Re: Registration 2013
 

Right. I just misunderstood what you said, my bad.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Just curious, of the regional only teams, which 6 teams are going to 4 events? (I would assume many of those would be 3 regional + CMP)

Re: Registration 2013
 

Easy enough to figure out by looking at the CMP team list. It's actually up to 7 "regional only" teams attending 4 events.

16, 118, 148, 233, 359, 1114, 2056

Re: Registration 2013
 

3 of those 7 teams are all going to be at SVR week six...wow

Re: Registration 2013
 

These are not regional only teams. They are attending champs.

Re: Registration 2013
 

He means all regionals+CMP, as opposed to teams in a district system.

Re: Registration 2013
 

This regional better have a webcast, otherwise, I would consider flying across the country to see it (only mostly joking haha). A showdown between 254, 233, 148, 118, 973 and 971 should be absolutely epic! Not to mention the other 52 teams there!

For some interesting stats (note: taken from FIRST site which tends to have some erroneous data, but should be close enough). Between these six teams there are:
55 Regional Wins
21 Regional Finalists
14 Division Wins
5 Championship Wins

Incredible!

Re: Registration 2013
 

An interesting point is raised: what would be an equitable method of allocating CMP slots to a district? Right now we have only 2 district systems, but what happens when there are a dozen? Are districts like FIM doomed to be forever frozen to three regionals' worth of slots?

C'mon, we're smart people, surely we can solve this?

Re: Registration 2013
 

Once everyone is at a district system, I say we go by proportions. These proportions can change throughout time.
For example MI has 207 out of 2560 teams (8.086%). Besides the teams that already qualified for things such as Einstein 2012, HoF, sustaining teams, etc, there is 367 slots. In a perfect world, we should also get that percentage of teams at CMP. This year, we would get about 30 teams plus pre-qualified teams.
That number looks much better than the 18 we currently get.

Now on the other hand, CA would get fewer spots. Under that same system, they would have 31 spots. This is fewer than their current 36.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I made a chart of how many slots each area would have if we went district. The number of slots is calculated taking away Hall Of Fame teams, The previous years winners, engineering inspiration award winner, and teams sustaining since 1992

Re: Registration 2013
 

Simple: Your district's size relative to the entire FRC population in 2013 dictates the number of Championship slots available in 2014 (provided that awards that would qualify a team at a traditional regional will get you through to Championship all the same).

Now, when there are so many districts that 6*regions is greater than the reasonable capacity of Championship...we'll have to have a long look in the mirror.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Nice work.

You could add two columns fairly easily, I think. One that shows the number of CMP slots allocated to each area now, and one that shows the difference between an all-district allocation and the one we have now.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I will do that now should be done by tomorrow morning the earliest

Re: Registration 2013
 

There is (and has been for several days now) 207 teams in MI. That extra team would bump us up to 30 teams.
Also, in CA, there are 6 regionals, not 4.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I just checked again on the first website and you are sitting at 206 teams still, but you are right about California so I have changed it accordingly

So most gained:
Michigan: 11
Mexico and South America: 6

Most Lost:
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Quebec: 7
Arizona, Nevada, Utah: 7
Ontario: 6

Re: Registration 2013
 

Huh, one must have dropped out between this afternoon and now. Wonder who.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Looks like FIRST has been busy brainstorming reconfigurations. Check out slide 8...

http://www.nefirst.org/2012/07/28/town-hall-meeting-ct-recap/

Not crazy about what appears to be a disproportionate allocation of CMP slots for international teams in the near future.

Re: Registration 2013
 

What scares me more than anything else about that model is the number of events it would require teams to attend. Under this system, a team that attends CMP is looking at five events. 2 districts + district CMP + SuperRegional + CMP. I understand that there are teams that do it right now, but IIRC fewer that number is below 10 teams, and most of those do it by choice (i.e.: MI/MAR teams that choose to go to an outside regional), and this new systems has over 200 teams doing that.

That's a lot of time for students and mentors to miss, no matter how you look at it.

Having said that, I like the idea of a smaller 240 team CMP. It leads to having divisions where you can actually play with/against most of the other teams, which you can't currently do now with 100 team divisions.

