Team Leaders, welcome to the inaugural Great Northern Regional (https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/ ). The event venue is the Alerus Center (http://www.aleruscenter.com ) in Grand Forks, ND. Not familiar with the inspiration for the name, check out the Wikipedia article on the Great Northern Railway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) ). Here are some logistics to be aware of in making your plans for the event.
Please review the Rules & Expectations for FIRST Robotics Competition Events (https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/frc/event-experience ) manual. It details team conduct and many of the “to-do’s” for before and during the event.
Load-in
For this year only, there will be a break from tradition and load-in will not occur on Wednesday evening. Teams can begin load-in on Thursday morning at 7:00am. A driver must stay with the vehicle at all times. When curbside drop-off is complete, the vehicle should move to parking or return to the hotel. Only 5 people (one must be an adult) will be allowed in the pit for setup. For safety purposes, robots will be directed to a holding area so that they are not in the pits during pit setup. Once a team’s pit setup is complete, the robot can be retrieved from the holding area and returned to the team’s designated pit. When a team’s pit setup is complete, the setup crew must leave the pit area and not return until 8:30am when general access to pits begins. Please tell your students and appropriate mentors about these changes. Also at load-in, the Railcars will be directed to their proper location.
Food
The Great Northern competition is held in the Alerus Center which has vendor contracts that prohibit the public from bringing their own food and drinks to an event. This rule applies to teams and spectators. Your cooperation in getting this message out to your team and all the spectators is greatly appreciated. Team members are encouraged to bring empty water bottles, as there will be refill stations around the venue.
On-site lunch options will be coming soon so watch the Lunch page (https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/great-northern-lunch/ ).
Railcars
Many of you are familiar with the Junkyard Robots at the Duluth competitions. We have a similar program at the Great Northern. In keeping with railroad theme, we’ve put together a build-your-own railcar contest. See this page for the details (https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/great-northern-railcar-competition/ ).
Hotels
In case you haven’t made your reservations yet, here’s the web page listing the hotels with reserved blocks of rooms for our event (https://mnfirst.org/the-great-northern-regional/great-northern-lodging/ ).
Regional Event Ambassadors are student that help guide invited guests and other attendees through our events. Each team is invited to have one student submit for consideration to be a Regional Event Ambassador. Applications should be made via FIRST VIMS (https://login.firstinspires.org/core/login?signin=d68a40717b684d82bab89c8138290671 ). Questions, please write to Laurie Shimizu, lshimizu@firstinspires.org. Ambassadors will be called upon throughout the event and immediately after the Invited Guest Luncheon on Friday at 1:00pm. Training for this position will be on Thursday at a location and time to be announced.
There will be a field worth of carpet that can be distributed to teams after the event during teardown. Please contact me if you’d like a piece of carpet (markl56821@aol.com )
Regards,
Mark Lawrence
Chairman, MN FIRST Regional Planning Committee