We’ve gone once, by plane, this is what I remember as good to know.
Bring a deck of cards, maybe even two, for layovers.
Bring comfy shoes, theres a lot of walking, especially between Stands and Pits. Also, I don’t know if it’s allowed but have a cellphone in each place so you can communicate, I sent runners, they hated me.
Bring alot of scouting sheets, theres alot of teams
Make flyers to hand out, make them memorable, also it is nice if they’re hole punched as 973 keeps a binder
If you go to the Peachtree and have a room overlooking the park, leave the celebration before the fireworks, that way you can watch them by looking down or across, not craning your neck up. (We did this, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen)
Get the stadium to do the wave, its worth it
Also, avoid the underground, I got sick while in Atlanta last year I think and I think it was there.
One thing you are not going to be prepared for is the large amount of homeless people who are going to be hovering around. Some of them will be adamant and even rude but don’t give them money. Many of them have substance abuse problems and you are only enabling their problems by giving them money. Buy them food if you must but don’t just give them money. A stern no is mostly enough tot send them on their way (they’re not going to mug a large group of people. I heavily recommend never traveling alone. I can’t confirm it but I heard a couple of years ago a mentor was mugged in one of the parking garages. Remember: safety in numbers!) but if you really feel the need to have them got rid of you can either find Georgia DOme security or local police and have them deal with them. What I would ask is a little patience and understanding with them. Many of them are in circumstances beyond their control and are unable to help themselves. What we’re doing here in this program is also aimed at helping them as well in the long run to make a better quality of life for all. Gracious Porfessionalism extends well beyond the field to more than just the people in FIRST. That is how you truly change the culture.
If you live over 6-8 hours away and can afford flying, I’d go for flying. To me it just seems easier despite the price, to catch a flight and be where you need to in a few hours.
We hired a tour bus to take us to Atlanta one year and have not done it since. One of the big “+’s” to taking a bus is that you can drive though the night and get their in the morning. But remember, buses are sometimes hard to sleep on (read as “ALWAYS HARD TO SLEEP ON” for me) especially when crammed full of people. Even with the mandatory quiet hours on the way down, I ended up not being comfortable enough to be able to sleep, so I listened to music and watched my DVD player the whole way down. On the way back my feet were killing me from queuing and I was exhausted. I managed some sleep here and there, but really only succeeded in being cranky and tired.
Just one more reason why a it is a good idea to have a robust and sturdy cart.
Things Not To Forget
Sturdy Shoes
Daypack/Tote Bag (Even if you don’t take anything to the event with you in the morning except a camera, chances are you will come back with something)
Camera (w/good batteries)
Something unique to trade (I’m planning to make my own little something to trade this year, seperate from the team.)
Tokens for MARTA (Or Exact Change
to purchase fare)
Sharpie (For those times you meet someone whom you would like an autograph from. Like Dean or Woody.)
Safe place to carry your money and keys. (Aside from your shoe or sock please!)
Ask Bob about what happened to his Van key when we were at EPCOT.
And I’ve seen too many loose the money they put in their shoes; and hey, Change is great! but not so much fun when you are walking on it. Along with the fact that having imprints of dead presidents in your feet and giving someone warm sweaty foot money is kind of nasty.
Try to find a close hotel if you can. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriot *] and it was about a 30+ minute walk. Also I once walked with the drivers to the playing field. WOW! I think it was an even longer walk! The good thing is, in the pit area they have a screen that shows the matches =]
I don’t know if there are any events planned. But you guys can always find somehing to do for your team. Our team last year just walked around Atlanta to get to know it a bit. We went to the Underground [like a little shopping area]]
Taking a bus? That’s almost like 10 hours? Bonding time =] And sleeping time =] We took an airplane, which was good cause getting into our hotel rooms took awhile =/*
MARTA no longer takes tokens. The vending machines now take plastic, and sell cards with RFID tags in them.
Also, the machines now sell multi-day passes. If you are going to ride more that 1 or 2 times a day, that’s the way to go. For details on the new Breeze card fare system, check out http://www.breezecard.com/
My Junior year of high school ('04 - FIRST Frenzy)…my former team planned on attending 3 regionals and that would be it for the year. We went to our classic NJ regional, and then for our 2nd went down to Chesepeake (4-5 hour drive). To keep costs down and attendance up we decided to drive to our 3rd regional, Palmetto (~15 hour drive). Our team did amazingly in Palmetto and managed to win the inaugural event. Our board of education, impressed by our efforts, sponsored us to attend nationals…to keep the tradition alive we drove from NJ all the way to Atlanta (~18 hours). Let me tell you…those bus trips will do amazing things to people. There was a lot of bonding done on that 80+ hours on the bus that year, but the moral of the story is…FLY FLY FLY (if you can afford it)
the homeless people are like tourguides … my group and I got a little lost and a homeless dude asked us for some change and we asked where the hotel was and he gave us exact directions! amazing
Haha. You should of saw the “walk” from the pits to the stands in 2004. That was ridiculous. Thankfully, the “walk” has been about the same for robot and the stands over the last couple years. You’ll probably start the day running back and forth to the stands, but by the afternoon, that big screen in the pits is much more tempting to watch your match on. The production people do a decent job of covering the matches, so you might want to bring a “SOAP” box to hook into the feed.
