There is a lot of exciting DECODE gameplay coming up with 5 qualifiers left in Arizona before the AZ Championship, and the Four Corners Championship - the largest RezBotics tournament yet! Read on for information on finishing the season strong!
The
Compass Award will be awarded at both the Arizona and Four Corners
Championship events. This award requires videos prepared by the team to be submitted
in advance. Compass
Award submissions are due February 1 by 6:00 PM.
Please see the game manual section 6 (awards) for
guidelines on preparing your submissions and upload your submissions to the
appropriate folder linked below by the deadline. (Please
name your submission in this format: Team#MentorName.
Ex: 2486RockytheSquirrel)
Note - these links were updated on January 12. Please use these links instead any previous sent.
ADVANCEMENT - FIRST Championship & Premier Events!
We are excited to announce the advancement numbers for FIRST Championship and Premier Events for the 2025/2026 season!!! Advancement from these events is from the region Championships (Arizona and Four Corners). Read more details at this blog post from FTC leadership HERE!
ARIZONA
4 teams to FIRST Championship
7 teams to Premier Events
48-50 teams will compete at the AZ Championship
About 20% of the teams will advance to the next level
FOUR CORNERS
2 teams to FIRST Championship
4 teams to Premier Events
18-19 teams will compete at the Four Corners Championship
About 1/3 of the teams will advance to the next level
Premier events take place all over the USA and internationally from April to July. If a team receives an invitation to a Premier event, they will have the opportunity to choose from the different event options! Find out more about Premier events HERE!
Plan your fundraising as if your team is moving on...you never know what will happen!!!
If your team has qualified for the Arizona or Four Corners Championship, we encourage you to meet with your teams and decide on events you'd like to attend before you compete at your Championship. Plan ahead! Meet with school and district administrators and discuss travel. Consider timing of events, entry fees and deadlines, and if your team wants to fly or drive. There are no automatic placements. All teams that want to play at a capstone level event, including FIRST Championship, need to submit a preferencing list, even if only one event is on that list. Lead Coach 1 and 2 from ALL region championship teams may begin creating preferencing lists now, or select "decline invitation" if your team doesn't want to play a capstone event. Spots that become available due to teams declining will be filled by teams that have completed preferencing lists.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED - Region Championships
If your team is done competing for the season, consider volunteering for the Championship events! We especially need referees and judges for both events. To learn more about volunteer roles, visit the FIRST Volunteer page.
Students can volunteer in support roles as well! To sign up, login to your FIRST Dashboard and select "Volunteer."
Four Corners Championship: February 6 & 7, Kayenta, AZ
Arizona Championship: February 20 & 21, Flagstaff, AZ
Judging interviews for the AZ Championship will take place Friday evening. Judges should arrive by 5 pm Friday.
Congrats to the teams that have advanced to the Arizona Championship from the Turquoise and Painted Desert Events! Good luck to the teams competing this weekend at Diamondback and Monument Valley!!
10246Midnight Cicadas
18538BASIS Java Beans
14584Pioneer 327
12767Catholic Master Builders
26585Project Cobra
13968Herberger Howlers
6174Automatons
32026Safety Third
Dean's List Deadline - 3 days away (December 15!)
You have a student on your team, who above all others, demonstrates leadership, has an entrepreneurial spirit, and is dedicated to increasing awareness of FIRST. FIRST® Tech Challenge students are changing the world – help the changemaker on your team further their potential – nominate them for the Dean’s List Award. The Dean’s List Award recognizes the leaders and ambassadors from each FIRST Tech Challenge team. This recognition helps these inspiring students attract recruiters and stand out on their college applications and resumes. Read the nomination guide and start your nomination today. Dean's List Award nominations are open and will close on Monday, December 15, 2025, for all FIRST Tech Challenge regions.
Interviews for Arizona and Four Corners will take place remotely via the FTC Scoring System the week of January 5, 2026.
Read more about the changes to the Dean's List Award deadlines for the 2025-2026 season, and review the nomination guide for requirements and instructions on how to nominate a deserving student on your team!
