Your Thoughts on the 2005 Championship Eligibility Criteria!

[dez250]

(as i did with 2004 heres my 2005 post, please post all thoughts in this thread, to centralize everything for review by everyone...)

Ok since FIRST has released the Criteria for eligability to the 2005 Championship event, what do you all think about it??

Eligability
Teir Lists


Eligability

2005 Championship Eligibility

The 2005 Championship Eligibility Process is shown below to better serve the teams participating in the program and allow more time to plan for the event.

• Merit Based qualifying is focused on FIRST core values. Outstanding team performance or outstanding robot performance is the ticket. For a rookie team, a balanced combination is the way to qualify.
• Teams' performance (points, awards, etc.) in the previous season is NO longer a determining factor.
• The previous year's Chairman's Award Winner, the Engineering Inspiration Award Winner and FIRST Frenzy Champions do qualify.
• The pool of slots that remain will be allocated with preference to those who have waited longest to attend a Championship.

Prequalifying Teams -

1. All prior Championship Chairman's Award winners (12)
2. Original and sustaining teams from 1992 (7)
3. 2004 Championship "FIRST Frenzy" winners (3)
4. 2004 Championship Engineering Inspiration Award winner (1)

Merit Based Qualifying Teams from the current season -

1. Regional Chairman's Award winners (1 per Regional)
2. Regional Engineering Inspiration Award winners (1 per Regional)
3. Regional Rookie All-Star Award winners (1 per Regional)
4. Regional Champions (number per regional event TBD based on the 2005 game)

Open Registration in the Fall:

A selected number of Championship slots will be available for open registration. The slots will be based on the number of years since a team last attended the Championship. All teams will be classified in a Tier, i.e. Tier 6 equals six years since attending a Championship; Tier 2 equals two years since attending. Teams never attending will have their tier based on their rookie year: 2004 rookies are tier 2, 2003 rookies are tier 3, etc. If the number of teams in a tier is greater than the number of available openings, FIRST will use a lottery system to determine team eligibility for remaining open slots. The final determination will be first come/first serve until all available openings are filled. A wait list will be maintained for any openings that become available during the season.

Click here to view the list of teams in each tier. FIRST has designed this system to give every team the option to attend the Championships at least once during the academic career of each high school student. We encourage teams to take advantage of this opportunity as often as possible, and we hope you get as much excitement and inspiration from the Championship event as we do.

Bob Hammond
Director, Robotics Competition