Hello Teams and Volunteers,
Welcome to Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics fourth email blast of the 2023-2024 Season!
Great news for the upcoming Sept 9th FTC Season Kickoff. We are happy to announce that we have arranged for “live” and in-person fields at 5 locations in the state! These Team Powered events will host other FIRST Tech Challenge teams from within their region. This is in addition to the Virtual broadcast we are planning that can be attended by all teams and will also be webcast to the in-person events. The advantage, there will be a field with the CENTERSTAGE challenge set up to augment the season and game experience at the in-person events and our Head Referee, Noah Dillard, will review the game rules. In some cases, the hosting organizations have also planned additional activities, such as workshops, which are noted in the details of their respective kickoffs. They are providing direct registration through linked forms. Please see details and location for each on our Events page, link below. Please note that FTC Teams do not need to be fully registered to attend kickoff events, but please ID your current team number and/or name on the forms.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2023-2024-season
Also note that we will be holding Coaches Calls on two consecutive Wednesday’s Sep 13th and 20th, 2023.
Our FTC PA specific Website has been updated to accommodate and post the new season events and team list. Additionally, all of the pertinent, detailed results data from last season’s Power Play challenge has also been populated (scores and Judged Awards plus scripts). We want to thank PFR co-founder and past PDP co-lead as well as Webmaster Dave Hackett for stepping back in to not only update but improve the functionality and enhance maintainability of our very cool and informative website. Please have a look and thank you Dave for your ongoing contributions. To teams and volunteers, thank you for your patience and, for some of you, your willingness to help out.
We already have 10 Qualification Tournaments on the schedule to be held over 6 weekends starting in Mid-December and stretching through February. We have not yet scheduled the State Championship date or secured a location however we will likely hold it the second weekend in March, one week later than traditionally held. Please check it out and prepare your teams for what will be to come.
Event Registration will NOT open until on or after the Season Kick-Off on September 9th, 2023, so stay tuned. As of today, we have just 33 teams registered with FIRST FTC in the Pennsylvania Region, but we expect as many as 150. We will therefore wait to open Event registration until we are at, near, or exceed the predicted threshold. Please register your team with FIRST as quickly as feasible so we can roll out the registration process on time. Links follow:
https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/cost-and-registration
For Team management Resources such as Registration Guidelines, Mentor Training and Resources, Marketing and Team Info, Robot Build resources, etc. please reference the following FIRST Inspires site:
https://www.firstinspires.org/node/5226
TEAM REGISTRATION with FIRST Inspires is open for the season! Go to the following link for more information on new registration costs and what the team registration includes. This page will give you access to:
- Dashboard Login
- Youth Team Member Registration
- Grant Opportunities (Rookie Grants Available)
- Team Management Resources
- Payment Terms
https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/cost-and-registration
GRANT OPPORTUNITIES:
We expect at least one more grant opportunity that would benefit many PA teams to come to fruition yet this season. We will keep you informed in subsequent blasts but frequently check the following link for grants described above and those that may come available in the future.
https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/team-grants
WORKSHOPS AND SCRIMMAGES – We would love for teams to run what we call “Team Powered” workshop, scrimmages and practices again this season. ‘Team Powered” means that the teams that volunteer to hold the event will be principally responsible for identifying, securing and scheduling the venue, field assets and volunteers in order to run the event. Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics will support the event as required to assure quality and consistency including publicizing on our website and handling team registrations if necessary. We will also be sure to provide training and training materials as well as field assets to augment the event only.
If interested, please write to ftc@pennfist.org with the subject “Team Powered Event Interest” and let us know what you have in mind.
TAG TEAMS – Lastly, we continue to reach out to Veterans or any other team that may want to become an official PA Tag Team member. What is a Tag Team, you may ask? It is a team or group that has the desire, resources, energy, skills, ability and Gracious Professionalism to assist and support other teams in their endeavor to be the best they can be throughout this coming season. There are many conceptual ways that an FTC Tag Team can be productive and essential to our community of teams inside or outside the region, such as:
- Be a specific Rookie team mentor.
- Host workshops (ex. Design It!, Build It!, Program It! Drive It!)
- Travel to other teams for hands on assistance
- Schedule regular, weekly (or otherwise) Office Hours – on line call times to make your team available to others to answer specific questions or provide guidance.
- Publish Newsletters or other media to share experiences.
I am sure there are many other ideas and concepts that many teams have employed and can share. If interested in becoming a Tag Team member, please write to ftc@pennfirst.org with the subject “Tag Team Member Interest” and share your idea with us. We will be sure to communicate your offering with the rest of the community.
As you know, we are excited about the upcoming season and, again, team involvement will be a huge part of our success and fun. Thank you for your attention and there will be more to come.
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