I’ve been trying to count the number of championship spots still available for wait list teams. Here are my numbers assuming a target number of teams of 396 at each championship:
Houston St.Louis
Current Registration 265 151
Chesapeake 0 23
Michigan 0 82
Indiana 0 10
MAR 0 22
New England 0 37
Ontario 0 29
Israel 0 0
North Carolina 0 0
PNW 39 0
Peachtree 18 0
Western canada 7
AZ West 7
Minnesota 10k 7
Minnesota north star 7
Las vegas 7
Alamo 7
NYC 7
7 Rivers 0 7
Total 350 382
Open spots 46 14
This assumes that all teams that have qualified at completed regionals are registered and all qualifying Israel and North Carolina district teams are already registered. Also, I am also assuming that all teams that will qualify at a regional would qualify for the championship in the same geographic region as the regional, which won’t exactly be the case.
Even if no wildcards are burned for the rest of the season, I still see a signification number of open spots for Houston, considering it is less than two weeks away. Are my numbers wrong or is FIRST just waiting longer than usual to fill these spots?
Last year several team got called up off waitlist at the NE District Championship as late as Saturday and Worlds was 1 1/2 weeks away so it appears Saturday may be the latest teams are called up for Houston.
2791 received a waitlist invite on 4/18 last year, the Wednesday before CMP. Unfortunately, we had no way of making the trip happen on that short notice. Good luck to FIRST on filling Houston in time without handing waitlist spots out like candy right about now.
I suspect what most of those remaining waitlist spots will go to teams at the end of this weeks matches, especially for Houston. That way, teams have about the same amount of time as DCMP qualifying teams to complete their travel plans.
Agreed. I will say that this year was the most competitive year for Katyisd teams (624, 2882, 4639, 5427, and 6488) and all of us were capable of presenting a threat to any alliance. It’s a shame that we won’t see these teams at champs. Good luck to 4639 at Alamo, we’ll be cheering for you!
I’m hoping that any of the Katy ISD teams that don’t have an invite are on the waitlist. As time gets tight, HQ might pass some invites to local teams that don’t have to worry about booking buses, flights, or hotels to attend Champs.
Update: Caltran has said that they did that with St. Louis, so it would be logical for them to do it here as well. I’ll check in with the Katyisd teams to ensure that they have signed up for the waitlist.
Thanks for volunteering as LRI last weekend, by the way.
In 2014 we got our invite a week before Champs as well. We made the trip happen but it took the core of our team working continuously for about 24 hours to put the trip together, build a crate, and get the robot shipped. FIRST had to pay to get the robot shipped from California to St. Louis in one day. I have a feeling they were probably hoping we’d decline our invitation…
It should be noted that 3 MAR teams (222, 1391, and 2607) have gotten waitlist invites to STL (which do not count against the 22 spots allocated to MAR for World Champs), and 2590 earned a wildcard at the Montreal Regional (which does count against MAR’s spots, leaving 21 left to be claimed at MAR Champs).
Would love to compete at champs this year.