Anyone going to the VCU championships? If you are post it here and lets talk about some things. I live here so I can tell you some cool things that you can do here. I’ll try to answer all questions atleast over onec a day.
Joe:
Plan on being in Richmond for Regional, any advise you can give me to present to our team #905 would be appreciated. Were to stay, if we have a choice. What should we plan on seeing around the area. ect
Team 190 will be heading to Virginia 
yay!
For anyone who isn’t aware yet -
FIRST has posted the forms and information for making hotel reservations for regional competitions. If you check here, you can see which hotels are “FIRST approved” and have discounted rates. Your team’s travel coordinator must make the reservations.
Ya, you can get a cheep rate using the FIRST discount, but if you need to make reservations (large team, etc.) thing about it. I’ll get back to you on the hotel info, but here are some things you can do around town…
-Capital Building Tour- It ain’t D.C., but it’ll do. A short tour through the VA capital.
-Confedrecy Museum- OK, you realy don’t want to go, but her it is. Only in Richmond do we celebrate them.:rolleyes:
-Monument Avenu- Some say it is spectacular to see the statues as you drive down, but they are all dead Civial War vets (some say there second place trophies)
-Scince Museum of Virgina- Recently renovated, it has an iMax screen and other things.
Food- I’ll get back to you on that one. I thought I knew everything, but I didn’t so I’ll research it for you. But there is a small snack stand in the VCU stadium that serves pop/soda, chips, and hot dogs. I don’t live down there, so excuse me.
Hope to be more help latter!
I’ll definitly be at VCU again this year. Had a good time last year, even though we made some really stupid mistakes during the matches!
~Tom Fairchild~, who luckily doesn’t have band festival conflicting this year.
Remeber 384. Were were #1 seed and blew out a motor on the ram and cost us the game.
Team 365 will be coming down to VCU this season. The Drexel regional is at the same time as the Rutgers regional this year…so here we come! I’m pretty sure we’ve already made travel arrangements though. Thanks for posting local stuff to do, if we have any free time that is…
Since you’ll be watching TV durring your stay (:rolleyes: ), here are the TV stations that may be of some intrest to you…
35- Fox
6- CBS (for Survivor!
)
8- ABC
12- NBC
46- NASA (so you can watch the other FIRST events)
24- Discovery Channel
47- TLC
244- Tech TV
There are a number of great places to eat in Richmond. One of my best recommendations – good for the whole team – is Bottoms Up Pizza. They have some of the best pizzas you will ever have the opportunity to eat. You can dine-in or take-out. These are not your typical Dominos/PizzaHut/PappaJohn’s pizzas.
For more information about our fair city, go to richmond.citysearch.com.
I hope you have a safe trip to and from Richmond.
Matt
Team #400
St. Michael’s School
Blue Dragons
Programming/Controls Mentor
For those of you who believe that the most exciting part about the Regional Competition is the collecting of buttons and other such nick-nacks(and I know from experience last year that these people do exist), I was wondering whether people would prefer buttons (that put holes in your shirts) or stickers (that would lose their stickiness eventually). Would you prefer stickers, given that new ones would be provided daily? Remember, if you don’t want to put the sticker on your T-Shirt, you could put it almost anywhere else. Please give me some input on this; our marketing committee doesn’t know which to use.
Thanks!
-Eddie
P.S. See you in March!
*Originally posted by Tom Fairchild *
**I’ll definitly be at VCU again this year. Had a good time last year, even though we made some really stupid mistakes during the matches!~Tom Fairchild~, who luckily doesn’t have band festival conflicting this year. **
HEHE Tom, I remember VCU last year… A certain someone was driving back from my High School wearing a certain cheesy stage tux… HAHA! That was fun. I wish I could be at VCU this year but sadly it’s a long trip from northern florida 
So the “Saucy” chic will have to wait until Nationals to see everyone from VA again. By the way there was a really good Olive Garden somewhat near the auditorium. And most of the hotels there will be filled with FIRST people so don’t worry about being bored, just wander the hallways and talk to people. But don’t use the dead bolts to block doors open if you are running back and forth between rooms, especially if you are bleaching your hair… you may get a lecture about hotle safety by the security guard and get strange looks from him… hehehe
What time will the events begin and end on Thurs.,Fri., and Sat., at VMC. Were exactly will they take place. I need to set up a schedual for our Rookie Team.
We’ll miss you at VCU Carolyn!
Yes, Team 401 will be at VCU again, and this time we’re not going to lose by 10 pts in the very very very final match of the finals.
You person/peoples from 190, your college won’t stop sending me info on the college. I’ve not heard much about the school, how is it engineering wise?
And boy, I’m looking forward to having teams that were there from almost the very begining. 190, 7, and of course I always enjoy 116 and 122 being there. And good luck to all those rookie teams out there, there’re a lot of them coming. VCU is the second largest rookie attended regional. Something like half of the 70 teams there are rookie teams. Of course I think there are only 25 or so teams that this is there 3rd or higher year.
Either way, it’ll be fun.
I think the average years of experience is 1.5 years at VCU this year, with one year being a rookie team.
Makes strategy more interesting being a 4 year vet and having all the rookies, but they make it more fun.
Wetzel
Yeah, according to the 2002 Team Roster, which I haven’t updated since October, average experience at VCU is 1.86 years, with the So Cal and Silicon Valley regionals being the only two with less (1.33 and 1.76, respectively). I am sure there will be some great Rookie bots and teams, as there always are. and I agree that the mix of veteran teams with first year teams will make for interesting play and strategy. I can’t wait to get to the competitions!
I want to be in a match with 401 or 927 as an alliance partner…
To whom do we give our list of prefered partners?
I haven’t heard much about 927, who are they?
927 is a local first year team of homeschoolers that we are mentoring and making drive shafts for on our lathe.
We’re looking forward to hopfully play with 116, 122, or 825. 825 is the team we’re mentoring. Isn’t this team mentoring team stuff great?