In the Championship Potpourri Blog, we explained the Priority Waitlist Process. Step #2 in that process was indicated as “Determine the number of slots to be awarded based on FIRST Championship declines, position in the season, and any other factors.” I would like to give you a little more detail on that step and tell you how we plan to be more transparent on that determination.
We have a spreadsheet that shows the number of teams that have registered for FIRST Championship to date, how many Regionals we have coming up, how many slots Districts will fill, and a place for us to enter our best estimate on the future Regional slot offer acceptance rate. Taken together, this gives us an estimate of how many slots we will have filled by the time we get to the big dance.
Every week, the day after the deadline for teams to accept and pay for their Championship slot offers, a small group of us from several departments updates the spreadsheet and determines how many waitlist slots we should release that week. Our objective is to release as many slots as possible every week while ensuring we will not exceed FIRST Championship capacity. Nominally, our capacity is 450 FIRST Robotics Competition teams, though we plan to have about 460 or so pits, so we can over-invite slightly to make sure we hit that 450-team target.
In practice, this means waitlist slots are released Thursdays early in the season and Wednesdays later in the season, as we need some time for the dust to settle from the events that happened over the weekend.
We’re sure the teams on the Priority Waitlist are anxious to know if and when they may be invited to FIRST Championship. We have decided we will be posting the number of waitlist slots that are being released weekly on the Championship Eligibility Page. We will also be posting to social media when those slot counts are updated.
Important Note: Teams that are eligible for the Priority Waitlist are automatically added to it. There is no action required by teams to join that list.
We completed our meeting for this week’s waitlist release Thursday and can release three Priority Waitlist slots this week. If you are one of the lucky teams, you will be getting an email soon if you haven’t already. And keep an eye on social media for more updates!
Frank