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waialua359 20-01-2010 23:13

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Foster (Post 903564)
I'd guess that it's financial. Our funds are down this year, and from what others have said it's tough to get sponsors. We are doing all we can (why yes, I'd be happy to take your spare change, Thanks!) to keep our team moving forward.

We talked about registering for Atlanta, but passed since we didn't think we could raise the money to go. Others may have been more optimistic about raising the funds.

I'd like to see FIRST open up the wait list for teams now, the difference between a $300 airline ticket on a 30+ day reservation vs a $1000 ticket 10 days in advance is a huge cost difference for teams.

I understand that its financial, but I'd assume its for every single team participating in FIRST. Why would teams sign up, then decide if they can or cannot get the funding in a 2-3 month period?
Funding FIRST endeavors is a big deal, and I would think teams would do it all year round, including starting right after Atlanta from the previous season.

I think the point made earlier is that it prevents other teams from making plans TO attend by not knowing where they are on that list.:)

IndySam 20-01-2010 23:41

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by waialua359 (Post 903595)
I understand that its financial, but I'd assume its for every single team participating in FIRST. Why would teams sign up, then decide if they can or cannot get the funding in a 2-3 month period?
Funding FIRST endeavors is a big deal, and I would think teams would do it all year round, including starting right after Atlanta from the previous season.

I think the point made earlier is that it prevents other teams from making plans TO attend by not knowing where they are on that list.:)

There are teams that have the funding in place and it gets pulled away. We lost a big chunk of expected money only 30 days ago. Luckily we were able to find other ways of paying for Atlanta but not every team can be that lucky.

waialua359 21-01-2010 02:18

Re: Registration 2010
 
Hence, the business sustainability plan and why it should have a greater focus in FIRST. You can easily spend more time raising funds than building and competing altogether.

RoboMom 21-01-2010 10:17

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by waialua359 (Post 903595)
I understand that its financial, but I'd assume its for every single team participating in FIRST. Why would teams sign up, then decide if they can or cannot get the funding in a 2-3 month period?
Funding FIRST endeavors is a big deal, and I would think teams would do it all year round, including starting right after Atlanta from the previous season.

I think the point made earlier is that it prevents other teams from making plans TO attend by not knowing where they are on that list.:)

Teams sign up because they can. As long as FRC continues to have an open enrollment and teams are considering going to the CMP, it is in the best interest of a team to sign up when they can, buying themselves some time. I'm always amazed there aren't more teams signing up in the first day of registration.

In a perfect world, teams have all the funding in place in time. But in the real world they don't.

I know it's tough to be on a wait list, but that is the system that FRC has set up. Unfortunately the system is really tough on teams trying to plan.

Pat Fairbank 21-01-2010 16:13

Re: Registration 2010
 
I think the system that was in place up until a few years ago was better, where teams were not shown as being registered for the Championship until they had made a payment (or sent a P.O. or a sponsor letter). There are plenty of teams who were sitting on the waiting list the day registration opened who were capable of paying right then, and who are still presently on the waiting list.

Akash Rastogi 21-01-2010 16:15

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank (Post 904084)
I think the system that was in place up until a few years ago was better, where teams were not shown as being registered for the Championship until they had made a payment (or sent a P.O. or a sponsor letter). There are plenty of teams who were sitting on the waiting list the day registration opened who were capable of paying right then, and who are still presently on the waiting list.

I would have to agree, that is pretty messed up if a team still gets a spot if they can't pay and are removed from the list anyway, taking away a spot from another team. They should have just let teams who can pay on the spot register first. (Also coming from a team already registered and paid for.)

Glenn, I guess teams really need to be taught more about how to run sustainable, year-round programs? Many teams are still missing the aspect of being taught how to run a sustainable program.

Jon Jack 21-01-2010 16:35

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank (Post 904084)
I think the system that was in place up until a few years ago was better, where teams were not shown as being registered for the Championship until they had made a payment (or sent a P.O. or a sponsor letter). There are plenty of teams who were sitting on the waiting list the day registration opened who were capable of paying right then, and who are still presently on the waiting list.