Re: Registration 2013
 

My question is, how big are these super regional's that they will have 54 teams from them moving on to the championship/how are they going to decide which 54 teams? Are we sure that the super-regional is an event? It could just be a geographical labeling used to separate teams in an organized manner, I feel like that makes a lot more sense.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Well considering that international teams include Canada it is not as bad as it seems.

EDIT:
Also what is a flex event?
and It says no changes in awards/medals I am pretty sure that we have had a lot of complaints about how wimpy the district trophies are....

Re: Registration 2013
 

flex events are lower cost regionals. They may be held in a high school, the A/V cost/standards are lowered, in the past they would have been B&T vs ship.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Another issue with a Super Regional concept is that teams will find out very late in the season that they qualify.
I know this still happens now for late qualifying teams at Week 6 & 7 events, but not for every team. Imagine 200 or so teams struggling to find registration money, make travel arrangements and notifying school boards at the end of Week 7, just 10 days before they have to travel out of state.

This problem was reality last year, for late qualifying MAR teams and would have to be solved before we scale it up for 240 teams.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Here is something funny, the totals on the chart are for 2011 with 2013 numbers I believe:

North Super Regional: 704 Teams
East Super Regional: 560 Teams
South Super Regional: 515 Teams
West Super Regional: 551 Teams

I am pretty sure at almost 1/3 of teams the North Super Regional needs to have teams redistributed

Re: Registration 2013
 

It might be possible to move a state or two into a neighboring region, but I think it would be better to award championship spots proportionally instead of awarding exactly 54 per super regional.

Re: Registration 2013
 

This is normal for high school athletics who find out at the end of their season they qualify to go to state championships...

I do think the current timeline for FIRST will have to change... Maybe Championships in June after school gets out? As it is now, many of my team members won't go to the CMP (if we make it there), simply because AP testing is so close.

Re: Registration 2013
 

In most places, going to the state championship does not involve coming up with $4000, transportation to and from another state for students and a robot, and 2-3 nights at a hotel. There is also typically not a national or world championship for high school sports. FIRST is entirely different in this regard.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Actually, it turns out that our kids missed fewer school days last year than ever before. Both MAR districts we attended were Sat-Sun events (no days missed), NYC Regional was Fri-Sat-Sun (1 day missed for core group only), MAR DCMP had them missing 2 days, and CMP had them missing 3 days - total 5 or 6 days for 5 events.

With this new super-regional concept, tied with a district model, one might imagine more Sat-Sun events.
Some schools would not permit school travel when school is not in session. But I could imagine mid-May as being a viable option.

Re: Registration 2013
 

The problem with mid-May is AP Exams. I think no matter when thigns are scheduled, there will always be some sort of conflict.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Regarding the volunteers, it can happen. When Michigan switched to districts they went from 3 regionals to 6 districts and the state championship.

Michigan requires all teams to supply 2 volunteers to an event each season (It does not have to be events you are participating in as a team).

Re: Registration 2013
 

So, Bedford is the newest Michigan District to take up the growth to FiM 209 teams.

A Friday/Saturday event though: 05-Apr - 06-Apr-2013

Bedford High School
8285 Jackman Road
Temperance, MI

Re: Registration 2013
 

No school travel when not in session? About every school in our area does athletic camps and summer camps and leadership camps during the summer. Many of them are overnight and out of town. I think it is very doable.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Registration is at 2555 2556 and still changing now that FIRST staff are back from the holiday break. One Western Canada Regional rookie team dropped out this morning, and Peachtree added one.

The peak was 2571 registered teams, before it fell back.
A rough estimate of 400 event slots are open and unassigned. The districts haven't filled their double rosters yet though.

The smallest Regionals are Waterloo and Western Canada at 30 teams each.

Here are some registration charts to play with.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I neglected to mention that FiM has rounded out their District team rosters.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Interesting that the 2013 season holds the record for retention rate at present, as well as one of the highest year-over-year drops in Lost teams. I wonder what changed. Did JCP pull the plug for the 2012 season killing a disproportionately high number of teams or something?

