Last night at the competition they announced that there is going to be a New Zealand Regional next year!
I was just curious to see what teams were thinking about going to attend the regional next year. Let me know if you're team is definetly going or are thinking about it.That would have to be one expensive trip!
Are there currently any FRC teams in New Zealand?
No, but there will be next year.
Will there be enough new teams for the regionals by themselves? I.E. 12 or more teams?
Wow, either way a regional for itself that is cool. When is Australia joining in? 
I don’t think any teams from the US or Canada will be going to that regional, at least not for the first few years. Like the Israeli and Brazilian regionals, it will most likely be filled with local teams.
I think it will be interesting to see how this goes along without a pilot event. I understand that FIRST is stopping with the pilots as a result of the large financial risk, even though it will be much more challenging to start international full-scale regionals.
Our students were very excited about the notion of competing in New Zealand (or Isreal, Brazil for that matter) until I checked on airfare… $1500 is a ballpark figure, maybe a bit less if purchased enough in advance. So at a cost of almost $2000 per person and add in that shipping cost - YIKES!!
I’ll bet some $100 bills that 233 goes 
Yes, it will likely have more teams than either Israel or Brazil did their first year. Otherwise my New Zealand regional t-shirt might become an antique real fast. 
Seriously, this event is going to be a lot of fun and one of the best first-year events around.
I actually wouldn’t mind going (either to compete or just as a spectator)
I hope we go. We made pretty good friends with a few of them. They were great to talk to. Some of our team mates were very saddened to see them go.
I heard that 3 North American teams will be going, with 27 rookies from NZ being there. I heard a few #'s dropped, I won’t confirm until they do.
They’ve already tried to get my dad to go and myself, so lets see how this goes…
I can say that many of us on 179 are drooling over that one. We’ll need to start looking at the details soon I guess. Or just watch what pink does 
I would also love to go…but trips to that region are usually for extended periods in order to make the time and cost of travel worthwhile (13 hours from LA and over 1K$). This could be a problem for teams in mid-March with school and work. Most of my friends that have been there went on a 1-2 month Australia-NZ trip.
Is there something you know that I don’t? :yikes:
i would second that
That’d be so awesome…
i heard that pink and the poofs are the founding teams of the new zealand regional and were the ones that brought it to FIRST’s attention… so if that is true, I believe that they will be going.
and as the money goes… teams better start the 09’ season right now and fundraise their butt off if they want to go!!!
Maybe if we worked our way over on a tramp steamer, they would take the robot for no additional charge?
Epsilon Delta won the NYC RCA (partly) because of this, so I’d assume that they would be one of the North American teams going.