Championship Eligibility Criteria

In order to compete at the 2016 FIRST Championship, a 2016 registered FRC team must compete at the regional level, or qualify via the District State Championship/District Region Championship Event.

FRC Teams are eligible to register for the FIRST Championship if:

• They are a "Pre-Qualifying" Team;
• Become a Merit Based Qualifier during the 2016 FRC Season;
• Have Veteran Team Status and waitlist register during the open enrollment phase.

2016 Rookie Teams

2016 FRC rookie teams are not eligible to register for the FIRST Championship via open Registration, but must qualify to attend per the Merit Based criteria set forth in the chart below.

Pre-Qualifying FRC Teams

Pre-Qualified FRC Teams can register for the FIRST Championship beginning on October 8, 2015 at 12 P.M. (noon) Eastern Time.

The following teams are considered Pre-Qualified:

• FIRST Championship Chairman’s Award winners in prior years (Hall of Fame teams)
• Original and sustaining teams from 1992 on
• 2015 FIRST Championship RECYCLE RUSH winners
• 2015 FIRST Championship RECYCLE RUSH Engineering Inspiration Award winners

See chart below for additional details

Merit Based Qualifying FRC Teams

Merit Based Qualifying Teams are automatically given the opportunity to register for the Championship at the time of their win at either a Regional Event or at their District Championship.

See the chart below for full details on what constitutes Merit Based Qualification for 2016.     

Learn more about the Merit Based Awards (and all our awards) in the 2016 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual.

Championship Waitlist for Veteran FRC Teams

Teams may join the Championship Waitlist to fill any remaining FIRST Championship slots not consumed by qualifying Regional or District teams. Teams who sign up for the Waitlist will be randomly selected at various points throughout the season in an effort to give teams as much time to make travel plans as possible while ensuring we do not exceed FIRST Championship capacity.

Rookies are not eligible to sign up for the Waitlist.

Teams may sign up for the Waitlist through TIMS. To do so, a team’s Main or Alternate Contact must login to TIMS, click on the “Team Summary” button and select the “Edit/View” button in the Event Registration section.

Teams will receive a number of “entries” to get selected from the Waitlist equal to 2016 minus the last year they attended Championship (or their rookie year, or when they most recently returned as an active team, whichever year is the most recent). As examples, a team that attended in 2015 will get one entry in the waitlist drawing, a team that last attended in 2014 will get two, and a team that has never attended but has been continuously active since 2006 will get ten.

Wild Card Slots for the 2016 Championship

Teams can earn a Wild Card slot at their Regional Event. Any team at a Regional who has already earned a FIRST Championship spot prior to the Regional and earns an additional spot at the Regional (by being on the Winning Alliance or being selected for one of the three qualifying awards) will generate a Wild Card slot. Additionally, any Team earning two qualifying spots at a single Regional (e.g. by being on the Winning Alliance and earning the Chairman’s Award) will generate a Wild Card slot.

A team who has already earned a spot at FIRST Championship prior to the Regional and earns two qualifying spots at the Regional will generate two Wild Card slots.

A Team is considered to have already earned a FIRST Championship spot prior to the Regional if they are a pre-qualified team per Section 7.2, earned a spot at an earlier Regional by being selected for one of the three qualifying awards per Section 7.3.1, are on the Winning Alliance per Section 7.3.2, or earned a Wild Card slot per this section. Teams who have been selected from the Waitlist to participate in the FIRST Championship do not generate Wild Cards.

The Wild Card slots are distributed to the Finalist Alliance, in the order of Team selection (Alliance Captain, 1^st Pick, 2^nd Pick, Back-Up team, if a Back-Up team participated), until either all Wild Card slots generated at that event are distributed or the Finalist Alliance is out of Teams, whichever comes first. If a member of the Finalist Alliance has already earned a spot at the FIRST Championship, they are passed over and the next member of the Alliance is given the available Wild Card slot. A team may decline a Wild Card slot they have been offered, but this does not pass the Wild Card slot down to the next team in line, instead, that Wild Card slot will go unused. Unused Wild Card slots will not be backfilled or replaced.

2016 FIRST Championship Registration Information