Congrats to the teams that have advanced to the Arizona Championship from the Roadrunner, Red Rock, and Prickly Pear Events! Good luck to the teams competing this weekend at Turquoise and Painted Desert!!
10111Herberger Javalinas
10523The Dragons
14254Trivium Knightlights
15058Robo-Jags
15461Nutz & Bolts Robotics
18420Metal Masters
18625Trivium Knightmares
24431Sedona Scorpions
25620Hexadecimal Nibble
26037Cyber Tigers
26128Wrightly Reconfigured Robots
Congrats also to the 16 Four Corners Teams that have competed (and advanced!) so far!
Dean's List Deadline - 10 days away (December 15!)
You have a student on your team, who above all others, demonstrates leadership, has an entrepreneurial spirit, and is dedicated to increasing awareness of FIRST. FIRST® Tech Challenge students are changing the world – help the changemaker on your team further their potential – nominate them for the Dean’s List Award. The Dean’s List Award recognizes the leaders and ambassadors from each FIRST Tech Challenge team. This recognition helps these inspiring students attract recruiters and stand out on their college applications and resumes. Read the nomination guide and start your nomination today. Dean's List Award nominations are open and will close on Monday, December 15, 2025, for all FIRST Tech Challenge regions.
Read more about the changes to the Dean's List Award deadlines for the 2025-2026 season, and review the nomination guide for requirements and instructions on how to nominate a deserving student on your team!
ADVANCEMENT - FIRST Championship & Premier Events!
We are excited to announce the advancement numbers for FIRST Championship and Premier Events for the 2025/2026 season!!! Advancement from these events is from the region Championships (Arizona and Four Corners). Read more details at this blog post from FTC leadership HERE!
ARIZONA
4 teams to FIRST Championship
7 teams to Premier Events
FOUR CORNERS
2 teams to FIRST Championship
4 teams to Premier Events
Premier events take place all over the USA and internationally from April to July. If a team receives an invitation to a Premier event, they will have the opportunity to choose from the different event options! Find out more about Premier events HERE!
From the Head Referees:
Great Job on a fantastic start to the DECODE Season (presented by RTX)! Qualifiers are going well and we want to just remind teams to review several rules that seem to be cropping up:
SAFETY: We CONTINUE to see some team being negligent in safety glasses protocols (including COACHES). Everyone on the Team is Responsible to wear safety glasses per E010. Please re-read Rule E101 on page 27 of the Competition Manual and abide by the rule during the competition. Teams are reminded that any tournament official observing teams disregarding E101 are expected to report to the Tournament Director or Head Referee, and we are moving forward with 1 verbal Warning to the team then escalating to a Yellow Card for G211 - Egregious or exceptional violations. Remember that the Head Referee has the option of presenting a Yellow OR RED card, it is an option to go immediately to the RED card, (especially in cases where we continually see a team that does not follow the rules in subsequent tournaments). Here is the bottom line: We treat Safety Issues as critical to the success of FIRST Robotics and if teams continue to ignore E101, our next level of action is reporting to FIRST Headquarters and discussions about “removal from award consideration” per G211 paragraph 3. This action is likely to move forward if Coaches disregard E101 warnings.
MOVEMENT (After a period ends): Please review Rules G403 and G404 about stopping motion at the end of the Periods… Specifically, “G403…Any powered movement of the ROBOT or any of its MECHANISMS is not allowed during the transition period between AUTO and TELEOP.” And “G404… ROBOTS must no longer have powered movement after the end of TELEOP…” Also be sure to review the Orange Box notes… Remember this applies to all “Powered movement” to any parts or mechanisms including intake wheel, launching mechanisms, armatures… but gravity or the inertia following shutdown is allowed. This all goes back to what we have mentioned before about making actions “obvious to the referee”. If we see a wheel spinning and not slowing down as it bleeds off inertia, we may assume it is still powered and penalize the alliance.
HUMAN PLAYERS (HP): Here is a reminder on G431 A and B which are important rules to know and understand.
