2008 Regional Registration Progress

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Billfred

... It should be fixed now.

And so it is. Thanks again.

[Billfred]

I went ahead and updated. As of probably 20 minutes ago, 463 teams remain unregistered. If you see any errors, drop me a line--remember, if I can screw up the caption contest scores, I can screw up anything!

[Richard Wallace]

With ten days to go until 2nd Regional registration opens, 1001 teams have registered: 862 veterans and 139 rookies. There are 728 published spots still open so registration is apparently 58% full. [Of course this neglects an unknown number of spots being held open for expected rookie teams at several regionals.]

Nine regionals are at their published registration capacity: BAE Granite State, Midwest, Greater Kansas City, NASA VCU, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Boston, Hawaii, and SBPLI Long Island. And Florida is all but full with only one published spot open.

Updated regional-by-regional and week-by-week figures follow:

Regional / Attending / Open

BAE Granite State / 38 / 0
Midwest Chicago / 36 / 0
New Jersey / 28 / 25
Oregon / 16 / 38
St. Louis / 17 / 21
Week 1: / 135 / 84 / 62% full

Arizona / 27 / 27
Finger Lakes / 22 / 10
Greater Kansas City / 54 / 0
NASA/VCU Richmond / 52 / 0
San Diego / 20 / 18
Week 2: / 175 / 55 / 76% full

Boilermaker / 27 / 5
Brazil / 0 / 30
Chesapeake / 20 / 34
Connecticut / 21 / 49
Detroit / 30 / 0
Florida / 53 / 1
Peachtree / 31 / 7
Pittsburgh / 7 / 24
Silicon Valley / 32 / 8
Wisconsin / 27 / 27
Week 3: / 249 / 185 / 57% full

Buckeye / 13 / 37
Lone Star / 18 / 35
Los Angeles / 23 / 19
Microsoft Seattle / 17 / 15
Oklahoma City / 35 / 0
Davis/Sacramento / 9 / 25
Waterloo / 4 / 22
West Michigan / 24 / 19
Israel / 1 / 41
Week 4: / 144 / 213 / 40% full

Bayou / 19 / 35
Boston / 40 / 0
Colorado / 21 / 17
Great Lakes / 42 / 12
Greater Toronto / 15 / 39
Hawaii / 26 / 0
Las Vegas / 16 / 25
Minnesota / 23 / 9
Palmetto / 11 / 20
Philadelphia / 24 / 10
SBPLI Long Island / 32 / 0
Week 5: / 269 / 167 / 62% full

New York City / 29 / 24 / 55% full

[Richard Wallace]

Milestone: (1100 teams found.)

Will update regional-by-regional and week-by-week figures again early next week, just before 2nd Regional registration opens.

[Mark McLeod]

200 teams ahead of this same time last year.

[Billfred]

I just combed through the latest data on FIRST's site; the magic number is now 356, a number I expect to shrink further with time.

[Richard Wallace]

Update: one more day until 2nd regional registration opens. 1148 teams have registered, bringing the total to about 66% of published capacity. As Mark pointed out earlier the number of teams registered is well ahead of this time last year.

178 rookie teams have registered so far. The most recent is FRC 2507 from Bishop DuBourg High School in St. Louis.

Eleven regionals are now at their published capacity: BAE Granite State, Midwest, Greater Kansas City, NASA VCU, Detroit, Florida, Oklahoma City, Boston, Hawaii, Minnesota, and SBPI Long Island. Three others are nearly full: Boilermaker, Peachtree, and Silicon Valley.

Updated regional-by-regional and week-by-week figures follow:

Regional / Attending / Open

BAE Granite State / 42 / 0 
Midwest Chicago / 36 / 0 
New Jersey / 39 / 14 
Oregon / 22 / 32 
St. Louis / 20 / 18 
Week 1: / 159 / 64 / 71% full

Arizona / 32 / 22 
Finger Lakes / 23 / 9 
Greater Kansas City / 54 / 0 
NASA/VCU Richmond / 54 / 0 
San Diego / 25 / 13 
Week 2: / 188 / 44 / 81% full

Boilermaker / 29 / 3 
Brazil / 0 / 30 
Chesapeake / 23 / 31 
Connecticut / 29 / 41 
Detroit / 30 / 0 
Florida / 54 / 0 
Peachtree / 36 / 2 
Pittsburgh / 8 / 23 
Silicon Valley / 38 / 2 
Wisconsin / 30 / 24 
Week 3: / 278 / 156 / 64% full

