Hi all,
I’m a fairly new coach (one year) and still learning the ropes here.
We are hopeful that we will be able to attend Championships in Houston for the upcoming 2025 FRC Championships and so I am trying to put together budgets and plans – to the extent that i can. I can estimate airfare, hotel and food fairly well, but transportation is a wild card.
How do teams get from the hotel to/from the competition each day? How about getting meals for lunch? Or for team dinners?
I expected that FRC would just set up busses with loops to all the hotels. But I hear that does not exist.
I also hear that a massive number of people attend, and I expect that renting minivans for 4-5 days will be impossible. I could rent busses with drivers, but I expect pricing at $60 per passenger per day, which for 30 people is close to $10K. Ouch!
What do teams do for transportation at the Championships?
Thank you.
-Kevin Shaw, Team 3045, Gear Gremlins
Yup, it’s a big factor a lot of folks forget.
Possibilities …
- rental vans (but gotta get enough adults willing to do this)
- stay within walking distance (pricey, and still have to work out airport transportation)
- work with a local team to see if school busses are available. (Assumes you got good friends in high places)
- give Uber a ton of business (risky that you will get there on time)
Historically for our team… We’ve never flown. The transportation that got us to the event is the transportation that got us to and from the hotel. For that to make sense, we also stayed at further-away and therefore cheaper hotels.
Now I’m not sure if this was the best way to do this, but it worked last year. My team rented cars (although if you’re flying you wouldn’t be able to rent cars from your town so it may be harder), and my mentors each drove a car themselves (14 hours to Houston) , we would wake up early enough to account for breakfast at the hotel, and the traffic to the world championship (which was a lot so wake up early!) The world championship has food in the form of food trucks, and some other sorts of food inside, we were able to find gluten free pizza for our celiac team member as well. For team dinners we would just find fast-food restaurants around our hotel (we ate a lot of chick-fil-a!)
Also check your school/org rules and state laws. South Carolina is particular about vans transporting students, and it is a regulation that is written in blood.
The Houston METRO system does have public bus service to both Hobby and Bush airports. Main issue I encountered was when a crush of FIRSTers with luggage all tried to cram onto the same bus on arrival. But otherwise, nothing notable.
When 253 (Millbrae - Hi Neighbor!) went in 2019, we stays inside the downtown loop. There was a free bus that we could catch to get to/from the hotel - otherwise it was about a 1 mile walk. We hired busses to get us to and from the airport. We had one or two sets of parents who also rented cars and took care of food for us - think things like Costco pizza and take-out.
I have 0 regrets with that set-up. However, I have no idea what we would have done if we didn’t get into a “walkable” hotel.
After being potentially able to go to worlds 3 years ago and not being able to because we didn’t have plans in place I’ve been doing a lot of planning for the team going to Houston for the last two years. I went to college in Houston and I’ve got a guy I can call for a lot of things we might need.
What I would suggest is you want to look at your ENTIRE trips cost. Not knowing if you are going to get a hotel downtown or not creates a really BIG planning problems and means you have to plan for two different trips.
Two years ago it cost $2k per person to go to worlds mostly because of last minute airfares of $1200 a person. We all flew and were in the club quarters hotel downtown which was about a half mile from the venue so we could walk or take the rail line. Club quarters was problematic, a crack pipe was found in one room and they only can hold two people per room. Because it was 2 people to a room it was actually a fairly expensive accommodation (the four seasons would have cost less per person at $300 a night for 4 people). We had a suv with a trailer bring our robot, pit, and everyone’s baggage to Houston which saved a LOT of money. Worlds costs being painful to families is why we started a non profit booster club.
Last year we took a 56 person motorcoach to Houston from Detroit that cost over $20k and another team shared costs with us, with non profit subsidies and cost reduction it was $800 a person. We signed bus contract less than two weeks before departure. A huge advantage of taking the bus is we had a bus for our entire time in Houston at no extra cost. This was nice because downtown food places get a bit mobbed by first teams and we could go more and cheaper places for dinner (I had reservations for most nights) which included a place with a fajita platter for 2-3 people for $20.