Re: Registration 2013
 

Part of that could be the teacher strike issues in Canada... I just looked, and there are 42 Rookie teams, out of 128 total this year (The number I just pulled off FIRST's site is a little different from Mark's, not sure why), while Canada had 113 teams last year. That's 27 teams that dropped from last year (almost 25%!), but impressive growth in new teams at the same time! I would hope that, without the issues Canada has been going through this year, we would have had a lot more of those teams returning.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I'm afraid it isn't over yet. I still know of quite a few teams that are registered for regionals that wont be competing this year. Wonder when they will get pulled off.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Not sure if its fair to call this or not yet. Back a group of dedicated teenagers far enough into a corner, and they're gonna find a way out.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I've heard rumors of teams able to get waivers from the union to run this year, but I can't confirm the accuracy of that statement.

-Nick

Re: Registration 2013
 

If true, that would constitute a remarkable breakthrough.

Re: Registration 2013
 

NYC has cleared teams from it's waitlist.
Who out there is still hoping on a waitlist?

MAR has

• 3 teams that are still signed up for only a single District event
• 1 team signed up for three District events

FiM has

• 2 teams signed up for only a single District event
• No three District teams yet

Re: Registration 2013
 

NYC has moved all teams off the waitlist and into the event, or they have closed out the waitlist? I know of several DC teams that are still hoping to get into Baltimore as a second event, but were buried 10+ deep on the waitlist there as of a month ago.

Am I correct in that there is no way to see the size of waitlist at a regional or a way to search for regionals with open spots, other than clicking through to each regional in What Events are in my Area? I have several teams with the funding for a second regional for the first time, but are just sitting on a waitlist now, they (and I) don't know if they can/should blindly waitlist everywhere remotely possible or stay the course and hope for the more reasonable option an hour away.

Wetzel

Re: Registration 2013
 

We are! ...on NYC's =/. They still do have room though for up to 3 more teams (based on what the Regional Director told me, they have room for 66 in total, and there are 63 signed up currently).


I'm hoping they're just pausing before moving more teams off, since there is still room available (hopefully).

Re: Registration 2013
 

You have more patience than we do. That is why we're at FLR now. Good luck getting one of the final spots! :)

Re: Registration 2013
 

Well, we really don't have any other choice. Since we're in MAR, we are signed up for two districts, both of which we aren't staying over for. That's why we loved NYC last year and wanted to go there again this year; it's only 45 minutes away, so there's no need to get a hotel. We can save our money to get a hotel for the MAR Championships and World Championships (hopefully). But besides for NYC, there isn't any other regional around us that we would be able to come home each night for.

But thanks for the good luck :).

Re: Registration 2013
 

Yea, there's no publicly perusable waitpool, since it's not a single ordered list anyway.
Only the Regional Director can say for sure if more space is available, but last year's capacity is usually a reasonably dependable guide.

Baltimore just moved in a couple of more teams off the waitlist this afternoon.

The Regionals still showing open slots that teams can get in right away are:

# slots - Regional
1-BAE Systems Granite State Regional
1-Northern Lights Regional
1-Festival de Robotique FRC a Montreal Regional
1-Bayou Regional
1-Boston Regional
1-Utah Regional
1-Wisconsin Regional
1-Razorback Regional
1-Hawaii Regional
2-Greater Toronto East Regional
3-Pine Tree Regional
3-Las Vegas Regional
4-Waterloo Regional
4-Buckeye Regional
5-South Florida Regional
5-Spokane Regional
12-Western Canadian FRC Regional
14-Greater Toronto West Regional

Re: Registration 2013
 

I like the term "waitpool".

Re: Registration 2013
 

Well, it is somewhat ordered. Rookies get first priority, and then it goes by teams registered for the least number of events.

Re: Registration 2013
 

7 Ontario teams just dropped out from these events:

• 7 Toronto East
• 1 Toronto West
• 1 Montreal
• 1 Waterloo

A BC and MD team also dropped out.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Which teams?

EDIT: Fair warning, I fear this may be only the first wave of withdrawals from Ontario teams.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Note, I took current team lists and compared them to the team lists used for Fantasy First, which were generated in December.

GTR East:
188
886
919
1219
1246
1605
2185
2198

Montreal:
1246

Waterloo:
188
4647
4677
4691

GTR West:
886
2185

Pity to see all these teams missing, in particular 188, a perennial powerhouse.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I had no idea that it was public that FIRST wanted to move over to the district system, it just seemed as obvious as gravity. I assume we will see a wave of regions switch over to the district model this offseason, which I suspected after seeing a quick first-year success with MAR on top of the continuing success in Michigan.

