Hi Pennsylvania FTC PA Teams and Volunteers,
We are happy to announce that we have completed the 2021-2022 Season Events schedule. Over the weekend we were able to confirm the location for the Eastern Pennsylvania Qualifier. We hope all teams have an opportunity to review the schedule over the next day. We will open registration at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, October 19th.
Event Link:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2021-2022-season
Registration link:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
When opening and viewing each event please note the number of slots for each tournament and number of teams that we anticipate advancing from that qualifier.
In conducting this hybrid season one of the events is a Remote League Tournament (preceded by 3 Meet Weeks) similar to what was conducted last year. Teams that participate in the Keystone League Tournament advance to the Pennsylvania State Championship along with the Qualification Tournament advancing teams. There is not a separate Championship for Remote versus Traditional events. Please reference both Game Manual 1 for Traditional and Remote Events for details on advancement.
As we stated in our last email blast, we are in challenging times with regards to public health and safety concerns due to this global pandemic. As such, we have crafted and published a COVID Policy for our events concurrent with the opening of event registration. Note that this Policy consolidates and reflects today’s host site, local, county, state and CDC/FDA guidelines. It may be updated over time to reflect the current state of the pandemic and the health advisories at that time. As with other FIRST programs held in our region as well as the need to assure proper indoor social distance measures, we anticipate an overall per team attendee limit of twelve (12), which includes all coaches, mentors, students, and team guests. Additional details can be found in the policy.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/covid-19-policy
Given attendee limits as noted in the Policy we are working on Live Steaming our events this season. If there are any volunteers or teams that have specific skills in this area, we would love to hear from you.
Practice Field Locations/Accessibility:
In our last email we communicated the availability of Freight Frenzy Practice Fields that we communicated available for your use to assist in design, build and drive trials for your individual team or in collaboration with other teams, one in East PA as Springfield Mall and the other in Central PA in Leesport.
We have an additional offer from the Philadelphia Robotics Coalition. There are FTC community hubs open in Philadelphia as well and they would be delighted to welcome teams from outside the city as well as inside. While they are confirming the availability of several Hubs one that is immediately available is:
Central High School
1700 W Olney Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19141
40.037552, -75.150273
https://goo.gl/maps/a4ZfGXKpVaWoNVWJ8
Teams may meet during normal school days from 3:00 to 5:00PM 3-5pm (with some time flexibility).
They have a large basement space shared by our home FTC and FRC teams with a Freight Frenzy field available for practice. This site is part of the Philadelphia Robotics Coalition community hub program.
Contact Michael Johnson: michael@roboticscoalition.org to schedule.
If there are any other teams or volunteers that would welcome other teams to practice and collaborate, please let us know and we will communicate your offer. Send a request to ftc@pennfirst.org
Thank you,
Tom Zawislak and Dave Hackett
Pennsylvania FIRST® Robotics
FIRST Tech Challenge® Program Delivery Partner
phone: (302) 383-9925
email: ftc@pennfirst.org
Website: www.FTCPenn.org