What does it take team wise in order to host a regional? I beleive that the San Diego folks put together a three year plan and started something like 10 new teams before they put together their regional for this year.
This would be in addition to the rent for a venue for the four days plus meal costs for volunteers, field rent, and I don’t know what else. Did OKC start a bunch of teams in the area? I read a previous post about Hawaii using the regional to start new teams. Something of a chicken or the egg first thing:yikes:
I’m guessing that would be one sponsored by the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association? Before getting into FIRST I built and raced electrathon carswith my Engineering 12 class. VEVA hosted an event called REV, at the time, down by Science World and False Creek where we got to race on a section of what was then the Vancouver Indy track. It is now in the process of being converted to housing for the Olympics.
And I am well aware that there are some very good value flights to Hawaii… Westjet flies there now, too… but even a good value flight to Hawaii is considerably more expensive than a nice bus to Seattle or Portland! Hawaii will represents a fund raising goal our students can aspire to!
Hope you have a good time when you’re here in Vancouver.
Jason
The reason their all booked, the Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver in 2010, around the same time as most regionals. if you want to pull this one off, it will have to most definitely have to be a week 5 regional
Norman is Botball country, a KISS Institute stronghold. FIRSTers would be wise to tread softly there - you might see some scary creatures, like this guy:
We do travel around a lot, but we do like to go to at least one regional near home, like the Midwest Regional, West Michigan, or BMR.
Though it can be fun to travel, sometimes I wonder about the merits of attending a third regional instead of going to one close regional and one that’s across the country. By going to other regionals, we get to know other teams better, but we see less of the other teams in Indianapolis. We kind of had this debate this year, and we eventually decided to travel to Long Island. Eight days of school would be a lot of days to miss. 
We may go to a far-off regional every year, but Hawaii is quite a distance. I don’t believe that we’ve gone to the west coast before, so we might concider that as a possible place to visit next year.
I hope all of you consider coming to Hawaii. There “should” be 48 total slots which we are pushing for, with a minimum of 32.
Which one of you out their are seriously considering attending?
I am sure teams would know by now as they would have to decide and start their fundraising campaigns.
We are already starting to fundraise for next year for mainland regional competition. As you can see, all these past years, Hawaii teams always had this “challenge” just to attend one regional.
It’s not quite final yet but team 395 has almost decided on Hawaii, especially if it’s not the same week as the New York Regional.
Our new Hawaii state science specialist in Education, Jeff Piontek, says that he helped you folks when he lived in New York as the district superintendent. He mentioned last year that you folks won the Pittsburg regional.
Do you know him?? He seems to know a lot about you folks.
Actually, when Boilermaker had it’s first year, it was a couple weeks before the Midwest regional. But I get what you are saying. Hopefully many teams will be able to attend both Wisconsin and Minnesota, but it isn’t a horrible thing if a regional gets smaller because FIRST is growing…
You’ll be missed. 2006 Finals still sits in the front of my memory banks. Perhaps we’ll catch you in Portland in '08. With the addition of San Diego, Las Vegas, and Seattle there are many local choices now for us west coast teams.
Hey - 103 is seriously considering coming to the regional in Hawaii, as are a couple of other east coast teams. Should be a blast.
Meh. Since KIPR (KISS Institute for Practical Robotics) is run by the guy that co-founded FRC Team 116, I wouldn’t be too worried. 
-dave
Although Hawaii is far away from Indianapolis, it’s over our school’s Spring Break for next year, so hopefully…
I wish our team could go to any of the new Regionals for 2008 (and our team does travel outside of the Midwest), but they are far away, and when we travel by plane, we fly out on Wednesay evening so we don’t miss school. All of the new Regionals are pretty far… 
Yay! Hawaii is finally in the FIRST regional family! Everyone better sign up quick because this one is definalty going to sell out fast!
It’s about time too. Not enough events near Texas. This year Bayou was an exception, but now with Oklahoma I think it will accomplish two things. It will make more teams in Oklahoma and also add to the Robotics Education Program of Oklahoma because Botball is HUGE there. The only thing is that Botball is during the FIRST season which may pose some problems, but for huge teams, it is a great way to split the team and/or to keep the rookies busy with the programming and let them do the mechie or control stuff in their later years.
Our team is excited to hear more regarding the Seattle Regional. In the meantime, Dean Kamen is here in Hawaii pushing FIRST to everyone possible. Here is a more detailed article regarding the FIRST in Hawaii Kickoff, as well as some glitchy video.
Or consider Botball as potential feeder program for FIRST by having middle schools compete. There is already FLL and Jr. FLL but then there are options such as EARLY and Botball.
Here in San Antonio, TX we have an initiative growing to get middle schools competing in Botball. (The architech for the Botball controller is Rich LeGrand whose lab/Co. is in Austin, Texas Charmed Labs)
Additionally, since SA is a big BEST area we are getting elementary schools to compete in GEAR city-wide while some school districts are also adding in EARLY neighborhood tournaments.
In our are we use a variety of programs to spread robotics that can be seen on the Houston Robotics website. We do EARLY, FLL, BEST, Botball, and FRC as well. And the greatest thing about all of these programs is that they all feed into each other… EARLY teaches the students a little bit about building robots, FLL teaches them programming and makes them think a little more about design, BEST makes them think about design but on a new level as well as some more programming, Botball teaches them about programming in depth and gets them ready for FRC which makes them look more in depth into the different types of engineering and lets them work with professionals.
Okay take note, my presumption in this regard was very far from correct and could in the instance of the the Texas and Oklahoma regionals be in direct conflict with it:eek:
Lone Star Regional
Katy, TX DATE 3/20/2008 - 3/22/2008
Oklahoma City Regional
Oklahoma City, OK DATE 3/20/2008 - 3/22/2008:ahh: