New Regionals in 2008

Competition Regional Competitions
1

I just thought it might be nice to have somewhere to talk about the announced, new events for the 2008 season and the potential for other, as yet unannounced events in other cities. At the Championship Event, four new events were officially announced for the 2008 season.

  • Seattle, WA
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Honolulu, HI
  • Oklahoma City, OK

There’s been some discussion about how the Seattle event will affect the existing regional in Portland, OR and, specifically, whether teams from this region would be likely or willing to attend both. Seattle was home to Pacific Northwest Regional before it moved to Portland, so there’s some precedent for shifting the location of a regional, but what little I’ve seen, heard or read about this new event suggests that it’s meant as an additional opportunity to demonstrate FIRST to the community, not as a supplicant to what already exists.

I’m interested in what others teams from the northwest think about attending events in both Seattle and Portland. It seems these events will make it possible for a lot of teams to compete more frequently and further improve the level of competition in the region, as previously, the closest competition outside of Portland we could compete in was Davis, CA – a significant distance away. On the other hand, however, our team would very probably not be interested in competing in both Portland and Seattle, as we’ve found this season that exposure to other parts of the country can be vital to making a trip to the Championship a justifiable, worthwhile expense.

What’s the story behind Minneapolis? FIRST has been pretty weak up in Minnesota in the past, so who’s leading the charge to bring more teams to the area?

Hawaii is the new event everybody’s abuzz about already, no doubt because it represents a fantastic climate to escape to during dreary, boring March. I’m expecting this event will take place in the final week of events such that it’ll be possible to punctually ship robots to and from the mainland. Who’re the folks that are seriously considering going to the inaugural event? My team is excited for it and we’re already devising the fundraising activities we’ll need to have to be able to finance the trip – and weighing the value since it’ll almost assuredly come at the expense of another trip to Atlanta, GA. I’m less excited since I don’t like water very much and would be happier being nearer to Disneyland (by attending the Los Angeles regional) than I would be near a beach. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Wasn’t there a 4th location revealed at the championship?

3

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A - Oklahoooommmmmmma!

Edit: Oklahoma City is awesome.
They will put on a great regional. Wish I could stop singing now…Okla-homa, Okla-homa, you’re doin’ grand Oklahoma, Oklahoma, O-K

now I’ll stop…maybe

4

Yep – I added it to the original post. I couldn’t find video of the announcement, so I guessed at what I remembered.

5

Yup! That’s the one!
Interesting.
All the new regionals are out west.

6

'bout time Ed, 'bout time…come on out!

Edit: ok, just this one - YEE HAWWW!

7

To say FIRST has been pretty weak in MN probably isn’t quite right. FLL has been going strong here since the pilot. FRC however, has never been strong here in MN.

This year MN ballooned from 2 to 16 teams. Boston Scientific and Medtronic were a huge part of this growth with 11 of the 16 teams receiving sponsorship from one of the two companies.

FRC got quite a bit of exposure when 1816 “The Green Machine” demoed their robot at the MN STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Conference at the Science Museum of Minnesota. 1816 also helped start/mentored 3 or 4 of the rookie teams this season.

They also worked with Boston Scientific and the University of Minnesota to host the first MN FRC Kickoff.

Our team hopes to aid the effort to continue the program growth here in MN so our state can make a good showing in our hometown regional in 2008.

8

Aloha 488…

We plan on doing our own regional in Hawaii of course but hope to get enough money to come to your neck of the woods in Seattle too. Do you know when they are planning on holding it? We went their our first year in 2003 before it moved to Portland and loved all the things we could do around there. I hope to get our old number back…1056 although 2024 has been a good one for us this year.
BTW, if you folks are coming over here lets get together. We’re on the Big Island and would love to do a tour for your gang in some lava tubes or the lava flow (assuming its still going then??)

Aloha,

9

A lot of Minnesota teams went to the Wisconsin Regional this year, only adding to the greatness of the regional. However, I think with a new regional starting in Minnesota, teams will be split between Minnesota and Wisconsin and will have to make a choice. I’m very excited to see even more teams spring up next year, hopefully as a result of Boston Scientific and Medtronic sponsoring even more teams. They did a great job this year.

10

Portland vs. Seattle is the same GLR vs. DET regional debate. Some teams only choose one over the over (for MANY reasons) and some teams go to both because they can do it without over night expenses. Team 1023 goes to GLR because we have been there since our team was founded and we have a great presence (many teams and volunteers know us year after year). Then our 2nd regional is usually one we like to travel to so we don’t attend DET.

