I was reading the advancement page for Northern California FIRST the other day, some pre-competition scouting, when I discovered that only host teams and inspire award winners were guaranteed advancement to the NorCal regional championships. "Next eligible teams", so winning alliance captains, are placed into a LOTTERY to advance to the regional championship. I'm curious, does any other state do this? I'm an alum of VAFIRST, and we always had six qualifiers where at least 6 teams had the opportunity to advance.
The team I mentor has been incredibly discouraged by the realization that all the hard work they put in may all go to chance in a lottery. They're not hosting a competition, and don't have the time or the resources to have a winning inspire award presentation/operations. They do have the time to build an incredible robot; they've been the winning and finalist alliance captain several times over. This is only their second season!
So my question is, is this unusual? When I contacted NorCal FIRST Tech Challenge on their Facebook page [
https://www.facebook.com/norcalftc/p...4238952506298], I was told that the options were shrinking the regional championship (I'm unsure how this changes anything) or having a lottery. I don't understand why they can't advance the inspire award and winning alliance captain, and then have a lottery of host teams (whose advancement is optional) and next eligible teams.
What are others thoughts on this?
A little CD goes a loooong way. :) - JaneYoung [more] 
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