The HP is the responsible party when it comes to robot interaction within the loading zone. Ensure that you are communicating clearly (and loudly if necessary) with the rest of your drive team to prevent contact. If the robot is crowding the artifacts in the loading zone that you need to access, communicate with the drive team that you need more space instead of reaching close to the robot and risking G431 fouls.
And a valuable Tip from the referees, the human players can hold artifacts above the field ready to load robots as they come into the loading zone as long as there are not more than 6 artifacts out of play at a time (G434).
For G431B, ensure that it is obvious that the artifact is being dropped into the robot and do not reposition artifacts once placed in the robot. Once the artifacts is in contact with a robot, leave it and communicate with the drive team what needs to happen next. Another tip: if you are acting as the only human player for your alliance, make sure to review where to place artifacts in your alliance partners robot.
Enjoy the Holidays that are upon us and stay safe out there!
Congrats to all 25 teams that competed at the 1st Qualifier of the season in Flagstaff!!! Good luck to the teams competing at Roadrunner and Red Rock this weekend!
ALL registered teams showed!!! We challenge everyone to make this happen for the rest of the season!!!
Congrats to the Arizona teams that advanced to the AZ Championship
8081 - Knights of the Lab Table
26100 - Warrior Bots
18291 - MechWarriors
26664 - YetiMachina
7613 - Sinagua Robotics
Congrats to the 11 Four Corners teams that officially advanced to the Four Corners Championship by competing in their first qualifier:
11529 - Navajo Code Writers
16817 - Rocksisaan Tech
23940 - RoboCougars
23942 - Rez Kidz
23950 - RockBots
24286 - Shash
26002 - Navajo Code Breakers
26009 - Coltz & Boltz
31602 - Skyhawks Robotics
31605 - Greene Dragons
YOUTH REGISTRATION - MUST BE COMPLETED ONLINE AND BEFORE TOURNAMENT DAY
As most of you know, FIRSTrequires lead coaches, mentors, youth team members, volunteers, and staff to be electronically registered. This year, FIRSTis asking all of us to make a concerted effort to use the online registration system. Here is an overview of the Youth Registration System:
Express Enrollment is a registration system that provides a simplified experience on mobile devices and computers to register youth members.
FIRST Lead Coaches can generate web links or QR codes in their FIRST Dashboard to share with parents and guardians of their youth participants, granting access to the application.
Parents and guardians then use the web link or QR code from the lead coach to register their youth to a team in a few simple steps.
Instructions for Coaches
Please use the Coach Express Enrollment Instructions below to create a QR code or link for parents and legal guardians of your team’s youth members to use.
Once the parents/guardians apply their youth to the team (using parents/guardians instructions below), lead coaches will need to go back to the Team Contacts page to accept or decline the youth team members listed as “Applied Pending” by selecting the “Options” menu on their contact card.
Approved team members will be reflected on the team’s printable roster, which is required when you check in to your Arizona FLL qualifier.
We hope all teams are doing well in preparation for your next tournament! Here are a few observations and tips for the season to help you be successful.
Safety: As in previous seasons, we continue to see Drive Team Members not wearing Safety Glasses correctly. Carrying Safety Glasses in your hand, resting the glasses on your forehead or hung around the neck is not proper wear! As a Drive Team, we challenge you to watch out for each other. Make checking that Safety Glasses protect the Eyeballs is a point on your Queuing Checklist. We challenge the whole of Arizona to give us a tournament where we don’t have to give Safety Glasses Warnings. To add to the importance of proper safety glasses please review Section 5.1 General Rules - E101 – Personal Safety. Teams who do not properly wear safety glasses or other (protective equipment) will be subject to Rule G211 following 1 verbal warning by any tournament official.(Tournament Officials include referees, queuers, pit administrators, event directors, judge advisors. Any volunteer can remind someone to wear safety glasses.)This can result and Yellow or RedCards being given to a team. Please take this warning to heart and make sure all teammates are abiding by safety rules!
