Several registrations are opening this Thursday, November 2nd, at Noon Eastern Time:
Unrestricted Regional Event Registration for both Regional and District teams.
2018 FIRST
Championship Waitlist Registration for Veteran Teams
Additional In-District Event Registration for District Teams
Note that for the 2018 FIRST Championship Waitlist, when you join does not matter because of our randomization process, as long as you join before we start pulling teams off the waitlist. We won’t start pulling teams off the waitlist until competition season starts.
For Unrestricted Regional Event Registration and additional In-District Event Registration, it will be first-come-first-served. Even with the many events that are now in ‘waitlist’ status, it probably is to your advantage, all other things being equal, to get on those waitlists as soon as you can.
All these registration options are accessible through the Team Events section of your dashboard.
For Unrestricted Regional Event Registration and additional In-District Event Registration, it will be first-come-first-served. Even with the many events that are now in ‘waitlist’ status, it probably is to your advantage, all other things being equal, to get on those waitlists as soon as you can.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong…
Does this mean that the waitlists at events don’t have to be cleared before unrestricted registration starts?
I think anyone that waitlists for an event on Thursday or after will be evaluated on a first come first served basis… after all the other teams are sorted out.
If you got waitlisted Round 2, and the waitlist isn’t cleared in the next 3 days, you are essentially giving up that Round 2 event if you register for another event during open registration.
For all the California teams stuck on waitlists, it looks like there’s a new open spot available at the Silicon Valley Regional. Considering how many CA teams are on waitlists at the moment, I’m surprised that this spot is just sitting there unfilled.
It’s not really an open slot, teams can’t sign up for it.
It’s treated by FIRST as one of the slots available to waitlist teams, and will be assigned just as the other hidden slots are.
I imagine it appeared when a team already on the event list was moved to a different event.
So there are hidden/reserve spots, “false available spots”, and actual available spots? The concept of hidden/reserve spots is confusing enough, having spots that are listed as available but actually aren’t is a lot to process.
It’s because the process becomes largely manual the first time that the initial capacity is breached.
If a slot is opened up by a team moving somewhere else after the initial overflow, the event doesn’t suddenly return to automatic assignment.
Any waitlisted teams have to be processed before that could happen.
This is just my understanding of the process:
Initial open slots are automatically filled as a teams lottery number comes up. Teams appear on the event list right away.
When the Initial Open Slots are used up, then the event is flagged as a waitlisted event. All automatic assignments are disabled and it then becomes a FIRST HQ manual process to move teams into or out of the event.
If a team is moved out (by hand), then it seems like the old automatic part does the math and adds one to the available slots, but because the event has already been moved into the manual assignment process, the automatic assignment part remains disabled.
*]I imagine that FIRST HQ probably has the ability to return an event to automatic assignment if they so desire, but only if there are no waitlisted teams remaining.
It really would be better if FIRST listed the number of teams registered, the real event capacity, and the number of reserve spots*. It would provide much more clarity, and in situations like this, where a team moves “opening up a spot” that isn’t really open, the reserve could automatically increment to include that spot. It would add more transparency for teams, reduce confusion, all without really changing how anything actually works.
*have a label next to the reserve spots that says something like “these spots are reserved for rookie teams, late registering teams, and teams facing hardships that don’t get in before the event reaches a waitlist status. Contact your RD with any questions or concerns.”
At one time, you could see real time slots filled, slots open, etc. It would also be color coded if events were closed, close to capacity, and/or open.
I miss that.
Does anyone have any insight on when we’ll be allowed to register for a district event not in our region? We have placed two calls to FIRST and the first employee told us we could register today, but the second employee told us next week.