2007 Regionals -- Team Participation By Week

[Richard Wallace]

This year's regional FRC season is looking light on Week 4, but otherwise fairly well balanced. As of this morning, the week-by-week registration totals indicate:

231 teams registered for 5 regionals in Week 1, with 11 spaces still open.

253 teams registered for 8 regionals in Week 2, with 70 spaces still open; this does not include the pilot event in Brazil.

328 teams registered for 9 regionals in Week 3, with 32 spaces still open.

111 teams registered for 4 regionals in Week 4, with 26 spaces still open.

304 teams registered for 9 regionals in Week 5, with 65 spaces still open; this does not include the Israel regional (no sign-ups yet?)

Is something else going on in Week 4 that prevented FIRST from spreading the load out a little more? Or is this just the luck of the draw based on venue availability?

[Josh Murphy]

It probably has alot to do with availabilty of students being out of school. Maybe some teams are planning on back to back regionals and cannot get thier students out for 3 weeks in a row(not a good idea). Some also might be planning on week 1 then 3 then 5 or something like that, but it also could have alot to do with teams budgets and how far they plan to travel and there is nothing in week 4 within thier range of travel selection. I think that there are a ton of factors on why there are more in all of the weeks but 4, just my opinion.

[Lil' Lavery]

It may just be the quantity of regionals. Typically venue availability is the biggest concern when deciding the regional weekend. Week 4 only has 4 regionals. Week 1 only has 5, but that is counting 2 HUGE regionals (VCU and NJ had 60+ teams last year).

[Wetzel]

I thought about March Madness, but most of the games are done by March 22-24.
How about Week 4 is a week of rest for the FIRST staff?

Wetzel

[Richard Wallace]

As of this evening, confirmed and pending registrations for all 2007 regional events adds up to 1,237 teams. This is two more than the total regional event registration for 2006 (look here for details), and we have 242 published spaces still available. So it appears that FIRST has planned spaces to accomodate at least 20% growth in regional registration over last year, and we're well on our way to filling those spaces.

There are 995 teams registered for 2007 now, and 32 of them have confirmed (i.e., paid) for a second regional; another 210 are pending for a second regional. Last year, 39% of FRC teams participated in at least two events.

Looking at all this, I'll predict:

(1) there will be more rookie teams signing up between now and Dec. 1 -- teams numbers will break the 2200 mark, and

(2) the average number of teams per regional will be 42 or 43 -- last year's average was 44 teams.

[LightWaves1636]

Perhaps when F.I.R.S.T. was renting the arenas, those were the weeks allowed?

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Richard

There are 995 teams registered for 2007 now, and 32 of them have confirmed (i.e., paid) for a second regional; another 210 are pending for a second regional. Last year, 39% of FRC teams participated in at least two events.

What was the total number of registered teams for 2006? The number of active teams is a better way to assess growth than simply looking at team numbers. I'm curious how much FIRST has grown, since it seems like a lot.

[GaryVoshol]

FIRST also has to plan when doing back-to-back usage of field elements. Striking everything on Saturday night, getting it into transport, and then setting up again on Wednesday is a big task.

There will be 10 field sets in use in North America in week 5 (9 regionals, 2 fields in Toronto). Having a low week 4 gives FIRST added opportunity to get all the fields into place.

I'm sure the biggest factor is site availability.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

What was the total number of registered teams for 2006? The number of active teams is a better way to assess growth than simply looking at team numbers. I'm curious how much FIRST has grown, since it seems like a lot.

Some figures posted here a couple of weeks before the 2006 Kickoff indicated 1126 teams. So as of this morning we are about 130 teams shy of last year's total -- but there's still a little over one month until registration closes.

Many teams get their funding for FRC close to the deadline, so the team count will probably rise quickly toward the end of November.