This year due to some wonderful recruiting efforts by our Washington state local committee and the availability of Washington state grants we have a very large number of new teams in the State of Washington.
This is the good news. The not so good news is this gives us a significant problem in that these grants mandate these teams participate in their home state regional. So, in order to satisfy both the grant conditions as well as the needs and wishes of our out of state teams, we have devised a phased registration approach as follows.
During initial event registration the Seattle Regional will be open only to teams from Washington state, thus allowing the new grant teams to get registered and meet the grant requirements. Then, on October 23rd when second registration opens, all other teams will have the opportunity to register for remaining spots. We know that this will be a disappointment to many out of state teams, especially those in Oregon, Idaho or British Columbia, who might want to register for Seattle as their first event and then perhaps go to Portland, or elsewhere, for a second event. However, please know we are actively working with the Key Arena in Seattle to find ways to increase the number of teams that we can accommodate at the competition and, if that works out, which we believe it will, more places should open up for out of state teams.
We thank you in advance for you support and understanding as we work through the challenges some of our new, and unexpected opportunities bring.
Free money always comes with a clause, doesn’t it?. :yikes:
This sounds like the best way to handle that clause, while being fair to all the other teams who want to register as well.
This sounds similar to having spots reserved for the Championship Event for regional winners, so good call *FIRST *by following similar existing procedures, but just at a lower (competition) level.
How many rookie grant winners are we talking here are predicted to sign up for the Washington Regional btw?
Anyone know numbers?
To date, there are 31 rookie teams signed up in Washington State.
To date… 26 veteran teams (including around 10 that were rookies last year)
We will see how this shakes out. We also have increased rookie teams because of the Boeing grants and recruiting work that has been done by a number of teams and some very dynamic individuals at FirstWA
As veteran teams we really have our work cut out for us as many of these teams come from areas where there are no teams within a short distance.
We are excited to have so many new students involved in FIRST.
It will be a great year…!!
Congratulations to FIRSTWA! While we had a great time at the Seattle regional last year and were looking forward to seeing Key Arena packed with teams and spectators, we don’t mind waiting to let all the rookies in.
Perhaps if this growth continues we are going to need a third regional in the Pacific Northwest…
We’ve got a long way to go to get ready for something like that… a lot more local teams need to be started, and we’ll need some good government and corporate support, but something this exciting just a few hours south of us might move the provincial government to action.
It would be a most amazing thing to compete on “home turf”… but realistically there is no chance of anything like that happening until after the Olympics.
Mind you, I have to be careful about the word “realistically”. Realistically, what FIRSTWA has accomplished over the past few years shouldn’t have been possible either… as disappointed as we will be if we can’t go back to Seattle this year, I’m really excited for everyone in Washington. They have worked very hard and have earned every bit of this outstanding success, and hope that it keeps on growing.
We will loan you Kevin Ross and Team 1318 for a year or so and you will get a regional in Vancouver. All you have to do is house them and feed them and they will find teams.
Last Thursday we had a WA mentor meeting where Kevin showed a Google map of all of the teams in Washington. There were spots on the map that we didn’t even know there were cities, yet they have a FRC teams. ‘Hmm…’, I thought, ‘the map has something wrong with it because it has a rookie team in the middle of a forest.’ Nope, there was a team there.
We look forward to going to Vancouver and competing in the future, though we will need your help with the import/export paperwork.
Well, feeding Kevin wouldn’t be so bad, but I’ve seen what a robotics team can eat! It might be cheaper just to pay the entry fees for a couple dozen rookie teams that to feed a team for a year!
Looks like we will have additional room in Seattle. Numbers aren’t final yet, but there will be a number of fresh spots for second plays. We lost a couple of rookie teams to funding issues, and also increased the capacity of the event by rearranging the pit area.
Start thinking Seattle folks. Its a great time of year. The slugs will be in full boom!
Kevin
PS: I am not too picky on the food. No beets, catfish, (both taste like mud) or anything in the Faux Meat department (TofuTurkey, Tofu-Pepperoni, awe heck Tofu-Anything really).
Well, that is kind of sad about losing a couple of the rookie teams, but it is exceptionally good news for those of us from out of state who had a blast at last year’s MS Seattle Regional.
With the new downtown venue (and a possible shot at a one-day FRC attendance record, perhaps?) and dozens of new teams, this is going to be a great event. It is always fun to see someone at their very first FRC event as they try to grasp the… the… magnifellence of the event.
Very excited to see the team from Istabul! Wow, what a great trip it will be for them. They are being sponsored and supported by team #360 from Bellarmine Prep.
We should end up with 26 new teams. Several of the Washington teams are heading for Portland instead of Seattle just given the geography. They don’t show up on the Microsoft Seattle list, but are still teams we are supporting. Hopefully, they will find enough funding to come to Seattle for a second play.
For a while, we were looking at 58 teams trying to get into 51 spots at Key Arena.
We are still working on a few teams who haven’t found funding, but are likely to do so.
Will be a very exciting year. We WILL have room for you in Seattle for your second play. Come on up.