Note, we designed our robot so it could fit under the bus because we made an early decision about transit. We got assigned to a non downtown hotel (there were NO downtown options at any price) it wasn’t that big a deal because we had the bus, BUT everyone had to go to the competition earlier in the day with the drive team. One day we did bring food on the bus and everyone just went out to where the bus was parked and ate lunch.
This year we are going to fly and have a SUV & trailer bring the robot, pit, and bags again. Saving $35 baggage fees each way, a few airline tickets, and not shipping the robots/pit is likely going to be over $5k in avoided costs by having that one vehicle drive. If we can do airport pickup that’s even more cash we can save. Depending on the trailer we get we may have space to bring things for another team. And it’s possible we might run a collaborative shuttle from our hotel to downtown.
Yep. We’ve used both routes and it hasn’t been too bad for us. For the regulars using those routes for shorter commutes, I’m sure it’s a shock to see the whole bus full of people with luggage.
The METRO also has busses and trains that are reasonable for getting from many hotels to somewhere in the vicinity of GRB. We’ve become partial to staying in the museum or medical district and using the red trains. Should we make it back, we might be in a much different situation with the new, forced, use of Conference Direct for hotel booking. I’d assume that you might end up in a lot of places where local transportation is less good.
Check your school rules about transporting students while on field trips, particularly since you’re in California. Our CA public school district prohibits privately rented cars and vans from transporting students while on a field trip. We were required to rent a bus (very expensive!) and provide lodging for the bus driver at our hotel.
For future champs trips, we are limited to finding a hotel within walking distance despite the nightly costs.
As for meals, plenty of nearby lunch options within walking distance including a large mall-type food court (or parents/mentors who rented cars can supply food for the team). We usually had dinners in our hotel (or at a restaurant very close to our hotel).
We have always stayed at hotels that were within walking distance, so this item has never been an issue for us. I’m not sure what the hotel options are going to be under the new system, but all the hotels that we have stayed at in the past would not accept advanced reservations because they were part of the new system that FIRST has coordinated (we tried to make reservations before the new system was announced).
I think the furthest hotel we’ve stayed at was the Hyatt on Louisiana St. Even this distance was an easy walk. You need to leave enough time of course, but as I recall, it was 15 or 20 minutes to GRB.
Houston is a very walkable city, but like any large city, you need to be safe. We would always coordinate groups to walk together and made sure to use the buddy system at all times.
The only time we needed any transportation other than our feet was when we brought the FTC bot back to the hotel (Residence Inn on Dallas) for some late night fight club matches (sorry, practice matches). We decided it was better to use an Uber rather than carry the bot, batteries and driver station. But only one student and an adult took the Uber. Everyone else walked.
If you are looking up place names, Phoenicia is a very popular option. It’s a combination grocery store and restaurant and quite close by. There are a lot of faster food options in the The Highlight at Houston Center. There is a tunnel system that runs under downtown and there are quite a few restaurants in the tunnels. There’s not really enough time to go beyond the Lamar or McKinney tunnels for lunch though. Many food trucks park alongside the Discovery Green during Champs. They are very close by, but also have very long lines. Beyond these options, there are many more walkable restaurants if you are looking for something specific.
For dinners, options in downtown are plentiful. Try to get reservations wherever possible. There may be options near your hotel, but that obviously depends on your hotel. It’s always possible to take a bus or train to get somewhere farther out. METRO multi-day passes are available which will let you hop on any bus or train for the full duration of your stay.
We fly in to IAH, then Uber to our hotel. I think it took 8ish XLs?
We stay walking distance to the convention center, and typically have 1 rented vehicle for the duration of the trip. This is used for daily grocery runs, which let individual students grab food from the store, cutting down on their cost, as well as allows the team to pick up bulk breakfast to feed the team in the morning. For lunch and dinner, we let people fend for themselves, or opt in to the team option, which we’ll either have delivered, or send a mentor in the van to pick up.