Buckeye / 19 / 31 
Lone Star / 21 / 33 
Los Angeles / 28 / 14 
Microsoft Seattle / 18 / 14 
Oklahoma City / 36 / 0 
Davis/Sacramento / 12 / 22 
Waterloo / 4 / 22 
West Michigan / 25 / 19 
Israel / 4 / 38 
Week 4: / 167 / 193 / 46% full

Bayou / 25 / 29 
Boston / 41 / 0 
Colorado / 23 / 15 
Great Lakes / 43 / 11 
Greater Toronto / 24 / 30 
Hawaii / 28 / 0 
Las Vegas / 20 / 21 
Minnesota / 38 / 0 
Palmetto / 17 / 14 
Philadelphia / 28 / 6 
SBPLI Long Island / 34 / 0 
Week 5: / 321 / 126 / 72% full

New York City / 35 / 19 / 65% full

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Richard

1148 teams have registered, bringing the total to about 66% of published capacity.

It's fast approaching last year's total. I'm always interested when we get to final registration (except for those last minute 10 teams or so who finally get it together in January), how many teams have dropped out from the previous year.

We have several local teams on Billfred's list that cannot register until they pass their School Board approval cycle, so they always register late. Most of the Israeli and Brazil teams also seem to all pop-in at the last minute.

One of the oddities introduced by the published capacity of individual Regionals is that the number of teams registered for already full Regionals continues to go up as Rookie teams add-in. So team registration goes up, but isn't directly reflected by the remaining capacity %.
P.S. I just noticed that Richmond's capacity actually seemed to drop by 2.

It's still quite a guessing game for teams on the wait lists as to what the real capacity of a Regional is and what their chances are of getting in. FIRST requires Regionals to reserve more slots than are likely to be filled by Rookies, making wait lists possible. As it works now you have to talk to individual Regional Directors to know where you might stand.

[Richard Wallace]

Ten more teams have registered since my last update (this morning) bringing the total to 1158, including 185 rookie teams.

I wonder which state will have the most new teams this year?

So far Hawaii and Minnesota each show 21 rookies. Two new regionals off to flying starts ...

[Mark McLeod]

Yea, it looks like the state of Minnesota just registered... (1162)
..and the Minnesota rookies now lead the pack.

Somebody up there is doing a great job!

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Yea, it looks like the state of Minnesota just registered... (1162)
..and the Minnesota rookies now lead the pack.

Somebody up there is doing a great job!

Mark,

This is probably a reflection on the great FLL program in Minnesota. The students naturally want to progress on to the next level of competition. Here's the Minnesota FLL website:

http://www.hightechkids.org/

They've been top-notch for years.

[Billfred]

Second-event registration seems to have been the wake-up call; between the last update of my sheet on Sunday and the one I just did, some 56 returning teams have registered for an initial event. That means the magic number of missing teams is now an even 300 and decreasing. (Even if registration ceased today, that's a 77% retention rate.)

[Roger]

Y'know, some people (like me) watch the Weather Channel for entertainment. Somebody could make a ton of money putting this FIRST registration live on cable....

[Mark McLeod]

If my count is in the neighborhood, 68 vets didn't re-register in 2007, 101 in 2006, and 144 in 2005. Hovering around a 90% retention rate. Of course some of those teams just took a year off and did reappear the following season.

Each year the number of rookies keeps climbing and the number of veteran teams lost to us keeps dropping.

We're about 70 registered rookies ahead of this same time last year. That will likely translate into an unusually large increase this year in the total number of rookies (we might hope). For the past three seasons FRC has gained ~40 more new teams over the gain of the year before (2005-208, 2006-243, 2007-286).
Predictions for fun anyone?

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

If my count is in the neighborhood, 68 vets didn't re-register in 2007, 101 in 2006, and 144 in 2005. Hovering around a 90% retention rate. Of course some of those teams just took a year off and did reappear the following season.

Each year the number of rookies keeps climbing and the number of veteran teams lost to us keeps dropping.

We're about 70 registered rookies ahead of this same time last year. That will likely translate into an unusually large increase this year in the total number of rookies (we might hope). For the past three seasons FRC has gained ~40 more new teams over the gain of the year before (2005-208, 2006-243, 2007-286).
Predictions for fun anyone?

I'll stick with my earlier prediction: 400 rookie FRC teams in 2008. If you estimate using the recent year trends that Mark provided above, my figure is about 25% higher than the extrapolation -- but I'm allowed to dream. There are 200 rookies registered as of this evening, and we're only about halfway through the registration period, so my dream-figure is still possible.