Qualifying Tournament Updates, Advice from Head Ref Rich & Team Updates

 

Qualifying Tournament Updates

Teams that requested three tournaments can now see their assignments for all three events. Click the link to the left to see the tournament rosters. Only a few tournaments still have space (White Mountain in Show Low, High Country in Flagstaff, and Cactus Wren in Estrella). Please contact Christine if your team still needs to sign up for events!

Payment is due for all qualifying tournaments on November 15. Cost for the season is $225 for two qualifiers and $300 for three qualifiers. Begin creating your purchase orders now. Invoices will be sent next week. Late payments will result in a $50 late fee. Failure to pay season registration fees (qualifiers or championship) will result in teams not being allowed to register for events!

Advice from Head Ref Rich

Cheers and happy Fall to all our teams out there. 

As expected there are a few important updates to the FTC Game and Competition Manual.  Please make sure you have access to the Team Updates, keep reading the Competition Manual and get familiar with the new format.  I am sure you have the link but just in case there is any question on best place to find FTC info for this INTO THE DEEP Season, here is the link (which gives easy access to the Manual and the Team Updates…)

The FTC Q&A is also open and we already have a few good postings.  Of specific note, at Kickoff I said I would pass along news if I saw anything regarding the Human Player Action during Auto Period…  As I expected, since the rules do not prohibit Observation Zone activity during AUTO, human players can operate in accordance with the rules as written in the Competition Manual during the Auto Period. 

Finally, as you develop your strategy for gameplay, remember to fully read the rules and pay close attention to the Orange Box comments that clarify the rules.  And, keep up to date on the changes to the Competition Manual!!!!

Enjoy and we look forward to seeing you in action!

TEAM SUPPORT FROM PITSCO - From Ben Arnold, Pitsco Education

This year, we’re offering team giveaways throughout the month of September including $100 Pitsco.com vouchers and TETRIX® parts packs and spare parts. We made it super easy for teams to sign up – they can simply fill out the form at https://offers.pitsco.com/ftc2024-25.

Additionally, Pitsco awards one $150 grant each month to a competitive team. Teams can apply to be considered through our online application at https://resources.pitsco.com/pitsco-team-grant-app.

Lastly, we have two great resources chock-full of inspiration, tips, and tricks to help teams plan and build their bots:

• 2024 TETRIX® FTC Spare Parts Catalog
• TETRIX® YouTube Channel

Team Avatars By FIRST Tech Challenge Staff, Wednesday, September 18, 2024 1:29 PM New this year, FIRST®  Tech Challenge teams will be able to upload team avatars, which will be used to represent teams in official FIRST®  displays at events. Avatars first appeared in FIRST with their addition to the FIRST® Robotics Competition in 2017, and thanks to a huge effort by some very passionate volunteers, we are now excited to also have them in FIRST Tech Challenge!   FTC SDK 10.1 Release Coming Soon The FIRST Tech Challenge Tech Team is planning to release version 10.1 of the FTC SDK on Friday, September 20, 2024. The 10.0 release previously launched on kickoff. The 10.1 release will contain a few additional programming samples and an improvement for the Self-Inspect feature, but the big feature being introduced in 10.1 is the new Color Processing feature. Color Processing brings simple color sensing and color location (within an image) capabilities to Blocks, OnBotJava, and Android Studio users using a simple webcam without having to directly program OpenCV pipelines – and with VisionPortal integration, visualizing what's happening is easier than ever. Vision programming is now within reach for all teams! Check it out on Friday, which is also when the full documentation for the Color Processing feature will be released on ftc-docs.

Scrimmage Opportunities and Qualifying Tournament Updates

WOW!!! Thank you all for a phenomenal KICKOFF! Special thanks to Studica Robotics, to our hosts VCS Robotics, and all our workshop presenters. You can check out many of the workshop presentations from Kickoff HERE.

AZ Qualifying Tournaments

We're excited to announce the addition of a 12th qualifying tournament for the Arizona region. 

Jan. 11: Cactus Wren - Estrella Qualifier (Estrella Foothills HS, Goodyear)

Thank you Wolves Robotics for hosting, and thank you to all our tournament directors and hosts!!!

1st and 2nd events will be assigned the evening of Monday, September 16. 3rd events will be assigned a week later on September 23. Teams will be able to see which events they are assigned to by checking out the ROSTERS to the right under QUICK LINKS. You can also see how many spots are left in each event on the list. 

Invoices will go out around September 30. Payment is due by November 15. Don't wait to start those purchase orders!

B³ - Build, Bond & Breakthrough in Tucson

Robosapien Robotics Hosts Meet the Field on October 5th!

Date and Time: October 5th, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Where: 

Sonoran Science Academy - Phoenix, 

3535 E McDowell Road, 85008

What: Meeting with teams, working on your robot, time with the field, practice judging RSVP HERE Hope to see you there!

Love, The Robosapiens 10369 

INTO THE DEEP Technology Updates

This five-minute video does a great job summarizing the robot updates for this season. We strongly recommend that you watch this with your teams as you begin to design your robots. 

SUBMERGE into the COMPETITION RESOURCES

Visit the official FTC blog for the answers to a few common questions about this year's game. And as always...read the manual! Then, read it again! Be sure you are reading the most up to date version by checking the FTC game and season page. 

Team Resource! 
We know it is early, but we are thrilled to announce our team webinar series. Please register and mark your calendars for team-centered webinars starting this October. Check out the schedule and topics here.

Tech Tip of the Week
This week’s Tech Tip of the Week launches a new initiative in FIRST Tech Challenge, an AI Innovation Corner. Generative AI has taken the world by storm, becoming commonplace now in everything from personal assistants, search engines, recipe curation, music innovation, and vehicle maintenance! Machine Learning AI has been a part of FIRST Tech Challenge in some way for the past six years, and we’re now transitioning to help teams learn how to use and incorporate Generative AI in their FIRST Tech Challenge experience (while we’re learning ourselves!). Check out the full article on the Tech Tips webpage!