Chief Delphi - 900 teams?

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I have gone to the FIRST site http://www.usfirst.org/frc/map/ and I have done a count (I got bored one night) of all the teams in all the states and Canada and Brazil. The total count is 561 teams active in FIRST. Are there more teams than shown? I don't know.
If FIRST is going to allow 288 teams in the Championship and there are 561 active teams in FIRST there will be 1 out of every 2 teams going to the Championship. That sounds pretty good to me. Unlike the 900 teams I keep hearing about.
What is really upsetting is that there are about 150 teams that are rookies. That means that there area little over 400 teams with 2 or more years. Why are there so many drop-outs? :(

*clunk! clunk! Two pennies hitting screen*

Wayne Doenges

One thing I do know is that they started letting teams keep their # in '98(my first year,) and so the gaps actually started forming that year.

Quote:

Originally posted by Wayne Doenges
What is really upsetting is that there are about 150 teams that are rookies. That means that there area little over 400 teams with 2 or more years. Why are there so many drop-outs? :(
*clunk! clunk! Two pennies hitting screen*
Wayne Doenges

Does anyone know how many teams were rookies this past year? I know there were many but I'm not sure of the numbers. This could be a reason for the drop outs. Many teams cannot make it to the second year; especially if they are odd and cant get funding because they arent going to the championships.