FRC active teams

[Dominick Ferone]

Rookies are being given numbers in the 5000, 6000 range. But the number of active teams is around 3000. Teams end up going under and the numbers aren't recycled. Some teams take a year or two off then come back. There are also a lot of numbers that weren't given out.

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Dominick Ferone

There are also a lot of numbers that weren't given out.

A lot weren't given out? Can you explain?

[Dominick Ferone]

For example teams 5352-5399 were never numbers given out for whatever reason.

There are also teams who merge together(Chief Delphi for example) and one of the teams numbers can just get retired. Now retired numbers can be brought back if the school starts a new team they can pick up the old number.

[EDesbiens]

Oh! That's all logic... Anyone knows why some numbers are not given out?

[AdamStockton]

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

Oh! That's all logic... Anyone knows why some numbers are not given out?

Those numbers are essentially held as "reserve" for future use, such as teams merging together (like the team 47/65 case). More information on when these numbers are issued can be found here. This document does a good job of explaining the different scenarios which could result in one of these reserved numbers being issued

[EDesbiens]

That explains pretty much all of it! Thank you!

[Mr V]

Another reason that numbers aren't given out is because it is easier to remember for example that 4450 was the lowest team number for the 2013 season than to remember that it was for example 4407. So the each year numbers start at xx00 or xx50. Not really important to individual teams but easier at the administration level. The reserved numbers are also used for those split or combine cases because FIRST wants to be able to easily tell the relative team age using that 00/50 system noted above.

[GeeTwo]

Another thing to note is that if you go to usfirst and search for teams that existed for a certain year/game, you will get a few teams that enrolled as teams that year, but never competed. If you want to know when a given team actually competed, www.theblualliance.com is usually the easiest (but not the official) place to find out.

In addition to the cases cited above for vacant team numbers, sometimes a given school/group may have multiple numbers at different times, provided that they were inactive for enough years. For example, Slidell High School fielded team 2182 Tyborgs in 2007 and 2008. The team competed very well, but died for lack of sponsorship. When we started a new team to compete in 2012 (3946 Tiger Robotics), we opted to get a new number and compete as rookies. For the record, the new team has no coaches, mentors, or students overlapping with 2182, so we felt perfectly justified in being considered rookies; only our head coach and one student had any experience with FIRST (on 1912, Team Combustion). We have managed to get a few of the old motors and other material items from 2182 from the Tyborg's head coach, who still teaches at the school. We even have an empty cell from 2009 (Lunacy) sitting on top of a storage cabinet in Jesse's classroom, even though 2182 did not compete that year.

Whenever people and personalities are involved, things can either make sense at the time, or in the long view, but never both. (Neither is also an option.) On the team numbering issue, FRC has opted to have things make sense at the time over having them make sense in the future, though they valiantly try to do both as much as they can.

Edit - and OBTW, if you don't know what team was #47, look at the icons on your browser tabs.
Second Edit:

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

Oh, and for team 47, you mean they are team Chrome?....Just kidding

While it's been a few months since I've used Chrome, last I checked they supported the favicon.ico convention for browser tab icons, meaning you'd see orange bars above and below a black bar with a white 47. Is that no longer the case?

[EDesbiens]

That's pretty interesting! Thank you!

Oh, and for team 47, you mean they are team Chrome?

Just kidding