Registration 2014

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

FIRST does not publish the waitlist for any event. The reason is that teams are not taken in order from the list. Any of a large number of factors might determine which teams are given an opportunity to attend any regional or the Championship (who your sponsors are, how long it has been since you attended, specific team makeup, special events at any particular regional or the Champs, are you a local team, etc.). Of course one of those factors is when you joined the list, but is certainly not the only one.

Originally Posted by Gregor

Do you have a source for this, or is it a (probably pretty good) assumption?

I do have some direct experience in this situation. I'm not saying that any of the reasons for selecting teams are good or bad. It is just the way the system works. What seems perhaps "unfair" to one team is "fair" to another. I believe that FIRST works for the overall good of the program, which in turn benefits all of the participants.

Regarding ideas on how to improve the registration process to avoid the "fastest fingers/internet" wins we currently have, how about this:

What if first regional registration had a longer period for teams to apply for admission to their regional of choice (perhaps a week) and then a lottery was held for the guaranteed spaces. Then all remaining teams are in the wait-list pool (in a random order?). Notices go out to coaches indicating their acceptance or wait-list status and they can switch to open regionals or stay and take their chances. Process repeats for 2nd regional registration. Open regional registration stays the same.

Would that help/be more "fair"?

BTW, this was year was the easiest registration process I've ever been through! THANK YOU FIRST!

See you at Inland Empire and Sacramento!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Wetzel]

Some waitlists are 20+ teams deep, interesting challenges in getting more than 8 rounds for our students and robot.

Can the National Capital Region move to districts already?

Wetzel

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Some waitlists are 20+ teams deep, interesting challenges in getting more than 8 rounds for our students and robot.

Can the National Capital Region move to districts already?

Wetzel

I'm starting to really see the advantage of the district system...I second your request for North Carolina - and whoever wants to play with us!

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Some waitlists are 20+ teams deep, interesting challenges in getting more than 8 rounds for our students and robot.

How do you find out how many teams or on a waitlist? Is it possible just from the What Events And Teams Are In My Area? page?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by ZehP

How do you find out how many teams or on a waitlist?

You can usually make a good guess based on how many teams attended an event in prior years. You do need to verify that the venue and layout will be the same, of course.

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by ZehP

How do you find out how many teams or on a waitlist? Is it possible just from the What Events And Teams Are In My Area? page?

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You can usually make a good guess based on how many teams attended an event in prior years. You do need to verify that the venue and layout will be the same, of course.

You could estimate how many teams might get into the event from the wait list using that kind of logic, but how would that tell you how many total teams are on the list vying for those spots? The only way I know of is to call the regional director.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

The only way I know of is to call the regional director.

Basically this.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Some waitlists are 20+ teams deep, interesting challenges in getting more than 8 rounds for our students and robot.

Can the National Capital Region move to districts already?

Wetzel

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

I'm starting to really see the advantage of the district system...I second your request for North Carolina - and whoever wants to play with us!

You better double check those numbers. Yes there are some events with 20+ team wait lists, 2 to be exact. One of those is a traditional regional, New York Tech Valley, but the other is the FiM Livoniva district event.

How many teams that are on the wait list does not mean how many teams will have spots at those events. Every regional has a maximum number of spots, but in some instances they will increase that number IF the location can handle the pit space for those extra teams. In rare instances there have been a few cases where 1 or 2 teams above the predetermined limit have been allowed.

There are typically 10 reserved spots at traditional regionals, FiM and NE district events while MAR and PNW generally have 5 reserved spots.

The main reason for those reserved spots is for rookies that register late in the season. They are first in line for those reserved spots. The next priority is for teams that do not have a confirmed spot for their first event. In the case of the district system the next priority would be teams that do not have a confirmed second event over third events. Beyond those priorities there is some discretion given to the Regional director but typically the spaces are offered in the order the remaining teams joined the list.

To find the contact info for your Regional Director and Senior Mentor, if your area has one you can go here: http://www.usfirst.org/regional-contacts Note if you are in a district select the state to be able to see if there is a Senior Mentor for your area. I would recommend the Senior Mentor as your first point of contact as our focus is assisting teams and answering their questions.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Mr V

You better double check those numbers. Yes there are some events with 20+ team wait lists, 2 to be exact. One of those is a traditional regional, New York Tech Valley, but the other is the FiM Livoniva district event.

Are you sure Tech Valley really has a 20+ team waitlist. Going into 2nd registration, it still had almost half of its spots left. I'm not surprised it was a popular 2nd choice, but that still seems kind of crazy to me.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Pault

Are you sure Tech Valley really has a 20+ team waitlist. Going into 2nd registration, it still had almost half of its spots left. I'm not surprised it was a popular 2nd choice, but that still seems kind of crazy to me.

Yes I'm sure of that, and yes you are correct that there were still a large number of spaces that were still available when second event registration opened.

[DampRobot]

Registered for SVR. Waitlisted at Davis. Darn.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Some waitlists are 20+ teams deep, interesting challenges in getting more than 8 rounds for our students and robot.