The old system was much more effective. It prevented 'spot squatters' from holding spots that other teams (who had raised the money months in advance) could have paid for the day of registration.

I know of several teams who signed up, knowing they did not have the money and probably weren't going to raise it. They took the spot anyways because it was available and hoped that some kind of miracle funding would just fall into their lap.

Peter Matteson 21-01-2010 16:39

Re: Registration 2010
 
As a team currently sitting on the outside looking in, it's frustrating that won't let us know now whether we are in or not. We assume based on the number of teams registering as things were happening during registration we are in the 1st 20 on the waitlist. However we will not book tickets until we are confirmed. If we booked now we would save a substantial amount of money. I would think out of consideration for the teams offering up the spots now would make sense and would help fill out the event.

waialua359 21-01-2010 17:00

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RoboMom (Post 903835)
Teams sign up because they can. As long as FRC continues to have an open enrollment and teams are considering going to the CMP, it is in the best interest of a team to sign up when they can, buying themselves some time. I'm always amazed there aren't more teams signing up in the first day of registration.

In a perfect world, teams have all the funding in place in time. But in the real world they don't.

I know it's tough to be on a wait list, but that is the system that FRC has set up. Unfortunately the system is really tough on teams trying to plan.

Jenny,
I understand fully what you are saying.
Not sure what you mean by more teams signing up on the first day? The opposite is what occured. **clicking the mouse button repeatedly from 5:59am and on-Hawaii time**;)
The biggest issue I'm concerned about is why change the system several years ago in how you could register for CMP? Why "punish" teams that do their homework, plan and prepare with the same sacrifices that everyone else has to in order to compete.
You would think that in the best interest of filling up CMP, those 46 slots would be open for teams on that waiting list already to decide if they can go.

Our personal concern is that, coming from Hawaii, our students get a chance to meet other teams they would normally not see during regional competitions. Hence, we place an extra emphasis in raising the funds necessary to try and go.
The sponsorships that we get doesnt come without some blood, sweat and tears literally.:)

Mark McLeod 21-01-2010 19:52

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by waialua359 (Post 904135)
Not sure what you mean by more teams signing up on the first day? The opposite is what occured. **clicking the mouse button repeatedly from 5:59am and on-Hawaii time**;)

Happy Birthday Glenn!
What a great day for a birthday, almost as good as tomorrow! :-)

On the off chance that you weren't kidding all round. I'm with Jenny in always being surprised that the open Championship slots don't fill up long before it opens to the teams who went last year. Registration for Championship was open for 20 days before the rest of us got our 30 second crack at the 20 slots left over for the teams that went last year. There aren't that many slots that 10% of FRC teams couldn't fill them, or desire to fill them.

Most years there have been open slots left on the table at the end of registration.
I only attribute the run on slots this year to a greater number of teams, static number of slots, and a registration system that is really a wish list, rather than a serious registration system.

Eric O 22-01-2010 07:19

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by RoboMom (Post 903835)

I know it's tough to be on a wait list, but that is the system that FRC has set up. Unfortunately the system is really tough on teams trying to plan.

I think this is the biggest issue. FIRST has a system which is not in the best interest of the teams. Whichever way they do sign-up (first signed up or first paid), when one of those teams drop the next team should be allowed in. In general the way the championship eligibility works is fine with me, but having 175 open registration slots on day 1 and now only having 124 (yes 5 more have dropped) means they should let more teams in.

Why is FIRST not letting these other 51 teams in? This will save teams tens of thousands of dollars by booking travel sooner rather than later. Does anyone know why FIRST wants teams to spend more going to championship? That is what they are doing.

If I were at FIRST HQ I would be worried about filling championship at all. If 51 teams had to drop out while attempting to raise money over 3 months, how are 180+ teams going to get the money in 3 weeks?