11

Finally we have a regional in Oklahoma. Everybody was shooting for one this year because of the Oklahoma Centennial, but we are all excited to have one in 2008. Big thanks go out to the Chickasaw nation, who will be the main sponsor for the event. All the teams should think about coming, I’ve been hearing some pretty cool things about the regional and can’t wait for it to be here. OOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA!..

12

This is similar to the New England Regional which was in Manchester, NH until UTC took over the sponsorship and moved to Hartford where their corporate headquarters is (Almost across the street from the current venue). Then BAE Granite state Regional was added in Manchester and Hartford kept the New England name until this year. It was finally changed after adding Boston to minimize confusion.

Surprisingly these events don’t really cannabilize each other for teams as many teams go to one and a farther away event.

13

I have already received word that the Minnesota and Wisconsin regionals will be 3 weeks apart. This was through a source at 1816 I believe. There will still issues with cost though, but if cost isn’t a factor for two regionals, they should be very accessible.

14

Any idea when they will announce the dates for this years regionals? Thanks.

15

Our team started to dream over going all the way to hawaii next year but then realized the cost of it for us. if we were to go we probably not go to nationals but who knows i would love to go out to the pacific.

16

I would presume that FIRST and the various regional event directors will schedule the multiple events in a region to not coincide so that teams can attend two regionals without the travel issues as already mentioned.

The Oklahoma event comes at the right time as the Toltechs are just now looking at doing two regionals and championship if we win. We have been fortunate to win our way and pay our way to Atlanta and then travel this year without a robot to Atlanta.

Our plans are to attend the OK regional early in the season and then continue to compete in the Lone Star regional. I expect that a significant number of the LSR teams will do the OK regional with another portion going back to the New Orleans event. It will be nice to compete against some of those Kansas teams that have ventured south to Houston in the past.

Along that line, we need a new regional in Central our South Texas. I so want to make that happen but need to make lots more $$$ contacts. The small step forward was hosting the local Kick-off here in San Antonio.:cool:

17

What’s the story behind Minneapolis? FIRST has been pretty weak up in Minnesota in the past, so who’s leading the charge to bring more teams to the area?

^sorry I messed up the whole quoting thinger…

I know that we(team 1816) have been spending countless hours trying to increase the FIRST presence in MN, directly influencing the formation of 5 teams and indirectly influencing another 9. We came home last year from competitions really excited to spread the program into MN, and made that one of our primary goals.

We missed a lot of school(haha) to go travel and promote FIRST Robotics in local high schools, and have established an excellent reputation within our own community, which is getting noticed by local and state media.

We also worked with Susan Lawrence to promote FIRST in MN by setting up a FIRST booth at a science and technology conference at the MN Science Museum, which was attended by 1000s of HS students.

Another major contributing factor to the growth in MN is a partnership we established with Medtronic, which led to Medtronic partnering with Boston Scientific to help sponsor many of the new MN teams. When we approached Medtronic to ask them to sponsor us they thought the program was so cool that they told us it was our job to start new teams.

We also had a presentation for Medtronic employees explaining how inspiring the FIRST program is, and asking them to mentor new teams, which helped secure mentors for new teams. This made it significantly easier for the teams, because they had funds available and mentors… so thank you very much BS and Medtronic!

One of our mentors, Mark Lawrence, has also been working tirelessly to establish contacts in high schools and help them start programs, and then Ken Rosen, MN Regional Director, has also been working very hard to generate interest in the program by traveling to high schools.

I also know that many of our mentee teams are excited to help start their own teams, so be prepared for the MN FIRST presence to get large very quickly.

Haha… a very long winded explanation for a very short sentence… but basically the growth in MN is due to the focused efforts of many, many people interested in seeing FIRST expand beyond LEGO League in MN.

18

Honolulu, HI

What Honolulu? Which team would be willing to go to this island? :cool: There are only a few team on Hawaii anyway.

19

I thought the Oklahoma regional was cool, but I was surprised it was in OKC and not Norman, at OU.

20

I love the city of Minneapolis. I’ve visited it many times and have always found something interesting to do. I was looking in that area of the country for college and was disapointed to find few FIRST teams. I’m glad that FIRST is creating a regional there and will definitly encourage my team to go (as well as my family members that live in Minneapolis!).