The 2014 Lone Star Regional will be it’s 15th Anniversary. It’s being held April 4-6th in it’s regular home at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown, Houston.
We have 62 teams registered for the event and possibly more still on the waitlist. This may be one of the biggest events in its history.
We’ll have at least 4 nations represented with teams from China, Australia, and Mexico joining teams from Arkansas, California, and Pennsylvania all coming to play with their new friends from Texas.
We have 7 rookie teams registered; 3 from Texas, 3 from China, and 1 from Mexico.
Since Lone Star is a Friday-Sunday event this year, it will be the last Regional of the year (New York City should be an hour ahead of us).
GRT had a great time at Lone Star last year. It is a shame that our home event SVR is at the same time. Lone Star is a class event that should not be missed.
118 - Won Alamo & KC
148 - Won Dallas
457 - Won Dallas
624 - Won Alamo and RCA
1477 - RCA from Dallas & World Champion from 2013
2848 - Finalist from Dallas
3481 - Finalist from Dallas
What, no love for 418? We won the Engineering Inspiration award at the Arkansas Regional, so we are also bringing a Wildcard spot to Lone Star. And we intend to give it to someone.
I could not be more excited for a regional. This is going to be a great regional to end the season before CMP. I think it will be a good segue into the MAR and Michigan championships, serving as a preview of the competitiveness. Combined with how well the regional is run and the stellar venue as always, Lone Star is one for the books.
Looking at the teams generating available Wildcard Spots I can’t help but speculate that most likely the Winners and Finalists will be 4 of the above Wildcard teams and therefore the only Wildcard pass-down would be the 3rd bot in the Finalist stack.
Who knows, anything is possible, especially if the old “Better to be lucky, than good” kicks in… BUT I sure do look forward to the District Model in Texas where the CHAMPS eligibility is spread out among more Tier 2 teams.
I have such respect and admiration for these Tier 1 teams and the performances they deliver year after year that as an FRC fan is awesome to consume.
I just wanted to let you know a couple of activities that will take place at the Lone Star Regional April 4th thru 6th.
Full Service a band from Austin, Texas will play at the Regional on Friday, April 4th from 5:30 to 7:15 p.m.
Teams will be making banners on Friday, April 4th for the Team Parade. An announcement will be made in the Pits advising when this activity will start.
Team parade at Opening Ceremonies on Saturday, April 5th.
The 2014 Lonestar Regional will include a VERY COOL bonus this year.
The Gatorzillas have helped to arrange for some LIVE MUSIC for all of the teams!! An awesome band from Austin, TX called Full Service will be playing live after the practice matches on Friday evening. The music will start at 5:30 (perhaps later if matches run late) and will continue until 7:15. You can check out their tunes on iTunes…or better yet, check out a FREE DOWNLOAD of one of the songs from their most recent album. Click the link for an awesome tune called Evergreen! http://fullservicemusic.com/index.php/evergreen-free-download/
All of their music is available on iTunes! Let’s be sure to welcome Full Service into the FIRST Family with a huge crowd on friday evening!
57, the horse so dark it even takes itself by surprise… I’m hoping 57 will have a better showing at LSR with a much strengthened arm system and some software and coaching bugs worked out. But we’ll just have to see come Friday, won’t we?
We fixed basically everything that wasn’t fixed in Alamo…At least on our practice robot, that is. We have a solid plan to transfer those fixes to the competition robot on Friday morning. Our shooter is much improved, our ball intake is much improved, our drive train is much improved, our autonomous is much improved (as shown in the video above). We believe we always had a good design for our robot during build season, but 6 weeks just wasn’t enough time to get all of our ducks in a row this year. During the time after Alamo, we have lined up all of our ducks and the mean, green Gatorzilla has chomped right through that line of tasty ducks and we cant wait for Lonestar!
Lone Star is a class event that should not be missed.
