Florida????

[Todd Derbyshire]

I was wondering if anyone was having the same problem my team was having with registering this morning. When we went to register to Florida (first come first serve even) you couldn't register. So if anybody can verify that this happening with them can they please post.

[Leon Machado IV]

It is now noted under the regestration that you cannot register for the nationals until 9/27 (tomorrow). FIRST says it's technical problems and I find that totally ironic. HAHA. See ya.

[Ed Sparks]

I was never given an opportunity to register for the "championship" either. I'm not sure how FIRST will allow those in the "First Come First Serve" catagory to register but I'm sure it will make no sense and be complicated ......

[jfischer]

I don't know if they just fixed the technical problems, but I was able to register for the Nationals. You might want to give it another try.

Good luck!

[Todd Derbyshire]

I think that is because you have already qualified because you won a regional. All I know is that this better not screw up the first come first serve policy. Way to go First!!!!!



New quote:
So I hear that Battlebots show is pretty good!!!

[Jay Lundy]

Originally posted by Todd Derbyshire
I think that is because you have already qualified because you won a regional. All I know is that this better not screw up the first come first serve policy. Way to go First!!!!!



New quote:
So I hear that Battlebots show is pretty good!!!

Let's not go jumping to conclusions here...
I'm sure FIRST has a reason for doing this and that they would not allow their registration system to be screwed up.

And I don't think BattleBots can ever be better than FIRST.

[Pamela]

I called FIRST after having problems with registering my team for nationals, I talked to an employee who informed me that they had technical difficuties that were causing nationals registration not to work, he also told me that at the same time tommorow morning nationals registration will open and will be working properly.

[FRCOps]

<decloak>
Team people,
1.) Yes we really did disable Championship registration today due to "technical issues". I'll just say this as the guy who made the call - it didn't work as of 10:00 AM EST due to a setup issue. People who thought they'd been waitlisted? Their registrations were being vaporized. Think we've already p****d some people off? Try dealing with people whose registrations were lost....

We weren't sure when we'd be able to fix it and allow those who qualified to register to go for it. So to be fair to those who could, we shut it down.
Turns out the problem wasn't so bad, and it's fixed and will be ready to go tomorrow morning. Yeah, "it worked during testing". The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

2.) As to the new qualification rules... we had to do something. April 2001 was so big and difficult for everyone to manage that it really started to become a quality issue. Believe that we know a lot of people are not happy with this. We've heard it in emails, the Team Forums, and elsewhere. But Dean and the board - and Disney - want to make sure that above all else, the event encompasses the value of the FIRST experience without sacrificing quality. It would have been a lot easier if the original Championship had had qualification criteria, as perhaps it should have - it would not even be an issue today.

One thing people may forget is that there's only a little over 20 people up here in NH to make this thing happen, and only 12 involved with the Robotics Competition full time. Oh yeah - we're a non-profit. With a whole lot of help from dedicated volunteers, and most importantly you folks who participate.

We understand a lot of seniors were looking forward to Florida and are disappointed because now they won't be able to go directly as part of the Championship. Understandable.

But what's the alternative? If we keep growing 20% a year, in 5 years we'll have almost 1300 teams and 75,000 students. Manage a Super Bowl? over 3 days? Where the audience is the competitors? If people were mad at us about quality & theft issues this year, watch out.

Yes, there are alternatives. But in the end we evaluated and discarded all of them because in some way they are just not true to the values of FIRST. We felt that this was the least of the possible evils.

Time for me to go back to my job. And no, Big Brother isn't watching ;-) Just looking at the reactions.
</decloak>