FIRST Robotics Championships Coming to Houston - Starting 2017
 

FIRST has announced that the FIRST Robotics Championships will be held in Houston from 2017 through 2020 - for those teams who are in the right geographic regions. For 2017, the Championships will be April 19-22, 2017 and for 2018, the dates will be April 18-21, 2018.

Since the Championships will be held in the Convention Center, the Toyota Center and Minute Maid Field, there will be a significant concentration of high school and middle school students with strong interest in STEM in the immediate downtown Houston area for those dates. In St. Louis, teams would obviously go to the Gateway Arch and the City Museum in its downtown area with some opportunities to go to the Science Center and the Zoo and Forest Park.

While I've been in the downtown Houston area, I know that there's the Museum district as well as NASA Johnson Space Center down in Clear Lake. That being said, are there more attractions for STEM students especially in the immediate downtown Houston area?

David

Also it looks like the hotels are already blocked out
 

Just to follow up but it looks like Experient or whomever FIRST is using for travel and hotel room management has already booked up most of the prime hotels in the downtown Houston area - quick searches for April 18th (Tuesday) through the 23rd (Sunday) bracketing the announced championship dates of April 19-22 (Wednesday-Saturday) show that the majority of downtown Marriott and Hilton properties are not available already.

Hope they can do better than they did this year in St. Louis. And good luck to those teams who book their own travel.

David

2017 FIRST Championship in Houston - April 19-22
 

A reminder that the FIRST Robotics Championships begin this week in Houston. The travel/housing provider for the event estimates 30,000 people will be traveling in and out of Houston for the Championships.

The competition events will be focused primarily in the George R. Brown Convention Center starting Wednesday, April 19th and running through Saturday, April 22nd. The finals for the championships as well as the closing ceremony will be held at Minute Maid Field on Saturday evening. Additional events such as the Welcome Party will be held on Discovery Green outside the Convention Center on Thursday evening and the Houston Astros have made discount tickets available for FIRST teams on April 18th and 19th.

If you see a whole lot of folks walking around both IAH and HOU as well as downtown in similarly colored shirts and attire, that will be the FIRST robotics teams. Many of us arrive on Tuesday, April 18th and depart Sunday, April 23rd and teams may take time to go to other locations such as the Museum of Natural History and Space Center Houston. See everyone there!

David