You can uncrate your robot on Thursday morning (if no one else said this yet). The Wednesday night, is just something to ease the tension of the crazy morning on Thursday. Don’t expect to work on your robot if you come on Wednesday. Thursday is crazy … to say the least. Drayage lost our tool crate in 2005 and took several hours to find it. Kudos to the surrounding teams that let us use their stuff to unpack our robot crate (1398 … go robo raiders!)
Avoid the “event staff” people in the yellow jackets when needing FIRST related information. I’ve been lead completely in the wrong direction many times by them. They will not search you going into the pits, but they will search you going into the dome. Expect to pay $10 for a “meal” there. Expect to pay $4~6 for a drink in the dome, but the people that do the food … have a great sense of humor and if you give them buttons or something, they will usually wear them.
Ride the MARTA (like everyone else said), but plan ahead. Especially if you’re going to ride it at rush hours. If you’re flying in, stop by one of the MARTA counters in the airport and get a roll of tokens, much easier than camping out on the vending machines waiting for 30 students to get their tokens.
Watch out for the homeless people. They will sing and dance for you in hopes of money, and they will be glad to give you directions, but at night … some will also be glad to pickpocket you. There is a Hard Rock Cafe in Downtown, about 5 blocks from the dome. If you plan on eating there, plan on waiting for up to 2 hours.
Practice fields - IMO are a joke. There’s one for each division, and it’s been a full size field in the past. In previous years, they actually ran simulated matches … I don’t think they did this last year (but I wasn’t in the pits much, so I’m not sure)
Avoid the machine shop unless needed. This might be hard, since in the past there have been tons of teams with drill presses, bandsaws, lathes and mills in their pits. In 2005, it took our team 3 hours to get a hardened steel shaft cut (just cut; not even machined) … I walked over to check on the part, and the lady was holding it in her hand wondering what it was, because they lost the paper with the request on it.
Tell everyone back home … http://robotics.nasa.gov … and let them know what field you’re on. NASA does a lovely job on the webcast. It’s also on the NASA channel, but that goes from field to field throughout the day, so you might not even see your team on there. No internet connection in the pits or dome, but almost every hotel will have wifi (or wired). There are a couple of coffee shops/gift shops in the GWCC that have internet access at a price.
Cell phone reception isn’t the best depending on what part of the dome or pits you’re in. Remember, cell phones don’t like concrete. The dome and GWCC have plenty of both.
Most of all, have fun. Atlanta is a treat. You’ll be running around crazy the whole time … so be prepared Come find me and say hi … not sure if my team will be there or not (that will be determined this weekend). Either way … I will be. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I have a transportation question. We have a 25 person group. We were told that getting from the airport to the hotel (Holiday Inn Downtown) would cost $17 pp each way! We were also told that you could take public transportation for about $1.75 pp. I can see what the obvious choice is but how often does it run (we’re getting in at about 10:30 Wed. night). And, is that a bus or MARTA, and how close would it bring us to the hotel? Any info would be helpful.
I haven’t read the entire thread so I don’t know if people have said what I’m going to say but here we go
Things to keep in mind at Atlanta
The distance between the pits and the field is a big gap! They are actually in different buildings, the World Congress Center holds the pits and the Georgia Dome is the field. They are right next to each other.
If your team doesn’t have a scouting group then make one immediately! Between going to check out teams in the pit to watching matches to learn about different teams, having a scouting team is going to be essential if you want to succeed at the Championships.
Be unique! Do something special that seperates you from the other teams. Have something memorable about your team that makes people remember you. You’re looking to make a good impression and make a name for yourself seeing as how your new.
Put your teammates to work! If you’ve got people on your team doing nothing get them working. There are plenty of things that your teammates could be doing to help make the event a success, be productive.
Last but not least, have fun! The Championship Event is alot of fun and try your best to enjoy it. Its a chance for you to enjoy the culmination of all your hard work. I guarantee that all teams new to it will have a great time, it really is a special moment
Well that’s all I’ve got, hope that this will help alot of teams that are new to the experience.
The $1.75 figure is MARTA. Holiday Inn’s website says the hotel is 0.3 miles from the Peachtree Center station. The after 9:00 PM schedule is here. With a group of 25, you’re probably not going to be hassled too much on the train, even late at night. However, if you have a lot of luggage and tools and things, you may want to seriously consider other transport.
That’s on a MARTA train. The Holiday Inn is ~4 blocks from the Peachtree MARTA station (that’s a rough guess, if I remmeber correctly). If you call the hotel, they will have an exact distance. The CNN center station might be closer, but you would have to change trains at Five Points. If you got off at Peachtree, you wouldn’t have to worry about that. The ride from the Airport to downtown is about 25 minutes or so. Kind of cool during the day, because you get to see a lot of the city (the MARTA is above ground for the most part).
Come find me and say hi … not sure if my team will be there or not (that will be determined this weekend). Either way … I will be. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.