Registration 2014

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

Technically, a bunch more aren't at capacity, but those are just the hidden future waitlist spots/rookie spots.

A number of events have filled their reserved spots and most of the regionals that do have reserved spots left have more or way more teams on the wait list than they do spots.

A lot of teams are going to be disappointed that they do not get to attend a second regional this season.

Meanwhile in MAR, NE and PNW all but 2 of the wait lists have been cleared, and only 1 of those have more teams than spots. FiM has a few wait lists but they only recently added two additional events that I believe brought them up to the needed capacity for everyone to play twice.

[PayneTrain]

I do know there are a couple event that haven't cleared their waitlist because they're in a real pickle (i.e. with <10 spots left you have 8 local teams, local rookies, and some OOS teams)

Some states/regions are building teams without implementing a scalable competition model (for a variety of rational, sensible reasons) but this is the result.

[Littleboy]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...egional-events
Just noticed this today. Does anyone know what it is for?

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Littleboy

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...egional-events
Just noticed this today. Does anyone know what it is for?

This definitely wasn't there last night. In reality, it's probably for testing something, but at the same time, why would they call it, "Pre-Forfeit Team Non-Competing"?

Let's break this down here:

"Pre-Forfeit"
I have no idea what that could mean.

"Team"
Makes sense.

"Non-Competing"
The only like I can see to what we have existing already is that for RAS and EI, a team can compete for the award at their District Championship without actually competing with their robot.
Maybe, this is their to reflect those teams that win. For example, Team 321 won EI at MAR Championships last year, and because they were not registered there, this is not reflected in any official FIRST documentation, other than looking at the manual entered awards page on the event page. Maybe this is a "fake event" to reflect that? This also has happened with DL winners in MAR.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

"Pre-Forfeit"
I have no idea what that could mean.

Perhaps "Pre-Forfeit" because they are waiting on some teams to give up their extra regional registrations to make room for new teams with no spot. In the meantime, the new teams can register for this "Non-Competition." Being officially registered for an event is I believe required for payment, team registration, and kit delivery, so just being on a waitlist wouldn't cut it, is my guess.

[Ernst]

The title seems to be "Forfeit Team Non-Competition" now. Haven't there been a few teams in the past that register just for the kit and don't plan on attending the Regionals they signed up for? I thought I heard something about an Australian team doing so. If that's the case, this "event" might be for those teams.

[Mark McLeod]

Here's the only team listed so far:

Blacktown, NSW, Australia
Blacktown Boys High School
4801


The sibling Girls team is not listed here, but is listed for Hub City, so maybe they're only going to send one of their teams abroad this season.

[Gregor]

Maybe they need to be registered somewhere to get a KoP, but they don't want to actually compete. They could just be building a robot for the Australia offseason, and need a KoP.

[Ernst]

There are 13-20 teams from China. 1 played last season. 12 rookies are registered for events like Hawaii, Lone Star, Hub City, and Central Illinois. There are also seven 8-digit teams listed.

They come from all over, including Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing, Qingdao, Harbin, ZhengZhou, Dalian, Changchun, and Yantai, several of which are among the largest cities in China.

Does anyone know what's causing this growth? Is there a person or group coordinating this effort? It seems like too much to be spontaneous or coincidental.

[Tom Ore]

Originally Posted by ZehP

Does anyone know what's causing this growth? Is there a person or group coordinating this effort? It seems like too much to be spontaneous or coincidental.

There's a business man in China driving the effort. We (FRC 525) met him in 2012 at champs and he was interested in starting FRC teams. One of our parents (who's from China) has kept in contact with him since. The business man was back in St. Louis at champs this year. He brought a cameraman and filmed in our pit for about 2 1/2 hours. He interviewed a couple of our mandarin speaking students for a special to be broadcast in China to attract schools that might be interested. (I never heard how that turned out, but he did attract schools from all over China.)

3 mentors from FRC 525 (myself included), 1 mentor from FTC 6420 and a student that graduated last year from our team are going to China to conduct a three day mentor workshop. (We leave on the Dec 22nd and get back on the 28th.) The workshop will be held at the school that competed last year.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Tom Ore

There's a business man in China driving the effort. We (FRC 525) met him in 2012 at champs and he was interested in starting FRC teams. One of our parents (who's from China) has kept in contact with him since. The business man was back in St. Louis at champs this year. He brought a cameraman and filmed in our pit for about 2 1/2 hours. He interviewed a couple of our mandarin speaking students for a special to be broadcast in China to attract schools that might be interested. (I never heard how that turned out, but he did attract schools from all over China.)

That's really impressive.

I actually stumbled across an old Popular Science magazine from 2009, where in an article about "Reinventing Culture" Dean Kamen was disappointed because he felt that he had not met his goal of putting an FRC team in every high school. We're not there yet...but this much growth in one year in a foreign country as large as China...very exciting for this season.

Good luck with your workshop!

[Katna.Grace]

Hi, I’m a student on FIRST Team 3132, Thunder Down Under. I’d really like to clear up some of the confusion regarding Australian teams registering.

Doing FRC in Australia is really expensive, for a variety of reasons. For a start, the US-Australian exchange rate is not always favourable. Also, ordering parts from AndyMark or Vex means really expensive shipping, which can double the cost by the time we get it. In other words, it can cost an Australian team double what it costs a North American team to build a robot - and then you have to get the regional, which can cost over $US 40K!

Because of the expense, of the (currently 14) Australian teams that register, half do not attend a regional. All Australian teams (even those that do attend regionals) attend the Duel Down Under off season event in Sydney, Australia, which is open to all FRC teams across the world.

However, in order to register (and thus receive a kit), teams need to designate a regional. This year, I think that all (6 or 7) of the Aussie teams planning on attending a regional are registered for Hawaii – it’s the closest to us. Aussie teams not planning to attend a regional tend to wait until later in the registration process, so they don’t deny other teams a spot. They then pick a regional with empty spots, which is why they keep popping up in seemingly strange places. When they do register, they let FIRST know that they will not be attending, so that spots can be freed up for local teams.

Blacktown Boys, who is currently registered for ‘Forfeit team non-competition’, is not registered for Hawaii, so my guess is that they are NOT travelling and just need a kit, and FIRST is aware of this.


Of course, none of this will be an issue when we get an official Australian regional, hopefully in a few years time.

[Caleb Sykes]

Do the teams only attending the Australian off-season bag up their robots after build season? Because that seems kind of silly if it is true.

[Caleb Sykes]

What I mean is, since most teams have the option to work on their robot after Championships, and the Duel Down Under is after Championships, teams would have to stop woking on the robot from March-April, only to open it up and work on it again from May-June.

If the Duel Down Under Competition requires that you bag your robot after your last regular season competition (Like the Minnesota State High School League Championship), then bagging at SBD would make sense.

[Mark McLeod]

The increase in Districts has increased the percentage of 2-event teams.
The shortage of Regional slots really haven't reduced the percentage of 3+event teams. At least not significantly yet.
The 2014 numbers aren't complete yet, so expect some changes.

Including 2014 Districts & Regionals:

• (1) 4-event team (.04%)
• (34) 3-event teams (1.24%)
• (1073) 2-event teams (39.02%)
• (1642) 1-event teams (59.71%)

As a comparison in 2013 at roughly this same time of registration, the percentages were:

• (4) 4-event teams (.16%)
• (41) 3-event teams (1.63%)
• (760) 2-event teams (30.13%)
• (1717) 1-event teams (68.08%)