Between the uber and optional rental van, transportation costs are super cheap, and the rental offsets the alternative costs of delivery/catering large meals and some student expenses, which is great.
We haven’t found that chartering a bus after flying in makes any sense.
862 has about 100 or so students on team so we tend to bring around 30-35ish students to worlds. with the amount of kids we bring it isnt as easy to book airfare for all of them to travel together. So we result to renting a bus for the week (Usually our driver is someone our lead mentor knows) . We make the 24hr straight drive (with food and bathroom stops) from Canton, MI to Houston and stay at a hotel right next to Hobby Airport. Most of the students bring snacks for themselves to eat during the ride and for the week.
For food our hotel offers the classic continental breakfast every morning, During the day the students are left to (for lack of better term) fend for themselves for lunch (aside from our drive team who obviously cannot go far from the center for long so the team will provide them with sandwiches) as there are plenty of food trucks and restaurants in the area around the GRB. At the end of the day we all meet in the lobby of the GRB and have the hotel cater dinner for us.
that was a lot reply for any questions 
I feel the struggle - our team is well over 100 students most years, and we flew with over 50 people last year (48 students?). We spent $1,000 per person in 2023 to get everyone on the same flight (the next cheapest option was splitting between 3 different airports). Fortunately in 2024, we were able to book well in advance and got the price down to under $350.
This is mostly what we did too. Our hotel was out by the Galleria, so we had one bus to catch a block from the hotel that dropped us seven blocks from the convention center. Maybe a 30 minute ride and easy as pie to do even with a whole team. METRO offers discounted passes for FIRST teams but they also have app ticketing so the kids can all just get tickets on their cell phones, which is really convenient and they won’t lose them.
We did have one set of parents drive down from NC (they just love driving long distances) and a couple of other parent-chaperones rented large cars/SUVs, so that actually covered our airport-to-hotel transport, since we weren’t all on the same flights anyway. The same flying back to NC. Our robot, pit, and other team equipment was very kindly transported in their trailer by a neighboring team. The three cars also let the parents do the food preparations wherever they wanted and just bring things back for the team for lunch on Discovery Green and cater dinner at the hotel at night or walk to one of the many restaurants around the Galleria.
I encourage teams to use the Houston METRO as much as possible. It’s actually a fairly decent transit system and can provide a lot of a team’s transportation, especially to and from the convention center.
This is very helpful. Thank you!
What our team did in 2022 is that we drove all the way from Milwaukee to Houston, even though it was three days or so. Most Wisconsin teams that go to the Championship usually fly, but since our team was small enough, we could drive in our school’s van. Like I said, our team has about ten students (including myself) and six mentors, so that we could have booked separate plane tickets (because the few direct flights from Milwaukee to Houston go to Hobby airport, which is closer to downtown), but everyone stays together. As with the robot, going through previous game manuals, you had to get a separate drayage company to handle it. But now, with Shepard Express out of business (technically), you have to ship it through air freight. But with METRO, it is an inconvenience for teams wanting to use the light rail lines, as they go nowhere near the airports in Conroe (Intercontinental) and Houston (Hobby, or unless somebody decides to find a decent bus line that goes to the nearest Red Line station).
Just drive there. They may or may not care.
Drive all the way to Houston from California?
Yeah, the school district will care. Guarantee they’ll care. This is, after all, California we’re talking about here.
Here’s the thing: The district may or may not find out, and may or may not care. But once they a) find out and b) decide they care, you don’t want to find out what they might do. It might be a slap on the wrist. It might be no more robotics team (and other penalties). You don’t want to find out.
My usual transportation in Houston when I’ve gone–admittedly, as a solo traveler/volunteer–has been to fly in, take the Metro (or other similar transport) to the convention center/hotel, walk everywhere for the next couple of days, Metro back to airport. Food, as a volunteer, mostly provided at the venue or nearby events.
Well, there goes that idea. Sometimes the school is a FRC team’s worst enemy.