Championship Waiting list

[Kevin Ray]

Back when FIRST opened up registration to teams that wished to attend a second or third regional or the nationals, teams signed on at the earliest time allowed (12 noon) and tried to get their choices. Many people (us included) took too long for the page to load and thus were put on the wait list for the particular regional or national competition (in our case, both).
There is a decided advantage to those teams who compete later in the season. Teams competing in the first week only have until Thursday of that week to be selected from the national's wait list. Yet a team who competes in week 5 say, still has their bot crated (or bagged) and thus is still elligible to be added to the list of teams competing at the nationals for 4 additional weeks of regionals.
Additionally, the later the teams' regionals are, the greater their chances for selection are. For each week that passes, more and more openings arise as a result of teams becoming elligible by virtue of winning regionals and/or awards yet not being able to attend due to money issues.
We are only thankful that we won the chairman's award and do not have to rely on the waitlist.