Championship Waitlist

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

894 dropped out earlier so since there hasn't been another invite, the roster is still at 599 and 1 opening if 272 accepts.

I swear at this point HQ should add 3 teams and whoever confirms first gets it. It'll hurt the 2 that are too slow, but the time it takes for a team to confirm is pushing the process out too long. Either that or they cut it at 599 and that's it. It's not like anyone but a local team is going to pull off a Champs trip all on Monday.

I know it only affects a small number of teams but FIRST should be ashamed of how they have run the Championship Invite List this year.

I don't speak for 246, but I can speak for my own experience as a mentor on a team that was on the bubble. FIRST has been completely opaque. We've gotten basically no explanation of the process or how things would work or when we would know something or not.

Part of our team is convinced that a mistake was made and that we should have been invited based on our rank at the end of the NEF-DCMP. We brought it up with NEF folks only to be told it is out of their hands. We have brought it up with FIRST. No answer. Not a yes, not a no, nothing. When we finally called to get to a live body they didn't seem interested in hearing the argument yet alone explaining why we were mistaken. All they could say was that it is done by an algorithm and they don't explain their algorithms to teams. Repeated request for more info resulted in no response whatever.

Earlier in the week, when some seniors where getting worked up about a potential mistake being made, I assured my team that they'd be treated fairly. I can't say that now. Maybe they were treated fairly. Maybe they were cheated out of an invite to St. Louis. Who can say? It is done by Algorithm and FIRST doesn't explain its Algorithms to teams.

I believe that FIRST owes the community more transparency (any transparency would an improvement). One quote I heard from another mentor, "FIRST is a black box about their CMP list. They make their decisions and explain nothing."

I'll close as I started: FIRST should be ashamed of how they have run the Championship Invite List this year.

Dr. Joe J.