FIRST Orange County is proud to announce that a new FRC regional will be joining the Southern California lineup in 2016. Our inaugural regional will be Week 5 of the competition season and based out of Valencia High School in Placentia, CA. This event will be open to 40 teams and is sure to be a competitive and exciting regional. Our regional planning committee is working hard to put together the best regional in California!
In the mean time make sure to follow our social media to get all the updates about the event as they are announced. We hope you are as excited as we are!
What: Orange County Regional
Where: Valencia High School, 500 Bradford Ave, Placentia, CA 92870
When: Week 5, March 30 - April 2 (Wed to Sat)
Capacity: 40 teams (32 open at registration)
I am thrilled that OC is getting their own regional. As an experienced Regional Planning Committee member, I would like to thank everyone on the OC RPC for their work and dedication to getting a regional in the area. It is hard and sometimes thankless work, but we do appreciate your time and effort!
I know Dona and I will be stepping up to volunteer to help make the regional a success. I would encourage other teams in the area to consider volunteering as well (get signed up in VIMS, make their VC job easy!). Two of the hardest things about running a regional is finding money and volunteers.
I can account for one volunteer. (Now I’m starting to understand why the Northeast has it so good–with two regional events I can commute to for the first time.)
Hey guys, we have a lot of volunteer spots open at the regional, please sign up on VIMS, we have been adding people everyday!
If you have signed up and not yet been assigned be patient
Thanks!
The committee is very excited so many teams want to come to our inaugural regional!
With that said, the we unfortunately can’t accommodate all the teams on our wait list. When we have more information we will send out emails to the teams, but please have back up plans in case you do not get into OCR. Thanks!
If it’s anything like the last fall classic, I pity the teams scheduled to compete. The only way in and out of the pits was a single door barely capable of allowing one robot to pass through, and immediately after you exit the pits, there’s a sharp 90-degree turn to the left. (forming a small area just barely capable of holding 2 robots) The congestion was understandable for an off season event, but it would be ridiculous for a regional. That’s not even mentioning the field. Our autonomous didn’t work because the tape indicators were improperly placed and the refs wouldn’t allow us to correct for it. Our robot was also beached several times because the scoring platforms were not accurate to the official drawings. The lack of chute doors, while a minor inconvenience, would have been cheap and easy to fix.
As this will be an “official” event I don’t expect field inaccuracies to be an issue, but I don’t see an easy way to solve the congestion issue, other than relocating the pits or cutting a massive hole in the wall.
Also: heads up, the pits were sweltering. Ambient temperatures hovered in the 90’s.
Keep in mind, this is only my experience from the fall classic, it might be completely different for the regional.
A regional and an offseason are two completely different animals. For one, a regional will obviously have an official field, so your concerns about that will not be an issue. The RPC is planning on adding A/C to the venue after the experience at the Fall Classic, and already has traffic patterns designed to minimize congestion. There’s more room in the venue that can be used given a full production team that could not be used in the offseason.
That’s good to know. The lack of AC and horrid congestion were the deciding points for out team choosing to instead attend the Ventura regional. It’s too late now, so we’ll keep that in mind for next year.
Our very first OC Regional is just 16 days away! Super excited to kick off this event with a great group of teams.
Please consider volunteering! If you are with a team attending the OCR or will be in the area, we could really use your help. If every team attending provided one volunteer, we’d have every need filled. Sign up on VIMS ASAP!