Can the National Capital Region move to districts already?

Wetzel

Can you believe there are tons of mentors in the area who want to delay this region's districts to 2016?

We're on the waitlist for Chesapeake - we wanted North Carolina or Palmetto since we haven't been to either, but both were totally full at 12:08 when we were able to get on for round 2. I was hoping to be able to get to see some old friends who now mentor teams attending Palmetto.

Thankfully 2014 is the last year the teams around here have to deal with the race to a 2nd regional. Yet even with that good decision for next year, it's undermined by the fact that FIRST put the Philly FTC Super Regional on the SAME GD DAYS as the DC regional. If FIRST ever wanted to send a message about what teams should prioritize, that would be one. We have some tough decisions to make in the coming weeks, and other FRC events being jam-packed doesn't help at all.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Can you believe there are tons of mentors in the area who want to delay this region's districts to 2016?

You mean you don't like scrambling for the chance to pay $9000 for 16 matches instead of being guaranteed $5000 for 24? Are you some crazy person?

*cries*
*shakes fist*
*emails regional directors again*

[Wetzel]

Current open spots, as of 0920, 26 Oct 13.

Week 1
Alamo - 3

Week 2
Northern Lights (MN) - 8
Hub City (Lubbox, TX)- 36

Week 3
Mexico City - 19

Week 4
Buckeye (Cleveland)- 12

Week 5
Queen City - 12
Pittsburgh - 3

Week 6
Western Canada - 9
Windsor Essex Great Lakes - 16
South Florida (Ft Lauderdale) - 3
Lone Star - 23

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Can you believe there are tons of mentors in the area who want to delay this region's districts to 2016?

We're on the waitlist for Chesapeake - we wanted North Carolina or Palmetto since we haven't been to either, but both were totally full at 12:08 when we were able to get on for round 2. I was hoping to be able to get to see some old friends who now mentor teams attending Palmetto.

Thankfully 2014 is the last year the teams around here have to deal with the race to a 2nd regional. Yet even with that good decision for next year, it's undermined by the fact that FIRST put the Philly FTC Super Regional on the SAME GD DAYS as the DC regional. If FIRST ever wanted to send a message about what teams should prioritize, that would be one. We have some tough decisions to make in the coming weeks, and other FRC events being jam-packed doesn't help at all.

While there are many benefits to the district system and I am glad that my area is going to be participating in such a system this season avoiding the race to the second registration is not one of the advantages of the system. Just look at the wait lists in FiM. You may get a break in that the first year or two, particularly if the growth rate is stagnant in the district.

As far as "FIRST" putting the FTC super regional on the same weekend as a FRC event I think you are blaming the wrong entity. Fact is for the most part FTC is run separately from FRC. Area FTC program managers are often not in contact with the RDs and it was planning committees made up of those FTC program managers and others involved with FTC who have organized and set the dates for the FTC super regionals FIRST headquarters had little to do with that. There are many things to consider when setting those dates and a lot of it has to do with how FTC has been run in those areas traditionally, including the dates for their qualifiers and a number of other factors. FIRST is in a transition period and going forward they are looking to unify how the different programs are implemented across the US. A good example is the fact that the FRC district system will be playing with a unified points system for this season rather than leaving many of the details of that to the individual areas to decide.

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

You mean you don't like scrambling for the chance to pay $9000 for 16 matches instead of being guaranteed $5000 for 24? Are you some crazy person?

*cries*
*shakes fist*
*emails regional directors again*

I'm sorry but you just don't know the effort required to transition to the district system. If you did you would know why there is resistance. One main factor is finding the volunteers required for all those events. Sure we have some great volunteers but we have to be very careful to prevent burn out if we try to have the existing base cover 6 or 7 weekends of events rather than 1 or 2. Certainly there are those among the base that are going to be happy to have the chance to volunteer at many more events but for others we run the risk of pushing them away if we ask too much of them.

Then there is the need to find the locations for all those district events. People from WA FIRST robotics visited around 100 sites to pick the locations for the 7 district events to be held in our state. You must consider many factors in determining if a venue is suitable and you have fit within the availability of the multiple facilities.

Finally there is just the logistics of the fields ect. WA FIRST Robotics has rented a large warehouse to be able to deal with the fields that we have had to purchase. A team of 6 of use spent most of Tue evening just painting the wood to construct the road cases to transport our fields. Even more people spent about 10 hours on building those cases yesterday and we don't even have a single case completely finished. We expect our team of 10 to put in another 10-12 hour day today and probably spend most of Sun before we get the basic cases built.

The amount of labor and capital to get a district system is enormous. I hope that when your area goes to the district system you put your hammer where your mouth is, step up to the plate and be one of the many people who will be needed to make it happen. For example there is a group from Oregon who have traveled about 6 hours to come and make the road case build project happen. They left Oregon at O'dark:30 to be at the field house by about noon yesterday and they will probably not be home until midnight Sun.