Hi! We are Team 10064 HanniBAL Robotics from Turkey, and this year we will be participating in the San Francisco Regional competition. During the event, we are facing challenges in finding affordable accommodations, and we would greatly appreciate your assistance.
We kindly ask if you or anyone you know could help us find reasonably priced hotels in the area. Any suggestions or recommendations through your contacts would be immensely helpful for us.
Additionally, we hope to use this opportunity to meet your team and engage in meaningful discussions and knowledge-sharing. We believe such an exchange would be mutually beneficial for both of us.
Thank you so much for considering our request! We truly appreciate your help.
5985 is an Australian team coming in to the same area for the East Bay Regional. I’m sure the locals will have better suggestions, but we have some experience with bringing in an international team if you’re interested in how we approach things
Unfortunately the Bay Area especially San Francisco is very expensive, but there are some budget-friendly options nearby.
Renting a bus or car (and having a mentor who can drive) may help lower the cost if you are willing to do a longer commute. If so I would consider nearby cities, such as San Mateo, Daly City, Redwood City, or even San Leandro, North Hayward.
More information would certainly help as well, for example, what is your budget per student? Do you have any ground transportation? Group Size? etc.
Gotta say, “affordable” and “San Francisco” don’t really go together much. But then, I’m sure airfare is more tolerable to a major hub like SFO so I won’t dwell on that.
Couple thoughts:
What have you found so far? Knowing the price to beat will help the search.
Have you considered swapping to the Sacramento Regional the same weekend? It runs a day longer (Friday through Monday instead of Friday through Sunday), but it’s about 90 minutes driving from SFO (so you wouldn’t need to change flights), hotels there seem palpably cheaper, and there’s capacity. And it’s not like that event is hurting for talent.
Yeah, SF ain’t too budget-friendly.
However, there are certainly options, especially if you’re willing to travel a bit longer.
Staying in SF proper is definitely the most expensive option. I would recommend looking for lodging in downtown San Bruno thru Redwood City, which isn’t far away (15-45 minutes, depending on location) but still will be less expensive than SF.
If you’re willing to stay on the other side of the Bay, there are parts of the East Bay that are less expensive.
Do note, however, that there will be traffic - not as bad as the extended parking lots of LA or NYC, but San Francisco at the entrance of the Bay Bridge, I-238, and I-880 in particular are notorious for bad traffic.
East Bay resident here - at the hour I’m typically commuting to SFR (7ish) it’s 30-40 minutes from Oakland to the venue with no perceptible traffic at the bridge.
Edit: Note you’re also dealing with Sat/Sun drive schedules which are light.
As a data point, my Airbnb for SFR this year (check in Friday, check out Sunday) is walking distance to the venue and $215.77 after taxes and fees. I booked about three weeks ago.
It’s a one bedroom situation and wouldn’t work for a team, but wanted to share what I found.
Sam Francisco is also only a a two day regional, it’s a test of that format by FIRST. I’d second the suggestion of switching to Sacramento given how far you are traveling.