With the addition of regionals in Toronto, Cleveland, St Louis, and Seattle, teams now have a total of 16 regionals to choose from. So… where is everyone going? why did your team pick the regionals you did?
Our team elected to go to the highly experienced Great Lakes Regional followed by the Toronto regional. We wanted to go to a regional where our team would get to see some of the more experienced and competitive teams, but also a new regional as well. For us, we had an interesting experience trying to pick regionals… Seven regionals all about the same distance (4-6 hrs) from us – Cleveland, Toronto, Philly, NYC, LI, New England, NJ.
…and then the Championship in Epcot because even though we auto-qualify from competing in 1992, we also make it on the ‘point system’ from winning a regional and awards last year.
We’re hoping to do alot of promotion of WPI at these events… so if any one is interested in heading to college here at all- definitely come talk to us at the competitions!!
Looks to be an awesome and challenging year- best of luck to everyone!
New Jerysey- Johnson & Johnson Mid-Atlantic Regional-because its closest to home
Long Island Regional- because we needed to go to another regional and since the NJ and PA regionals are the same week(which we usually go to both if they are seperate weeks) we are going to the next one closest to home.
Nationals- My team will be attending nationals we gathered enough points last year to qualify for nationals (sorry to all those who cant make it.)
If anyone can tell me about the Long Island Regional it would be appreciated, in terms of the venue, the experience level,etc…
As of this morning, we’re attending the Long Island Regional and Nationals. We have a very ambitious faculty, and they’d like to attend one other regional as well. That will probably be NYC as it’s nearby, but I’d like to go to UTC.
Like I was saying earlier, Brian, the Long Island regional is maturing, but it’s nowhere near the level of the Great Lakes or Midwest regionals. Most of the Long Island teams were spawned in 2000 and are maturing together. There are a few exceptions, like 263, 271, and 514. . . and some others. The biggest competition has always been among visiting teams, though.
The venue is large, I think. . . the only other regional I’ve been to was J&J Mid-Atlantic in ‘99. Long Island’s venue is much larger, and it’s brand spankin’ new. It couldn’t ever accomodate more than about 40 teams in it’s current configuration, though. If they moved some stuff around, we could fit lots of team. . .the pits would just wind up spilling out into the gym some.
On that note. . . Is pit arrangement something mandated by FIRST? Someone suggested that pits be ‘mixed up’ a bit to allow rookies to mingle with more experienced teams. If it’s something FIRST would allow, I’ll nag Christina until she pitches it to the lead organizer of the regional.
T190 went to Long Island last year and we can’t say enough good things about it.
True there were a lot of rookies, but the competition still went well due the the motivation and the amazing attitudes/outlooks towards the game that many of the teams had. They were there to have fun and learn about the game. In that sense it was less intense and more fun- although we had to work a bit harder to help orientate people with rules and ideas on playing.
It’s a great atmosphere and all the teams were very helpful to one another. We LOVED the venue, the party, everything about it.
We made some great friends in LI and it’s too bad we can’t go back there this year.
Best of luck to you- the LI organizers do a good job and you’ll enjoy your time with the teams there if it’s anything like 2k1.
And more teams is nice- but we enjoyed the size of it as well, because it allows for more play time by each team.
The Long Island regional has gone a long way since 2 years ago. And Michael, don’t forget about team 250, they’ve been around for quite some time, okay, the whole time. But anywho, I am actually help plan the LI regional this year, so if there are any suggestions, I’ll be more than happy to bring it up at the next board of directors meeting for SBPLI (the company that sponsors and plans the regional, it’s an acronym for School Business Partnership of Long Island). As we get more teams on Long Island, obviously, our regional grows. And, that of course, is because it’s a whole lot cheaper, travel wise, to go to the Long Island regional. So, like I said before, if anyone has any suggestions and/or comments about the LI Regional, tell me, and I’ll see what I can do about it.
Team 86 will be going to KSC regionals here in florida and, if I got everything right, the Championship. The biggest reason we chose that regional id because its close to home and we are a small budget team. Last year I was in VA, and I rather liked the regional there. It was somewhat small but had plnty of experienced teams. There are many teams there sponsored by NASA who will do anything to help anyone out. Not to mention, the staff there are really great guys (Dave, Jeff, and everyone else who make the NASA web cast work). The whole weekend is web cst for those at home to see. Anyway, that’s enough about VA. I don’t know anything about LI.
*Originally posted by J_188 *
**(T188) We’ll definitely be at the Canadian regional because we live there, and the Nationals (who could miss the nationals?).
Hopefully the Great Lakes too, but that depends on time and money **
As far as who could miss the nationals, too many of us. :-/
234 is going to chicago, cleveland and the nats. we were originally planning on going to toronto instead of cleveland but the date fell at a bad time. it is the week after chicago and during our spring break and it woulda just been too crazy and hetic. and we couldn’t not go to chicago because we have to defend our championship.
This will be our first time going to UTC. And our second time in NYC. We were thinking of Long Island for something different, but NYC has many more things to do.
I’ve already replied to this thread without actually saying where we’re going. Given the current situation, we hope to compete at the Virginia Regional and the New Jersey Regional.
Team 702 is going to Southern california, San Jose, and hopefully nats. If any teams are coming to socal and need help finding a place to stay i will put youtr team up . Just im me and ill do it.
SPAM will be attending, like every other year, the KSC regional and the Championship. Both are very close to home and…well…the budget doesn’t extend farther than that to go to other competitions (that is, unless us students want to pay for it out of pocket, which we’ve never had to do). See whoever there!
Team 330 will be attending the So Cal regional, Silicoln Valley, and the national championship. Hopefully our budget will allow my team to take everybody. It’s amazing what 125% student growth on your team will do to an already strained budget.
My team can only attend one regional so every year we make it a good one :). We always go to UTC New England Regional, it is a great way to see some of the top talent in the country, someday 166 will be that good to, we have alot of heart and alot of hope. My team will be at UTC and the nationals, can’t wait to see the teams that go to both places!
My new team - Team 830 - will be going to Great Lakes and Cleveland this year. Of course we hope to go to Nationals, and even though we’re a rookie team we’ve got a lot of FIRST alumni, so we’re crossing our fingers!
Team 131 CHAOS is going to the New England regional in New Haven for sure. It all depends on how we do there to see if Nationals will be in our future. It can be done!!!
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