Advancement Update

Having the opportunity to advance to a culminating event is a core aspect of the FIRST^® Tech Challenge program experience. In addition to giving teams something to strive to achieve, the culminating events give teams and volunteers an opportunity to interact with teams from across the globe.

Last season, FIRST^® took two steps to increase the number of advancement opportunities for teams by expanding the size of the FIRST^® Championship and introducing Premier Events. This season, we’re excited to grow even further by inviting 336 teams to the FIRST Championship and offering more than 600 play opportunities at 12 Premier Events!

                                                                                                       Figure 1 - Celebration for final matches at the FIRST Championship

FIRST Championship and Premier Event Advancement Numbers

Advancement allocations for the FIRST Championship and Premier Events are listed on the FTC Events site for most regions. A few of our newer regions will be updated in the next few weeks. Each region shows the total number of teams which will advance to either a Premier Event or the FIRST Championship and if any of that total is reserved capacity for that region at the FIRST Championship. You may also notice some regions show 0 reserved for the FIRST Championship but still have FIRST Premier Event allocations. Generally, this occurs when the Regional Championship event is scheduled after the last date for FIRST Championship advancement, which is March 15 this year. Region advancement allocations which are not utilized within that region will be granted to new teams at the discretion of FIRST Headquarters.

How are Advancement Numbers Determined?

Advancement from each region to FIRST Tech Challenge Premier Events and the FIRST Championship is determined by FIRST Headquarters based on several factors, but is not an exact science. Each year the process starts when we take a snapshot of the total number of registered teams in each region (this year that snapshot was taken in late November). Then, as we assign allocations we are working to balance the following:

1. Minimum Region Representation

   Every FIRST Tech Challenge region with a Program Delivery Partner and which met the pre-communicated minimum number of teams is assigned 2 FIRST Championship slots.

2. New Region Growth/Global Representation

   This is an extension of goal #1 where we intentionally give ourselves more flexibility on minimum numbers. When a new region is just getting started, or restarted after disruption, it’s not generally reasonable to expect the region to meet the team number minimums from #1 but we still want to ensure that those teams have an opportunity to play in an international capstone event. The opportunity for international advancement is also an important selling point to support local investment and we believe our events are better for all when we have better global representation. These regions may be assigned 1 FIRST Championship slot and/or Premier Event slots.

3. Proportional Representation

Using the team counts we assign the remaining FIRST Championship advancement allocations roughly proportionally to the size of the region. Premier Event allocations are also roughly proportional to region size with a small modifier if an event is being underrepresented at the FIRST Championship based on region team counts.

As you can see, these goals are in tension with each other because there are a limited number of advancement slots and an ever-growing number of teams and regions. Ensuring new/small regions have advancement allocation (goals #1 and 2) means they are mathematically overrepresented, which takes allocation from other medium and large regions (goal #3). Each year we continue to take steps to improve this process to give teams the best possible experience.

Also, this year you may have noticed there are more regions which only have 1 FIRST Championship reserved allocation. In the past FIRST, has given a small number of regions a single advancement slot (typically goal #2), but using the previous advancement model meant that only the Inspire Award winner would advance, and we strongly prefer to keep a balance between teams who advanced based on awards and robot performance. With the continued expansion of the Premier Event model the new Advancement Point model we announced this summer, regions which only have 1 FIRST Championship reserved allocation all have additional Premier Event allocations, and teams now advance based on their cumulative event performance including both awards and robot performance. This change has enabled us to better achieve our goals by creating more flexibility in how we allocate limited FIRST Championship slots while maintaining regional representation.

      Figure 2 - Teams competing at the European Premier Event

Premier Event Details and New Event Preferencing System

Details about the 12 Premier Events have been posted on the Premier Event webpage and you can also find event information on FTC Events. A huge “Thank you!” to the event hosts and partners who are making these amazing events a reality!

This season, teams will use a combined preferencing system to indicate which culminating events (FIRST Championship and FIRST Premier Events) they would like to attend. This system will be built into FTC Scoring and be available in a few weeks to all Lead Coaches 1 & 2 of registered teams. Teams will be able to preselect and rank events they are interested in attending, and they can also indicate if they would like to attend more than one event or be considered as a waitlist team if they don’t advance on points from their Regional Championship. Teams who advance from their Regional Championship will be reminded to confirm their ranked choice list of events, and after a short delay FIRST will run an assignment algorithm which will assign teams to events based on their preference list. Teams will be assigned to events in their advancement order within their region based on their preference list and which events have open capacity. Multiple regions will be assigned in each round and the order between regions will be random. We understand this is a lot of new information to digest, more details about the preferencing system will be available in the next few weeks before initial preferencing opens to Lead Coaches.

If you are a team in one of the regions with a Regional Championship Event in the next 2 weeks, the preferencing system will open after your event. Your team will receive an email from FIRST to your Lead Coach 1 & 2 prompting you to select your events when the system is ready. The first round of event assignments will be made by mid-January.

                                                                                                      Figure 3 - Audience celebrating at the Michiana Premier Event