2008 Regional Registration Progress

[KathieK]

I plan to sleep the whole Saturday after ship

Why sleep when you can come to a FIRST event?

[Mark McLeod]

Numbers will still be changing, but for the 1505 teams registered today here is where they are all from, and also how many '07 teams have disappeared this year from that same place. Several areas have recruited enough new teams to fully populate whole new regionals.

                        Current           # '07
                       # Teams      Teams Lost 
CA                      144              12
MI                       116                8
NY                      114                1
NJ                        60                4
VA                       58                 6
Canada                 64               13   (ON = 57/12, QC = 3/0, AB = 2/0, BC = 2/1)
MA                       54                 8    
MN                       53                 0
MO                       49                 5
PA                        49                 2
FL                         47                 5
TX                         46                 1
OK                        42                 2
IL                          38                 3
AZ                         37                 4
OH                        37                 0
CO                        32                 2
CT                         31                 1
NH                        29                 0
MD                        28                 3
WI                         28                 0
IN                          27                 0
HI                          26                 0
GA                        25                 7
WA                       25                 2
KS                        23                 1
OR                        23                 1
SC                        23                 1
Israel                     22               15
LA                         17                2
NV                        17                 0
Brazil                    13                 5
MS                        12                0
NC                        12                 1
PR                        10                 0
ID                           8                 2
ME                         6                 0
DC                         5                 2
ND                         5                 1
United Kingdom       5                 1
AL                          4                 0
WV                        4                 0
AK                         3                 0
DE                         3                 0
IA                           3                 0
MT                         3                 7
NM                         3                 0
RI                           3                 0
TN                          3                 2
UT                          3                 1
VT                          3                 0
Mexico                   2                 1
WY                        2                 0
AR                         1                 0
Chile                      1                 0
KY                         1                 0
NE                         1                 0
Netherlands            1                 0
SD                         1                 1

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Several areas have recruited enough new teams to fully populate whole new regionals.

For example, look at the Minnesota Regional. Of the 54 teams listed, all but ten have a team number greater than 2000. Only one has less than a three-digit team number, and 30 teams are 2008 rookies.

[Cory]

Wow, check out Israel. They lost nearly half their teams (15 out of 37) this year. That's really too bad. Does anyone know why so many dropped out? Did the money available the first 2 years dry up?

[Mark McLeod]

I hope most of them are simply very late in registering. In years past they have had a habit of all showing up at the last minute.

[Richard Wallace]

Microsoft is sponsoring the 2008 Israel Regional, and President Shimon Peres has made some public appearances in support of FIRST very recently. Given that kind of high-level support, it is likely that funding will be found for veteran Israeli FRC teams to continue this year.

[ChuckDickerson]

According to the FIRST Calender of Important Deadlines "Registration closes - Ends on line - 03-Dec-2007" which was yesterday. What exactly does this mean? Can a team still register for additional events just not online or are the events now "locked"? I have never been part of the registration process so I don't know how it works. I am just wondering because there still seems to be a lot of open slots at some regionals and a lot of teams are still working to raise funding. I can't imagine why registration would be closed for events that don't happen for another 3 or 4 months when there are slots available. What actually closed yesterday and when is the real drop dead last day to register for an event?

[Mark McLeod]

Several teams have appeared on the registered list after yesterday's deadline, but they may have already been in process. Extensions may have been granted due to this past weekend's database failures too.

We probably all know of FIRST working with teams up to the last minute when they have difficulty raising funds, so the payment deadlines can certainly be flexible as long as FIRST staff is involved early on. I can easily believe there are extenuating circumstances where FIRST will work with a team to bring them in, in spite of the Registration deadline.

In the case of the Israeli teams I have to consider that anything is possible if a large number of teams are affected and you have the support of the Regional Director behind you.

I have seen teams register for an additional Regional after the deadline (pretty late too), however, I don't know any background details. For instance, they might have paid for another Regional, but were shutout. As long as FIRST and the Regional Director can be talked into letting them in anything is possible.

P.S. There is still some setting going on. Five more rookies appeared on 12/5, four rookies disappeared, several missing vets registered, several vets de-registered, etc.

[Jon236]

The Israeli teams are unfortunately affected by the on-going high school teacher's strike. Hopefully this will be solved before kickoff! We are looking forward to making the most out of Microsoft's kind support.

Many teams in Israel continue to meet and plan despite the strike. Can we start a roll-call of Israeli teams that are active?

[Bomberofdoom]

Team 2230 Zcharia's Angels from Handasaim-Herezliya High School is active.

[yara92]

Hallow our Friends!
I hope all of you are OK. We are the teachers in Israel have our own problem, which I believe it will be solved. But we have a mission we don’t forget our children. We remember:
“ …to create a world where science and technology are celebrated….
where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes….”
Dean Kamen, FIRST Founder
The delay is matter of registration.
Mohamed- Team 1946

[johnr]

december payment deadline has passed. can we read anything into the team lists now. does no openings mean only saved rookie spots might open? is atlanta's team list just teams that have paid? thanks for any answers.

[synth3tk]

Atlanta's team list is just an indicator of which teams have "paid" their way in. Regional champions and award winners will always have a spot indefinitely.

As for reading into the team lists, I would say yes, but with caution. There still may be things happening behind-the-scenes that will either drop or add a team, or group of teams like in Israel.
For the most part, though, that's the final list.

[yara92]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I just now got Google Docs to play nice again, and I updated the spreadsheet to see who's left.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...xl0raZMKkEdMNg

Currently, 551 teams have yet to register. 857 teams have registered overall, including rookies and teams coming off inactive status. (I noticed that 710 registered for Florida--has anyone else caught teams on the rosters making a comeback?)

Team 1946 Reg Missing??
we had registerd.
Mohamed- Team 1946

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by yara92

Team 1946 Reg Missing??
we had registerd.
Mohamed- Team 1946

That spreadsheet hasn't been updated in a week and a half. Some teams have obviously registered since then--I'll have an update later today.

Edit: Actually, how about now?