Since event registration is staggered this year, and the location of the Championship has yet to be determined, there seems to be a more strategy involved in choosing events this year.
So, my questions are:
Is your team planning on attending one or two additional regional events?
How are you deciding which regional events to attend?
Which other regional events do you want to attend?
What will you do if a regional event you’d like to attend reaches its capacity limit before you’re able to register?
Three regionals are already full, and several more are close.
810 is applying for the NASA Sponsorship grant and hoping to attend the Chesapeake Regional in Annapolis, Maryland. They also want to attend Silicon Valley Regional, but there are only 12 spots remaining. I’m trying to get an idea for how many teams might be vying for those 12 spots, as well as find out how other teams are prioritizing their registration given that NASA’s sponsorship grant winners aren’t announced until Nov. 20, events may fill up, and the Championships may or may not be in Walt Disney World.
*Originally posted by Michael Krass *
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So, my questions are:
Is your team planning on attending one or two additional regional events?
How are you deciding which regional events to attend?
Which other regional events do you want to attend?
What will you do if a regional event you’d like to attend reaches its capacity limit before you’re able to register?
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We are planning on attending one regional besides Southern California. We have also qualified for the Championship so we are planning to do that as well. We will decide which one based on what’s open when we have the entry fee and probably a team vote. SillyCone Valley;) , Sacramento and Phoenix are all about the same distance from us and two are on the same weekend. So it’s more a matter of preference. It probably depends most on which has the most team member’s relatives near by. If the prefered regional fills up we’ll just move on to another choice. It seems unlikely that ALL of our alternates would fill up.
If you really want to come to California, you might want to consider the Sacramento regional. It will probably be open longer. While flights directly in to SAC aren’t cheap, it’s only an hour and a half or so from Oakland, 2 from SF or SJ. Which might be cheaper options in terms of flights.
You’d also be welcome to come to LA. We’ll do our best to show you a good time!
RAGE is going to UTC New England regional and most likely another regional as well. Not sure which regional it will be yet but it all dependes on cost factors like hotels buses etc. and we are definitely going to nationals as soon as that opens up.
friday i just filled out a NASA grant for my team, 263, to go to the chessapeake regional, so we both have the same idea. instead of silicon valley, we are going to go to nationals (yay for odd number).
Team 74 had signed up for the midwest regional right now(b/c we thought it might fill up) and when we can we are going to sign up for the West Mich regional. Last I checked, only like 13 teams had signed up for west mich, and there were like 34 spots left, so we think we’re all right. Good thing we didn’t have Great Lakes as our second choice though, cuz thats all filled up I think. As far as nationals go, we don’t really know. We are planning on qualifying though, b/c if we though we did not have a chance, we would have signed up for one of the regionals in california or something and had a little vacation.
We signed up for Great Lakes Regional as our first event. We’ll probably choose the Buckeye Regional as our second regional (we have to “defend our title”). We probably won’t do a third regional, though we aren’t totally ruling that out. If we do, I don’t know where we would go.
The first regional we signed up for was the Midwest regional in Chicago. I think the 2nd one will probably the regional in St. Louis. We decided on the Midwest regional because it’s our “local” regional and a favorite of the majority of the people on the team and we are going to pick St. Louis for something new. I’ve also heard talk of trying to squeeze a third one in somewhere too, but i’m not very confident on it’s possibility.
our first regional we signed up for was Arizona. our second regional we are going to try to get into is Seattle. there aren’t many spots left for that one so if we dont get in there, we may try for san jose. our third choice is cleveland. we thought about going to st. louis but we’re not allowed to because the wife of our team leader is going there. thats a big no no.
Libby (393) and Scott (234), you two need to get along!!! The kids get along well just not you two!
No nats for us. we don’t qualify and if we did, we dont have the budget.
Team 393 will be going to St. Louis and to Nationals this year. David…Scott and I DO get along because we stay away from going to the same competitions! As former coaches of sports, we are competitive…I am a bit out of control at times, I know. But we have agreed to go to different regionals so that we DON’T have conflicts!
Though Scott and I both LOVE robotics and FIRST, the marriage and our life at home is much more important than this, so we will do what we have to do to make things at home peaceful! It’s also less stressful on our two little ones if we are not gone from home at the same time.
Are there any others out there that have a husband and wife that each run their own team?
We always got o great lakes cuz its about 5 miles away. And we are planning on Western michigna, its a little smaller a lotta fun, and we have to try and break our streak of 2 staight loosing in the finals there. I highly recomend it
If there is a national championship we will attend, we have a quaranteed spot.
We’re talking about a second regional, either Houston or Atlanta being our choice.
I suspect that most remaining slots will be taken by end of business on Nov. 1st. So, if our coffers are not sufficiently full by then, I doubt we’ll do a second regional.
It’s also less stressful on our two little ones if we are not gone from home at the same time.