Hello Teams and Volunteers,
Welcome to Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics ninth email blast of the 2024-2025 Season! Previous emails can be found on our website in the COMMUNICATION Archives.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/communications
As of today, we have 121 confirmed and secured teams registered with another 10 in progress. Wow…we are fast approaching our target to exceed last season’s total. This continues to be great progress; however, as we shared in the last email blast, we encourage teams to register as soon as possible and especially before the Oct 1st opening of PA FTC Qualifier registration. We are less than one week away so we look forward to our usual flurry of registrations in the upcoming weeks. Please let us know if you have any questions or require assistance with the FIRST registration process.
https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc
PA Season Updates:
Registration for Workshops and Scrimmages is open!
There are 4 new workshops added, all to be held at Central High School in Philadelphia, one per month commencing next Tuesday, Sep 24th, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
We have also added one Scrimmage, Sat Nov 23, 2024: Longhorn Roundup Scrimmage to be held at the Charles F Patton Middle School, Kennett Square.
Reminder again that Qualifier Registration will open on October 1st, 2024 at 12:00 noon to assure that we have a substantial number of teams registered with FIRST before we open up PA events. See registration notes above.
See Events page for details.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2024-2025-season
Event Registration:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
The Pennsylvania FTC Championship Tournament location and dates have been set, thanks to our hosts Centre County 4-H Robotics in collaboration with Penn State University Center for Science and the Schools, and the Bellefonte Area School District.
Dates: Sat Mar 8, 2025 – Sun Mar 9.2025
Location:
Bellefonte Area High School
Main Gymnasium
830 E Bishop St
Bellefonte, PA 16823
The Championship will be a 40 team, single division (2 field) event and held over two days as we had last season. We will be in central PA, 15 minutes from State College and the Penn State Campus! Teams throughout the state should have no more than an approximate 3.5-hour drive to get there and most teams with less drive times. Additionally, we are blocking rooms on behalf of our teams and volunteers at local properties at favorable rates, especially for Saturday night when most teams will need rooms. More to come! See the Event website this weekend for more information on the agenda.
Coaches Calls:
We have added 6 more Coaches Calls to this season that will commence on Wed Oct 2nd and will be held every other Wednesday through December 18th. Please consider attending as this is a very dynamic season and we have our core volunteers on hand that can answer nearly every question you may have. The conference link is the same for all of the calls. Registration is not required, please just join in. See links on our Event schedule. Coaches Calls are also recorded so you may access the specific recordings on the applicable event page – Event Materials / Event Recording.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2024-2025-season
Grant Applications:
We opened the Grant Application process last Monday, Sep 23rd and have had great applications. We will begin to respond to applicants tomorrow. Thank you for your patience. We will be contacting all applicants as soon as we can.
FIRST HQ Resources:
Tips for Teams (Global)
FIRST Tech Challenge community members and information seekers can now type ftc.game into their browser and be directed straight to our Game and Season Materials. This is a very cool and easy feature.
Please check this out: INTO THE DEEP presented by RTX Technology Updates YouTube video by AJ Foster AJ details season and game updates in an informative and fun video.
Also, there is a new Global Blog for FTC that team can tap into, also very informative. “Submerge into the Competition Resources” Blog post
Team Webinar schedule. We highly suggest you or your members join: 24-25 FIRST Tech Challenge Team Webinar Schedule
Thank you for your attention,
Sincerely,
Tom Zawislak and the FTC PA Team
Pennsylvania FIRST® Robotics
FIRST Tech Challenge® Program Delivery Partner
phone: (302) 383-9925
email: ftc@pennfirst.org
Website: www.FTCPenn.org