I think the idea of super regionals is frankly, a scary one. You would create massive scheduling nightmares and severely affect the average team's budget if they made it that far. At this point in time, it seems almost nebulous. For the time being you can still easily allocate slots to teams right off of their single or multi-state district competitions rankings. Don't go trying to turn FRC on its head, just direct it to a more sustainable growth model.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Don't expect to see it happen too terribly quickly, but I'm sure it will happen. There are potential issues with volunteers in the area if you suddenly have to support a larger number of district events (especially in the key volunteer roles like Lead Robot Inspector or Head Ref).

Next, how do you handle teams that don't easily fall into a region? There are still areas with very low FRC population density. For those areas, teams would need to travel for 2 district events, plus the district champs, plus champs, or find a regional farther away to attend. Today, they are likely traveling to their nearest regional, which could be in an area that could be converted to districts.

Based on the growth maps in the first post to this thread, there are clearly areas of the country where this wouldn't be much of an issue... but there are also areas where it would be.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Remembering that some team attrition is normal...
The Canadian teams missing now from last year are:

188 Toronto, ON, Canada
843 Oakville, ON, Canada
886 North York, ON, Canada
919 Toronto, ON, Canada
1009 North York, ON Canada
1053 Ottawa, ON, Canada
1219 Toronto, ON, Canada
1221 Mississauga, ON, Canada
1246 Scarborough, ON, Canada
1404 Toronto, ON, Canada
1514 Toronto, ON, Canada
1535 Sault Ste Marie, ON, Canada
1605 Toronto, ON Canada
1835 Toronto, ON, Canada
2076 Toronto, ON Canada
2185 Toronto, ON
2198 Toronto, ON, Canada
3531 Montreal, QC, Canada
3739 London, ON, Canada
3978 Montreal, QC Canada
3980 Montreal, QC Canada
4022 Waterdown, ON Canada
4062 Ste-Genevieve, QC Canada
4094 Angus, ON Canada
4147 Yarmouth, NS Canada
4236 mississauga, ON Canada
4248 Whitby, ON Canada
4249 Brampton, ON Canada
4250 Cobourg, ON Canada
4258 Markham, ON Canada
4307 Ajax, ON Canada
4308 Mississauga, ON Canada
4357 Port Hope, ON Canada
4367 Mississauga, ON Canada
　

A defunct veteran team tried to return but dropped:

2609 Guelph, ON Canada (last played in 2011)


Also rookies who registered then dropped out were from:

Calgary, AB Canada
Calgary, AB Canada
Westlock, AB Canada
Shawnigan Lake, BC Canada
Tecumseh, ON Canada
Richmond Hill, ON Canada
Mississauga, ON Canada

Re: Registration 2013
 

Thanks for these.

Keep in mind that any missing teams not located in Ontario are unaffected by the labour issues.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Mark do you have numbers for teams lost in a specific region with the number of teams similar to the number of Canadian teams?

Re: Registration 2013
 

I can probably find a similar area team-#-wise, but I think using Ontario last year might have more relevance, due to economic/societal/government/union/etc. differences.

This year's Ontario team loss is quite a bit higher than last year - about 22% higher.

In 2012 there were 78 Ontario teams. An overall gain of 20% on the previous season.
10 teams were lost.
Between 2012 and 2013 there was only a one team difference in potential rookies dropping out, so that's probably not significant.
So, in Ontario that translates into a 15.4% loss of veteran teams in 2012. By the way, that was about 6% worse than the average veteran loss.

Currently, for 2013 there are 29 teams missing and 72 registered. An overall loss of 7.6%.
So in 2013 there is a 37.2% loss of veteran teams. Almost 29% worse than the across-the-board average veteran team loss of 8.5%.

The # of rookie teams was very similar- 21 in 2012 vs. 23 in 2013.

