As the 2008 season has come to an end:( , i was just wondering whether any teams went to back to back regionals. I ask this because we are hoping to do this next year. My main issue is whether the robot will arrive in time for the next regional.
Quite a few teams go to both Long Island and NYC, those events were during Week 5 and 6 this season. It’s very practical since the two regionals are only 20 miles apart from each other.
Thanks for that, i was thinking of those 2 regionals as well. Now we have to budget for hotels etc as were coming from london.
Anyone know any other regionals?
We won’t know the regional schedule til about September so you may have to wait til then for a definitive answer.
I was mainly talking about finance. It cost us £20000=$400000 to go to florida regional. If we go to 2 regionals, it’s gonna cost us almost double.
Thanks anyway
If you found a situation like this it would probably work out for you. That is just one extended trip to the NYC area and I’m guessing the drayage for both events is held out of the same facility.
We did back to back for the first time this year. WMR and GLR. No problem with robot shipping and the team missed no school because it feel during easter break. However, i don’t think the team would do it again because it just ended to fast. After six hard weeks, then bam ,bam, it’s over. Abit of a let down. Also not much time to work on things before next regional.
The west coast regionals are mostly within a day’s drive of each other and (last year) there was about one a week. The robots should arrive on time, if you try that. (Then again, it’ll cost more because you now have another 3000-4000 miles to travel each way by air.)
Wait until next fall to see what weeks regionals fall in. Another possibility not previously mentioned are VCU, DC, and/or Chesapeake if two of these events fall back-to-back. Team 359 from Hawai’i went to VCU (week 2) and Chesapeake (week 3) this year. New Jersey and Philadelphia are also very close together, but traditionally haven’t fallen close to one another on the calendar.
Coming from London, the airfare would be only about $30 more per person to San Francisco than it would be to New York. The major cost would be the extra week of hotels, plus meals.
Also, ground transportation would be a necessity, not only for getting from one regional to another, but it is usually most economical to return to the same airport to fly home. (Both airlines and rental car agencies charge more if you return via a different airport.)
In California, the best possibilities would include if Los Angeles and San Diego were back-to-back (2-3 hour drive between), or if Silicon Valley and Davis/Sacramento were back-to-back (2 hour drive). If you attended regionals that were further apart, such as Los Angeles-Silicon Valley, you might need an extra day for your return trip, so you would fly home Monday instead of Sunday.
Shipping for back-to-back regionals could be problematic, as described in Section 4.9.7 of the 2008 FRC manual.
A few teams went to Los Angeles, then to Las Vegas the next weekend. I didn’t hear of any robots not making the trip in time. But it’s only about 300 miles.
You can see who went to which regionals this year in the attached spreadsheet (it’s a little out of date, but will give you some idea).
Contact those teams and ask how it went …
Regionals2008.zip (72.6 KB)
Regionals2008.zip (72.6 KB)
Our team did back to back as did many Toronto based teams. Waterloo week 4 and GTR week 5. The drayage company is in the middle so there were no problems. Send me a note and we can discuss costs etc.
Thanks for that everyone. I’m pretty confident we will do back to back regionals if all the dates work out. Hopefully by 2010, London will have it’s own regional. Our team is looking to organise that. Hopefully some US teams will come over.
I’ve haven’t heard of any shipping the bot issues for teams doing back to back regionals. The cost of crossing the pond for two regionals… ouch.
I would suggest a extended vacation in the colonies… 
I would fly into a east coast or west coast regional then take Amtrak (our rail service here) to a regional on the opposite coast then fly home from there.
The train takes a few days to cross the USA and you’d get to see a lot of it.
Your really can’t see our country from 35,000 feet in a tin tube.
And I’m sure your team would have stories to being home from the adventure.
-p 
If GTR and L.A. were back to back in 2006, then that’s the only one I know of. I don’t think they were, though.
The Robonauts went from Lone Star to Bayou back to back and our robot made it on time.
The answer really depends on the location / seperation of the two regionals.
A few years ago, we went to Florida (Orlando area) and then Purdue (northwest Indiana). Our robot arrived at Purdue very late in the day THURSDAY and we worked with the transit company from wednesday afternoon until it arrived.
This year we did back to back Purdue and Western Michigan and had no problem, but these are much closer locations.
The Long Island and NYC regionals use two separate drayage facilities. The FedEx representative at the Long Island Regional told us that there was no guarantee that the robots would make it to NYC in time. However, I have not heard of any issues with robots not arriving on time. The Long Island regional usually has a FedEx truck on site on Saturday in order to expedite shipping.