Special invitations to Championships from FIRST HQ?

[Grim Tuesday]

I was browsing the FRC subreddit and came upon this rather odd post.

http://www.reddit.com/r/FRC/comments...at_went_to_to/

The poster is claiming that their team got a special invite from FIRST HQ to attend Championships because of their OPR. It seems a exceedingly fishy and while they are not currently registered that is possible given the limited time. There are plenty of high performing teams not to qualify like 3173 and 624 that did not qualify that actually rank above them in max OPR as opposed to average OPR.

I would usually give a story like this little credibility until I see the letter from FIRST or them in St. Louis but a couple people noticed that that 217 is registered for Championships despite not qualifying based on any merit. Source.

A logical explanation is that the waitlist is no longer first come first serve but is instead judged on unknown criteria. I don't really know what to think of this.

[Akash Rastogi]

Lol that person is misinterpreting the email that was sent out. They send it out every year. It was received yesterday titled "You're Invited to the 2013 FIRST Championship"

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Lol that person is misinterpreting the email that was sent out. They send it out every year. It was received yesterday titled "You're Invited to the 2013 FIRST Championship"

I hope they didn't book plane tickets!

[mdituri]

My logical thought process would be that 1) they haven't been to worlds so they are a tier one team on the waitlist, and 2) their mentor was hitting the buttons in tims at 12 noon on the first day of open registration. OPR had nothing to do with it.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I hope they didn't book plane tickets!

No, they are registered due to waitlist actually. I don't think OPR has anything to do with it though.

The email I'm referring to that is sent out by FIRST is probably just a funny coincidence.

Edit: Regardless, I'm happy they are going, they had a solid robot.

[Gregor]

Good to see they're going, even if they don't exactly understand why. They were a dominant force at Waterloo, seeding fourth after 2056, 1114, and 610. Bad luck and some questionable picks didn't get them the elimination success they wanted, but they'll be another force in St. Louis.

[Pat Fairbank]

I think they deserve a special invitation to the Championship if only for having the best set of practice bumpers ever.

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/1...M6Eg9Kur6qElAE

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I think they deserve a special invitation to the Championship if only for having the best set of practice bumpers ever.

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/1...M6Eg9Kur6qElAE

That's quite fantastic.


Anyone know how 217 got registered?

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

Anyone know how 217 got registered?

Had to have been waitlist, no other way for them as of right now.

[Mark McLeod]

Teams started being pulled from the Championship waitlist this week.

217 didn't attend Championship last year, so they were eligible to sign up for this year's waitlist as soon as it opened and were high on the list.

[PayneTrain]

I assume you're in the first round of waitlist pulling, since if HQ was going for a 400-team CMP they could have pulled ~20 off after week 5 merit registration closed. After Week 6 registration closes, there will be another round of waitlist removals, then you'll see less than a dozen, if any, come off after Week 7.

[Libby K]

The FIRST generic press-release type email was impeccably bad timing.

1923 had the same problem. We'd been waiting to hear from MAR if we got into the district championship.

Our lead mentor (love ya, Kathy) got the email, skimmed the title as she was driving (DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE, KIDS) and texted the mentors 'we r in'.

We weren't. (Yet.) Oops.

EDIT: Posted in the reddit thread, just to see what kind of email they're talking about. Special invites based on OPR doesn't make sense based on the fact that's just not how FIRST usually does things - bad timing and misinterpretation of the email makes a LOT more sense.

[Steven Donow]

If 217(or any team in FiM or MAR to qualify for CMP via waitlist, such as 3314) qualify for STL at MSC, does their spot get given to another Michigan team, or is it given to another waitlist team?

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

If 217(or any team in FiM or MAR to qualify for CMP via waitlist, such as 3314) qualify for STL at MSC, does their spot get given to another Michigan team, or is it given to another waitlist team?

They didnt qualify at another event so they dont meet the requirements to generate a wild card.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by animenerdjohn

They didnt qualify at another event so they dont meet the requirements to generate a wild card.

Wildcards don't apply in Michigan.