Here are the Ontario teams that didn't play in 2012, but did play in 2011:

1006 Port Perry, ON, Canada
1312 Walkerton, ON, Canada
2361 Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
2609 Guelph, ON, Canada
2670 Toronto, ON, Canada
3040 Toronto, ON, Canada
3563 Innisfil, ON, Canada
3590 Toronto, ON, Canada
3664 Burlington, ON, Canada
3698 Mississauga, ON, Canada



Almost 2012 rookies who didn't stick around:

Mississauga, ON Canada
Toronto, ON Canada

Re: Registration 2013
 

According to their twitter account, 188 is back in business.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Fixed it for you. I suspect they're working on the angle of getting a waiver from the union to participate that I've heard rumours of

Re: Registration 2013
 

It would be very sad if 188 is not able to compete. They are one of the Grand Old teams we have played with over the years, always a great example for other teams to follow.

Re: Registration 2013
 

How FIRST handles less population dense areas will definitely be key to the success of the District system. Having lived in Arizona as FRC got started there and Iowa now I've gotten a front row seat to FRC when there aren't a huge amount of teams or events around. The northern plains (Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, western Kansas) and the mountain west (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) don't have any events or many teams right now and have a substantial amount of distance to travel to the nearest events. Where we're at in Iowa there are about 5 events equal distance from us but all are a 4-5 hour drive to get to so we'd be looking at substantial travel time for a district system. The southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, lumping in Utah since they have a regional) has clusters of teams and a handful of events but they are spaced 6+ hours apart. Assuming teams could not compete in the California district events Vegas and Phoenix are the best off since they are 5 hours apart (though a Tucson, AZ regional has been discussed), Denver is over 7 hours from the closest competition. Eliminating the entry fee for a 2nd event sure helps but I think we could see a lot of "skeleton crews" consisting of the drive team and 1 or 2 mentors attending events when these areas become part of a district due to the substantial travel costs. Either that or teams will just forgo the 2nd event entirely.

Short of "forcing" new events in these areas and hoping new teams start up with them I'm not sure how FIRST is going to effectively move the District system into these areas on their timeline. I think it can happen in the future but 2015 is an ambitious goal for these regions.

We could always try to add one in Southern Minnesota/Northern Iowa ;) If only there were teams there...

Re: Registration 2013
 

Remember that the district system comes with new district events. Perhaps your team could sponsor a district event, so your first event would have distance 0. That happened in MI - the first year we started districts, there was one in Traverse City. There were only 2 teams in town, and another handful within a 1-2 hour drive. Yet it served as a catalyst for growth. In a smaller town, a FRC event is a big media event, and it was well publicized. There are several teams now in NW Lower MI that were started since we went to districts.

Truly remote areas do have travel problems; our friends in the UP can attest to that. Districts are not the perfect solution, but something will have to be done as the number of FRC teams continues to grow. Districts provide capacity, and also provide for growth in areas that have few teams now. Why doesn't Iowa have a dozen or more teams?

Re: Registration 2013
 

In my estimation, the district system doesn't have a major impact on driving distance from Iowa. We'd probably be going to Kansas City, St. Louis, etc, which are the same places we're going anyway.

I would be pretty happy to get into a district system because of the lower cost per event. I'd be sad to lose some of the current flexibility to travel in any direction to a regional event, but in the end we might retain that if everything goes district.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Right now there is an abstract "eye test" one could use to determine whether or not a given area has adequate density for the district system. A think an obvious case would be Georgia and the Carolinas, which is an area that supports 3 regionals that fill up very quickly and have a team population larger than MAR, but I don't know what, if any metric would be used to determine if that area would be dense enough. Sure ,some teams will have long travel times, but so do some teams in FiM and MAR. I don't know the point at which it's too thin to be feasible.

I like to think at some point district events won't have to be tied into certain regional or state championships, but you register saying you want points to be tallied for eligibility for an available regional or state championship event so you can maintain flexibility some rural teams may need while still moving over to the low cost district format.

I feel like regions should be competing against each other to have the best representation possible at CMP. When MAR and MSC teams are playing twice as many matches as my team for the same price, I would like to do something to level that ASAP.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I found that straight teams per square mile works well to compare two areas when I was seeing how New England measured up to Michigan. Doing a quick calculation for the area you described, the 3 states together have about .88 FRC teams per 1,000 square miles. In Michigan, the number is 2.16 teams per 1,000 square miles. While I wouldn't take that to directly translate to readiness to go to districts, it is definitely a factor.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Ah now I see, I must have read too quickly.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Anthony's talking about down south, not New England:

Re: Registration 2013
 

This is a problem we have with 229 and 4124 at Clarkson.