-Eric

Travis Hoffman 22-01-2010 10:13

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric O (Post 904501)
If I were at FIRST HQ I would be worried about filling championship at all. If 51 teams had to drop out while attempting to raise money over 3 months, how are 180+ teams going to get the money in 3 weeks?

-Eric

Look at it this way - keep this up, and we can go back to Disney. :p

Wayne C. 22-01-2010 11:46

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman (Post 904561)
Look at it this way - keep this up, and we can go back to Disney. :p

naw- Disney is the home for VEX now........

My question is- when will they tell the wait list teams? (and if I do get the go ahead do I really give a $@#$@#$@#$@# about spending 4 x as much to go anyway?)

:cool:

RoboMom 22-01-2010 12:45

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod (Post 904256)
, and a registration system that is really a wist list, rather than a serious registration system.

Bingo!
Happy Birthday to the wonderful, hardworking and very wise Mr. McLeod!
Glenn, Eric, Pat, Jon, Peter, Akash: I agree with you.
The system, as it currently exists, is enormously stressful on the teams and mentors, and it doesn't need to be. IMHO (and this is not the first time I've voiced this) it needs a major tweaking.

Mark McLeod 22-01-2010 13:00

Re: Registration 2010
 
I thought there might be some hope for an early waitlist release when I read this in a FIRST email blast:
"We do have a waitlist of teams wanting to go to the Championship, so if you do not have the funding to attend please let us know so that we can give another team the opportunity."

Hope slowly dwindles...

Can there be such a thing as a pyrrhic waitlist?

P.S. "wist list" huh?
My mind is a terrible thing to lose :)

Mark McLeod 26-01-2010 11:14

Re: Registration 2010
 
FIRST has opened up Championship to allow waitlisted teams to register.
Offers are going out now to the first 50 on the list with 48 hours to accept.
...and there was much rejoicing...Yea

P.S. 9 have accepted already.

waialua359 26-01-2010 16:15

Re: Registration 2010
 
Wow,
I just got to work and 9 accepted already?
I noticed we couldnt do it on TIMS ourselves, so just sent in an acceptance reply to email as instructed.

We were lucky enough to have a credit to apply towards the cost.

Mark McLeod 27-01-2010 11:53

Re: Registration 2010
 
Back up to 147 teams registered for Championship.
22 acceptances in 24 hours.

We have a partial credit from a grant that was going to be lost. We're trying to recover it now to help with the cost.

The Invoice got listed in TIMS as soon as FIRST acknowledged our acceptance.

It's still kind of late in our planning phase. Our fundraising cash reserves have already been allocated or earmarked, so it'll end up a more expensive trip for a fewer number of students, but the seniors are psyched. :yikes:

Our pit was empty last year as we tried out a minimalist pit to see what shipping to see what cost savings we could realize on shipping and local purchases. I think we'll be doing that again this year - maybe not so barebones this time though.:)

Mark McLeod 04-02-2010 12:23

Re: Registration 2010
 
Championship is at 157 teams now.

One conclusion I draw, from the fact that FIRST set a deadline of 48 hours to accept or decline, is that the waitlist (the serious teams on it) was around 30 teams long.

This doesn't count teams that may have decided not to accept due to the late notification.

In the past week around 20 Regionals have gone up or down a team, so final funding still seems to be an issue with ~1% of teams. However, this is funding for extra events, not original competitions.

~26% of non-Michigan teams are attending a second event.
99% of Michigan teams get a second event of course.

(Thought I'd finally shut up didn't you? :rolleyes: )

wendymom 04-02-2010 12:31

Re: Registration 2010
 
Not everyone on the waitlist was given an invite. So there is still a list of teams waiting to get in right?

Mark McLeod 04-02-2010 13:06

Re: Registration 2010
 
If you haven't received an invite yet, then I suppose with the stated 48 hours to respond, up to an estimated 130 teams could have received invites so far.

