FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

More Info on Registrations Opening

As we said in this blog, we have several registrations opening this Thursday, November 2, at Noon Eastern Time. As we noted in that blog, except for Championship Waitlist registration, these particular registrations are first-come-first-served. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to get your team on those event lists as soon as possible if you are interested in attending additional events.

Also, I’ve seen a few questions about ‘open slots’ on events that have a waitlist. I understand this can be confusing. Consider the case where an event had all their open slots filled and so started a waitlist. Then an originally registered team drops the event. This gives the appearance of an open slot.

However, once an event has been put in ‘waitlist’ status, it stays that way for the rest of the season, regardless of registered teams dropping. This is to help ensure the system remains fair by preventing a team getting lucky and ‘jumping’ the waitlist just because they happen to attempt to register at the right time. All teams joining the event after it has gone to waitlist status are put at the end of the waitlist in the order they join. Of course Regional Directors and District Managers still have the ability to not strictly follow waitlist order in pulling teams into events, so they may accommodate rookies and other special needs.

As I said, I know this is confusing. For the 2019 season, we’ll be looking at ways to provide more useful information to teams to help them make the best decisions possible under our new event preference model.

Behind The Lines

Behind the Lines is back tonight for Episode 3 with “Scouting 101”.

Join hosts Evan Morrison and Clinton Bolinger as they welcome guests from Team 1678, the Citrus Circuits and Team 2056, OP Robotics. They will be focused on where to start information gathering, how to determine what data to collect, as well as “high tech” and “low tech” solutions available to teams. Don’t miss a chance to chat with these experienced programs about the strategies and scouting programs!

You can join the conversation by submitting questions for the Q&A portion of the show by Facebook, Twitter, and during the live show in Twitch chat. And most importantly, don't forget to watch LIVE, tonight, Wednesday, November 1, at 8 PM ET on Twitch.tv/robosportsnetwork.

Frank