FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams of Georgia:
Georgia FIRST is excited to announce! After many months of venue walk-through’s, budget talks, and big picture thinking, the GeorgiaFIRST Board of Directors, Advisory Council, and FRC Planning Committee have committed to hosting a second regional event in our state. This second event will take place in Perry, GA at the Georgia National Fair Grounds and will be a Week 1 regional event (Feb 26th-March 1st).
What this means for you as a FRC team:
The Peachtree Regional Event will still be held at the Georgia World Congress Center and will be a fifth week event, March 26th-28, 2015. There will be no change to the structure of this event. The Peachtree Regional will still qualify six teams to the championship event in St. Louis, give out the same number of awards, and be run by the incredible volunteer base. The great news is that the new event in Perry will also qualify six teams to the championship event, give out the same number of awards and be run by an incredible volunteer base (with a few new faces). As a Georgia team, you will now have an opportunity to play in two FRC regional events without having to travel outside of the state, if you choose to do so. Keep in mind that any second event requires a second registration and fee. The exciting news is that we could potentially send twelve merit based teams on to the championships. Georgia would be represented in a big way!
Where we need your help:
The new event needs a new name! We are reaching out to the Georgia teams to help in this decision. Give us your best suggestion for this new event keeping in mind a few things: this event may need to change locations year to year, therefore the name should be universal (not specific to Perry or Middle Georgia). Also, remember the name is a representation of our state. We want to make it easily branded, just like the Peachtree Regional name has become. We will take all suggestions into consideration. Take this challenge seriously and help us start the new regional event off right!
As a new regional event, we decide the event schedule. What this means:
A) Do we want to run this new event with the traditional three day schedule of Thursday, Friday and Saturday or B) run this event with a schedule of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Either option would still have a load-in day prior to the event starting and run the same length in day as the traditional event schedule.
Tell us what you prefer and most importantly, why you are choosing that event schedule.
Option A: Thursday, Friday and Saturday Option B: Friday, Saturday and Sunday
As a little side note, as they asked specifically for Georgia teams to respond, if I could through a consideration out for a name “Southern Empire Regional” or if going for something with history behind it “Pemberton Low Regional” though you may have to contact some estates for those two names
Has that ever been a thing? Seems like South Florida is traditionally a late event.
This is a tremendous thing for the region as a whole. Peachtree and Palmetto have been absolutely stuffed to the gills the past couple years, Orlando fills up about as fast as ever, and the area really needed another event of capacity to serve the present demand. If it weren’t Week 1 (same as Palmetto), we might even consider it.
As for a name, I looked for some big thingsout of Georgia. I suppose the Daisy Duke Regional, Walking Dead Regional, General Lee Regional, and Madea Regional are out. (And the “Miss Daisy Regional” would just be confusing.) Edit: For a not-Atlanta-but-Georgia reference: Shiny Happy Regional?
There was a questioning about switching to week 1 and a vote was held but the votes were to close to call one the majority. Mostly because of week 6 being Easter, and the possibility of getting the venue for cheaper.
Couldn’t agree more about the Northern Southern Events (boy that is confusing) have been at capacity for awhile, and with more and more districts popping up it is only going to get tighter, although we are in a different mindset, even if South Florida is week 1 our team is talking about attending this event for a change of scenery
I think its gonna be called the Piedmont Regional. Other options I thought of would be the Mid-Georgia Regional or the Oglethorpe Regional(read up on Georgia history for this).
I think Kudzu would be a great name for Georgia’s new regional; since its future home(s) could be anywhere within the state (outside of Atlanta) over the next several years and it does travel well. Plus Kudzu is just fun to say.
I’m for Oglethorpe, since that’s a Georgia-specific thing, as is (to an extent) Peachtree. I can’t fill out the survey, though, since I don’t know what dates my team can go, if we can go at all :(.
Given that the most famous person from Georgia, Jimmy Carter came from a line of Peanut farmers.
I’m not from Georgia so I will not submit the name officially, but feel free to take the idea.
We have not made a public announcement about the name or format. Check the Peachtree Regional FB page, and any email blasts from GeorgiaFIRST for more details; we hope to have it out soon for everyone.