Tab over really quick and google-map "Potsdam, NY". We normally attend either Rochester, or a New England event, because those are the things in the closest driving distance - Rochester is 4 and Manchester is 5 - (barring Canada- of which Montreal is 1 hour away, GTR E/W are 5 hours away...We have a lot of students who live on the reservation up here, and crossing the border can get very complicated)

Assuming New England and Rochester/Ohio each become districts of their own... We don't fall into either.

So, where do we go?

Re: Registration 2013
 

The first year of FiM saw team density at 1.36 per 1000 sq mi for what it's worth, but I agree that might be one to look at. I guess another one might be # of teams located within an x-mile radius of a proposed venue.

Re: Registration 2013
 

I don't think I made this apparent in my post, but I am in favor of the District system. I want more matches. I want to attend multiple events. I want to see more teams in FIRST because the barrier to entry is lower. What I wanted to bring up though is that many of the benefits of going to a District system aren't there for rural teams or when clusters of teams are very far apart from each other. The District system may be new in name only if few of the teams in these areas can afford the travel costs to go to the 2nd event that they now have free entry into and it doesn't produce any closer events for them.

This was the only thing I could think of that FIRST could do right away to make Districts have a noticeable benefit in some of the more rural areas. I wasn't aware that they did that with success when FiM started, they may not need another strategy if that works as well in other regions.

The low quantity of teams in the Mountain West and Northern Plains is largely an issue of population and density. Iowa as a state has 3 million people and they're spread out over a fairly large region; a list of high school sizes I pulled up shows only 18 high schools with more than 1500 students and 42 high schools with more than 1000 students. If you had a FIRST team in every one of them it wouldn't be a problem but given the typical rate of FIRST teams relative to total high schools in a state the numbers just work out to a low total. The lower population density also means there are less businesses in any given area to be potential sponsors, and less potential mentors, etc.

Two things working in Iowa's favor:
1. Iowa launched a STEM initiative this year that more or less covers the cost of competition for FLL and FTC teams. There has been an explosion of growth in both of these programs in a few years, and I would suspect it could spill over into more FRC teams in the future.
2. Iowa has a really strong manufacturing base, so I feel that the percentage of the population that are engineers or some sort of skilled trade is higher than in some other states (just a personal observation).

Who doesn't want twice as much competition time? I'm all in for it.

For the current teams we have the District system would be nice as long as a few of the nearby events were options (this year all of the nearby events filled up before second regional registration opened). If students split up pretty evenly between the two events the travel costs would probably be about the same. I don't think the District system will start many new teams here unless a closer event ends up forming though.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Gary already mentioned this, but that sounds exactly like what happened to the teams in the UP of Michigan. From Houghton (farthest teams from the lower peninsula) to the Traverse City district is about 6 hours, and the next closest district is 8 hours.

As the district system expands, remote teams will have to go somewhere, and it probably won't work in their favor. It's not as big of an issue in MAR, since the region is small in size. When (if) larger states start moving to districts, it's going to be a more widespread issue, and there's no way to make it fair (easy travel) for everyone. The best thing that can be done is starting up district events farther away from the central "hub" of teams for the region (which is Metro Detroit, in Michigan), if possible - it encourages the other teams to travel and still gives students the opportunity to experience the fun of a travel event, which the district system has kind of taken away. And, as Gary mentioned, it encourages growth in the less dense areas.

Re: Registration 2013
 

There's been talk of allowing the teams from the Albany area of New York to join the New England district system, since some of them usually attend New England events. Seems like the obvious solution to teams with no local events, allow them to do what works best for them.

Re: Registration 2013
 

An update.
Currently showing 2548 teams.

Things have slowed, but not stopped.
Some events are still adding and dropping onesies/twosies.

Since formal registration closed on December 6...

• 37 new teams have added in - after Dec 6
  • 20 of the post-Dec 6 added teams above are rookies
• 49 teams registered on Dec. 6 have dropped out
  • 22 of these dropped teams from Dec. 6 were rookies

These numbers don't count some teams that added in after registration closed and then subsequently dropped out.