So the waitlist must be longer than I thought.

waialua359 04-02-2010 15:32

Re: Registration 2010
 
I bet some teams that got the invite are willing to go and can pay, but not in a 48 hour timeframe (commit to paying with a PO). Sort of like winning at a regional, but not being able to attend since the turnaround time for payment is short.

Pat Fairbank 04-02-2010 19:08

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod (Post 913277)
One conclusion I draw, from the fact that FIRST set a deadline of 48 hours to accept or decline, is that the waitlist (the serious teams on it) was around 30 teams long.

I have it reliably that the waitlist had 125 teams on it in November, although presumably more than a few teams have withdrawn from it by now if they haven't come up with funding.

Mark McLeod 13-04-2010 09:23

Re: Registration 2010
 
1 Attachment(s)
Championship registration is now at 344 teams.
It climbed steeply through the Regional events of course as a new set of winners qualified each week.

I posted this list of where the teams are all from in the Championship sub-forum, but thought it should go here so it can be found more easily next season.

I've also attached a graph of just how the Championship registration proceeded this year.
FIRST didn't completely backfill from the waitlist to bring the early Championship attendees back up to the initial 175 advertized openings.
They only brought it back up to 162 accepted and registered team, then left it there for a month.

Championship Teams are from:
# Home
35 MI
29 CA
20 NJ
20 NY
17 FL
13 CT
13 Canada
13 WI
11 TX
10 GA
10 MA
10 PA
10 VA
9 IN
9 NH
8 MD
8 MO
7 HI
7 IL
7 MN
7 OH
6 Israel
6 SC
5 CO
5 OR
4 AZ
4 ID
4 OK
4 UT
3 NC
3 RI
3 WA
2 DC
2 IA
2 KS
2 LA
2 Mexico
2 MS
2 TN
2 WV
1 AL
1 AR
1 DE
1 ME
1 MT
1 ND
1 Australia
1 Brazil

rsisk 13-04-2010 10:21

Re: Registration 2010
 
Looks like someone was drawing the lower portion of Texas around January.

Why the plateau in the middle of March?

Chris is me 13-04-2010 10:49

Re: Registration 2010
 
It'd be interesting to compare the ratio of teams attending championship versus all teams from each state, to see who is proportionately the best represented state.

Mark McLeod 13-04-2010 13:16

Re: Registration 2010
 
Here's the list sorted by the percentage of teams attending Championship.
Arkansas and Australia win hands down...:)

