We’ve got lots of information to share on these topics today. You can find full details in this document. We strongly encourage you to read that, but the highlights are below.

Waitlists for FIRST Championship

There will be a waitlist for each Championship location, Houston and St Louis. Veteran teams will be able to sign up for any combination of waitlists they wish starting at 3PM Eastern Time this Thursday, November 3rd, in the team registration system. Order of sign-up does not affect a team’s chance to get selected, so there is no rush to join right when the waitlists open, though we are encouraging teams to sign up as soon as they have made the decision to do so.

Once again this year, Rookie Teams are not eligible for waitlist slots. Rookies are only able to attend Championship by earning their way in. While Rookie waitlist eligibility may change in later years, waitlist slots are a limited resource, and it would seem somewhat unfair to allow a team to get lucky their very first year in FRC while more senior teams may have been languishing on the waitlist for years waiting for the dice to roll their way.

Attending Your Non-Home FIRST Championship

As a reminder, teams can know which Championship location is their ‘home’ by considering where they are located (not the location of the event at which they may qualify for Championship) and using this map.

Some teams will be allowed to attend their non-home Championship location via the waitlist process described in the detailed document linked above. Teams that have earned their way to Championship (“Qualified” teams) will, as a rough rule of thumb, have an advantage over non-qualified teams in being allowed to attend their non-home Championship location.

Rookie teams will not have the option to attend their non-home Championship location, as they are ineligible for the waitlists at the core of the process.

Veteran teams will indicate they are interested in attending their non-home Championship location by signing up for their non-home waitlist. This is another reason to sign up for those waitlists as soon as you have made your decisions!

FIRST Championship Housing Registration

Championship housing will open in December, and Experient will once again be our service provider. Our expectation is that most teams will be attending their ‘home’ Championship location. Because of this, and to prevent the appearance of false housing shortages that could occur if teams were able to register for housing in both locations, teams will only be allowed to register for housing at their home Championship location.

If a team does end up attending their non-home Championship location, and has already registered for housing at their home location, Experient will work with the team to find housing at the non-home location.

More details on housing registration will be available later.

Frank