So, the registration total for this season has dropped by a dozen teams so far. Last night we did get two more teams though, so we're not done yet.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Looks like Lake Superior & Northern Lights just swapped 6 teams around (3 from each) to balance things out I suppose.

One pre-qualified team (842) dropped off the Championships team list.
I hope it's only temporary.

Re: Registration 2013
 

FiM has begun assigning third District slots by assigning 9 for the Bedford District (the one with all the space left).

One Michigan team dropped out of Waterford & Livonia to make it 208 Michigan teams this year.

Overall, FRC has 2540 registered teams right now.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Another team (23) dropped off the list for Championship.

The Michigan Bedford event is still being filled with 3rd district event teams.

Total teams has been unusually volatile after registration closing this year.
I'll add a graph later tonight.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Mark,

Do you have an up-to-date spreadsheet with all the teams registered this year and the regional(s) they are registered to attend?

How would you compile this list? (easily, computer assisted)

Thanks

Re: Registration 2013
 

I have an up-to-date event team list, but not with me.
Ed Law usually publishes his, but he's probably waiting for Bedford to settle out: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2731

You can get the team list and other info. on an event basis if you have the event IDs. Then you can setup a macro to collect them all in Excel or another tool. I have to go looking for the Event IDs.
P.S. Event IDs:
https://my.usfirst.org/frc/scoring/index.lasso?page=eventlist

For example, here is the Long Island list:

https://my.usfirst.org/frc/scoring/index.lasso?page=event_teamlist&ID_event=9011

Re: Registration 2013
 

Championship just lost another of the pre-qualified teams (548)

Do you still need teamlists by event, Floyd?
I mailed the latest to myself.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Iiiiiinteresting about 548.

another place to see the event codes: frclinks.com

frclinks.com/e/<event code> gets you to the team list for each event.

Re: Registration 2013
 

4813 is no longer registered (indeed, TBA now lists their team name as "NOT PAY FOR THIS TEAM", which is hardly a winning attitude). But two new Chinese teams have appeared, both registered for Hawaii - 4830 and 4831. 4830 possibly is the same thing as 4813, as they both list "Shen zhen da da le le" in their team name - maybe they made a mistake when registering (they didn't initially realize there was a regional in Hawaii? ;))

Re: Registration 2013
 

The team list dropped about 15 teams over the weekend.
There are now 2324 teams playing this season.

Correction, the new Beta Team list shows 2324 teams, but the FIRST database still has 2339 teams listed. I think I'll go with the database and take a look at what teams aren't showning up on the new Beta.
P.S. the Beta site seems to be built from older team/event lists. There are teams listed on it who aren't playing, and teams who are playing who aren't listed.

FIRST has a new Beta Teams & Events page
Positives:

• Lists team nicknames
• Searches for teams within x miles of a zipcode

Negatives:

• Does not list the team name any longer
• Now limited to listing 25 teams per page
• Team count seems 15 teams short

Re: Registration 2013
 

ditto :o

Re: Registration 2013
 

Watch out for my typos though.

There are 2539 teams, although the new Beta Team list only shows 2324 (it's actually 215 teams off).

Re: Registration 2013
 

I think it's taken from some other database, not an earlier list (unless it was last year's list). We show up as registered for Smoky Mountain - we were waitlisted there but cleared Bayou first so we never showed up as attending (TIMS still has a line item for SMR for us, dropped and unpaid).

Re: Registration 2013
 

When I looked two days ago, DC showed a Turkish, an Israeli, and two Brazilian teams attending. Today it shows one Israeli and one Brazilian. It is a Beta.

Wetzel

Re: Registration 2013
 

2536 teams now registered.
We lost a few more.

The qualifiers from this past weekend of events have started to register for Championship.
There are now 39 teams registered.

Re: Registration 2013
 

2534 teams registered.

128 now registered for Championships.
12.5% of them are rookie teams.

Re: Registration 2013
 

A few more dropped out

2531 teams now.

187 registered for the Championship.

Re: Registration 2013
 

What is the max number of teams that the championship event can hold?

Re: Registration 2013
 

400

Re: Registration 2013
 

Thanks!

