them luck at worlds. And I wanted to thank 6107 (Cyber Jagzz) for their very kind letter, and I think we all hope that the FIRST competition will be a life-changing experience for both your team and ours.
I speak on behalf of Chuck and the rest of 1319 when I say that we really loved being neighbors with 1108. Y’all were so friendly, helpful, and gracious. You most definitely deserved the Gracious Professionalism award! We wish you the absolute best and hope we will see you in competition again soon!