REMINDER: All teams are REQUIRED to provide their own safety glasses for all team members, coaches, mentors, spectators and family members. EVERYONE needs to be wearing safety glasses in the pits at ALL times. We WILL NOT provide loaner glasses for teams or family members or spectators associated with a team. If someone doesn't have safety glasses on, they may not enter the pits.Continued violations of the safety rules in the pits may ALSO elevate to a Yellow or Red card based on feedback from event staff to the Head Referee.
TEAM SIGNS: Section 12.4 – R401. We saw quite a few teams without proper Team Signs. Each Team needs to have proper TEAM SIGNS that are made of ROBUST Material. Last year the Team Signs were a new part of the Robot build and events worked with teams to help provide Team Signs by using paper signs that could be colored in to indicate the Team Number. This will not be normal procedure this season. The paper signs are too flimsy, do not attach properly to the robot, make it difficult for Referees to identify robots team number and are not in accordance with R401 unless placed on a secure ROBUST backing that attaches rigidly to the robots. Please review Section 12.4 and come to tournaments with proper team signs. Robots without proper team sign will not pass inspection and therefore be unable to play scheduled matches.
We saw some great match play this past weekend at our initial qualifier in Flagstaff! Wonderful work by all 25 Teams attending. Following are few observations for Drive Teams to keep in mind as we head into the season:
Gameplay can be fast paced, with a lot of crossing the field to load artifacts and get across to the goal area for launching! This lends to some good defensive play opportunities and we witnessed an increase in defense. Reminder that defense and robot-to-robot contact is part of the gameplay so please prepare by making sure wires are securely contained inside the robots and Power switches are accessible, but on the side where they could be hit thus disabling your ‘Bot.
By far the majority of violations seen this past weekend were for contact with the Opposing Alliance Gate. G417A – Major Foul plus Opposing Alliance gains a Pattern RP. In addition… if the gate opens and releases Artifacts, this is a G418 Violation per artifact released… So a full Ramp of 9 Artifacts can result is 1 Major for G417 and 9 Majors for G418. Do the math here… (1+9) x 15 points = 150 Points awarded to the opposing alliance.
Remember that if the robot is disabled it is still subject to Fouls… Think about how that plays out if you are near a Protected Zone.
Human Player Action this weekend was very good overall. The gameplay with Humans and Robot in the Loading Zone at the same time was effective and we only had a handful of violations (much less than we anticipated). Review G431 as this is the Rule where we saw most HP Violations. Specifically, When loading the Artifact into the robot, there can not be contact with the HPand the ArtifactAND the Robot. This also applies when taking artifacts from the loading zone tiles to place into the Robot. If the Robot is touching the Artifact on the tile and the HP grabs the Artifact, that is a Major Foul… and YC if HP touches the Robot…
We saw a few Base Zone violations in the last 20 secs, and a few other Zone violations throughout the day, but overall some good gameplay!
Practice Matches. This season we are running a formal practice match schedule between the driver's meeting and the opening ceremonies. Practice matches are optional opportunities to play a formal match on the competition fields. This is a great opportunity to shake down the robot and ensure that your teams are comfortable with the unique match flow this season. Practice matches are especially important to ensure robot function with the combination of field inspection with hardware inspection. The practice match schedule will be handed out with the judging schedule, and they run concurrently with each other. Attending your judging session takes absolute priority over practice matches. Please ensure that you attend your judging session on time. If you miss your practice match for any reason, you may join the filler line. The filler line will be used to create a full match as teams are not able to attend their practice match. To join the filler line, your robot must be fully inspected. To play in a practice match, your robot does not have to be inspected, but it must be safe as determined by the FTAs and Head Referees. Practice matches are an excellent opportunity to find issues before qualification matches begin, gain experience with the gameplay flow, and create connections with other teams at the event.
In wrapping up this posting, Overall, for a first qualifier for the season and a very early one at that… Teams did very well and we saw some exciting and well played Matches!
Reset - Recalibrate - Recode your robot! Now that many of our northern Arizona teams have one event under their bots, come in and work on refining your game play and enhance your gameplay capabilities.
6-8 pm: Movie night...LEGO BATMAN THE MOVIE!
(Movie night $5 per person, concessions available, bring blanket & pillow or camp chair.)