Re: Registration 2013
 

This will be interesting to watch, because this year, I believe there are over 400 available merit-based or pre-qualified bids for CMP, so we may see some push there.

However, I'm sure there is a statistic available on % of teams who accept bids that would probably mean only 370 or some similar number of those slots are filled.

Re: Registration 2013
 

So, in the hypothetical case of 370 registering, about 30 other teams would get in on the wait list?

Re: Registration 2013
 

Hypothetically speaking, that's the idea.
Just remember that FIRST has changed the # of teams admitted to Championship over the year's, so no guarantees on the total number that will be admitted.

Currently 245 teams are registered for Championship.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Slightly educated guess, but CMP will likely be smaller this year than it was last year. It seems that FIRST was surprised by a higher than normal acceptance rate last year, and the end of open registration and the wild card system were an attempt to bring the number of teams back to the mid 300's.

2012 - 400
2011 - 352
2010 - 344
2009 - 348
2008 - 340
2007 - 344
2006 - 344
2005 - 340

Aside from that, the two district systems (FiM and MAR) had their CMP slots adjusted. From what I've heard, FIRST assigned slots to FiM and MAR based on the region population relative to total slots at CMP. FiM has 27 slots for 206 teams, and MAR has 14 slots for 109 teams. Assuming 2550 FRC teams, FiM represents about 8.1% of FRC teams, and MAR represents 4.3% of FRC teams. So for FiM and MAR to have 8.1% and 4.3% of the CMP slots, that suggests 330-340 teams at CMP this year.

Last year there were 100 teams per field, 9 matches per team, and 150 qualification matches total. Dropping to 90 teams per field allows 10 matches per team in the same 150 qualification matches. I would say 350-360 teams total sounds about right for this year. 2010 and 2011 had 10 qual matches per team.

The math for this year lines up almost perfectly with those guesses. As of this post there are 249 teams registered (week 5 qualifiers have until 5PM EST, so possibly add a couple more). There are 12 more regional events for a max of 72 teams, 14 MAR, and 27 FiM. That yields 362 teams assuming 100% acceptance.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Does anyone have the acceptance rate from last year? I remember from the now removed blog post that it was somewhere around 80%, and previously it had been around 60%.

Re: Registration 2013
 

Since the era of Championship waitlist registration may be gone for good, I think you'll continue to see a high acceptance rate.

Ex. "If my team wins a Regional in 2013, that may be our only chance to go to the Championship for years"

Re: Registration 2013
 

Well, there have been 46 regionals so far - max 276 slots. I don't remember how many teams were pre-registered before the season, around 30? (HoF, sustaining, einstein 2012).

We're at 252 teams now, so we're seeing at least 80% acceptance (subtracting ~30 from that number for pre-qual teams). You would have to find the list of pre-registered teams and see if they qualified this season (killing a slot) to get the real number. For example 1114 and 2056 were both pre-registered, and they ate two (of the 276) slots by winning their first event, their later wins generated wildcard slots.

Re: Registration 2013
 

58 regionals * 6 spots/regional = 348 regional qualifiers + 27 FiM teams + 14 MAR teams + 17 HoF** + 6 sustaining teams** + 12 Einstein teams + 1 EI team = 425 potential championship slots

Double qualifying HoF, Sustaining and Einstein teams don't create Wild Card slots, so there shouldn't be any issues accommodating all the teams that want to go, even if it's all the teams that are eligible.

**191 is a Hall of Fame team (twice) and a sustaining team. They are counted as a Hall of Fame team for the purposes of this exercise.

Re: Registration 2013
 

CMP registration for week 5 qualifiers ended about an hour ago, now at 262 teams.

So without going to the waitlist, that means CMP can hit a max of 375 teams (+72 Regional, +14 MAR, +27 FiM). It's likely a few of those slots will be killed by wasted wildcard slots (hello SVR/Vegas!), along a few regular declines.

I like the idea of 90 team divisions and jumping back to 10 matches in qualifications. Match turnaround might be a little longer than last year though, and CMP will probably have a high concentration of 30 point climbers.

I'm sure FIRST has a number in mind regardless, so whatever that is will determine if/when teams get pulled from the waitlist.