Total .. @Champ ........... % @ Champ
1 ............ 1 .......... -- ......... 100.0% .......... AR
1 ............ 1 .......... -- ......... 100.0% .......... Australia
4 ............ 3 .......... -- .......... 75.0% .......... RI
3 ............ 2 .......... -- .......... 66.7% .......... IA
3 ............ 2 .......... -- .......... 66.7% .......... Mexico
3 ............ 2 .......... -- .......... 66.7% .......... WV
2 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 50.0% .......... DE
31 .......... 13 .......... -- .......... 41.9% .......... WI
43 .......... 17 .......... -- .......... 39.5% .......... FL
11 ........... 4 .......... -- .......... 36.4% .......... ID
37 .......... 13 .......... -- .......... 35.1% .......... CT
3 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 33.3% .......... ND
31 .......... 10 .......... -- .......... 32.3% .......... GA
64 .......... 20 .......... -- .......... 31.3% .......... NJ
30 ........... 9 .......... -- .......... 30.0% .......... NH
24 ........... 7 .......... -- .......... 29.2% .......... HI
22 ........... 6 .......... -- .......... 27.3% .......... SC
30 ........... 8 .......... -- .......... 26.7% .......... MD
34 ........... 9 .......... -- .......... 26.5% .......... IN
16 ........... 4 .......... -- .......... 25.0% .......... UT
141 ......... 35 .......... -- .......... 24.8% .......... MI
45 .......... 10 .......... -- .......... 22.2% .......... PA
10 ........... 2 .......... -- .......... 20.0% .......... TN
5 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 20.0% .......... Brazil
66 .......... 13 .......... -- .......... 19.7% .......... Canada
52 .......... 10 .......... -- .......... 19.2% .......... MA
153 ......... 29 .......... -- .......... 19.0% .......... CA
47 ........... 8 .......... -- .......... 17.0% .......... MO
119 ......... 20 .......... -- .......... 16.8% .......... NY
18 ........... 3 .......... -- .......... 16.7% .......... NC
12 ........... 2 .......... -- .......... 16.7% .......... MS
6 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 16.7% .......... ME
6 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 16.7% .......... MT
45 ........... 7 .......... -- .......... 15.6% .......... IL
46 ........... 7 .......... -- .......... 15.2% .......... OH
66 .......... 10 .......... -- .......... 15.2% .......... VA
33 ........... 5 .......... -- .......... 15.2% .......... OR
35 ........... 5 .......... -- .......... 14.3% .......... CO
15 ........... 2 .......... -- .......... 13.3% .......... DC
51 ........... 6 .......... -- .......... 11.8% .......... Israel
17 ........... 2 .......... -- .......... 11.8% .......... LA
9 ............ 1 .......... -- .......... 11.1% .......... AL
104 ........ 11 .......... -- .......... 10.6% .......... TX
39 ........... 4 .......... -- .......... 10.3% .......... AZ
20 ........... 2 .......... -- .......... 10.0% .......... KS
49 ........... 4 .......... -- .......... 8.2% .......... OK
105 .......... 7 .......... -- .......... 6.7% .......... MN
59 ........... 3 .......... -- .......... 5.1% .......... WA
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... AK
1 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... Bosnia
1 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... Chile
1 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... Germany
6 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... KY
1 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... Netherlands
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... NM
12 ........... 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... NV
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... PR
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... Turkey
2 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... United Kingdom
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... VT
3 ............. 0 .......... -- .......... 0.0% .......... WY

Tristan Lall 13-04-2010 13:31

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod (Post 953314)
Here's the list sorted by the percentage of teams attending Championship.
Arkansas and Australia win hands down...:)

So who are the Australians, and why are they not on the team list?

Josh Drake 13-04-2010 13:38

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 953319)
So who are the Australians, and why are they not on the team list?

3132 from Sydney

thefro526 13-04-2010 13:39

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 953319)
So who are the Australians, and why are they not on the team list?

They are listed, it's Team 3132, and their location is listed as : "Sydney, New South Wales, Other"

I guess the team list doesn't like to display Australia?

Mark McLeod 13-04-2010 14:02

Re: Registration 2010
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 953319)
So who are the Australians, and why are they not on the team list?

You'll get to meet them! They're in the Division you're responsible for.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz (Post 952699)
...Tristan Lall will be on Galileo.


Mark McLeod 04-06-2010 14:14

Re: Registration 2010
 
One last note of 2010 potential interest...

Here are the percentages of teams who attended an extra event each week.

Week 1 of course no one had ever played before so that's 0% (pre-ship scrimmages excluded).
Most Michigan teams appeared to play their first event in the beginning two weekends.

Prior-experienced teams were not evenly distribution across competitions, so Minnesota's double blockbusters for the whole state in week 5 didn't see as high a percentage of pre-tempered robots and drive teams as other regional rich areas. Also, in week 5 a large block of teams were at the Michigan State Championship where everyone had played before - that skews the results a bit.
Code:

                Week 1      Week 2      Week 3    Week 4      Week 5
Teams playing    548          468          396        556        493
Regionals        0%          6.7%        17.8%      35.5%      42.1%
Districts        0%          31.3%        96.3%      100%        100%
Combined          0%          10.9%        33.8%      40.1%      49.7%

At the Championship the overall team average was 1.69 prior events under each team's belt. Only 144 of the 344 teams had only played at one Regional before meeting in Atlanta.
Of course, one of the Einstein Champions (177) was one of those single Regional teams.
The winning alliance had an average of 2.0 prior events.
The runners-up had a 2.67 event average.

So, you don't have to go to a lot of events, but at least two seems to make a difference.


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