Scrimmage Opportunities to Get Your Team Ready!

Qualifier Invoices

Invoices for qualifying tournament registration were sent out earlier this week. Just a few reminders: 

• Payment is due in full by December 2, 2022. Failure to meet this deadline will result in a $50 late fee and your team getting dropped from your events! 
• Cost for the season is $225 for two qualifiers and $300 for three qualifiers. 
• Teams can still apply for the CocoNuts' Registration Grant. Their next application review dates are October 20 and November 3. The link to the application is here. 
• If your team hasn't registered for qualifiers yet, please do so ASAP! Our January and February events are full, but we are working on getting another event added for teams that still need a spot to play. We have plenty of room in the November events, and three spots left at each of the December events. 

Scrimmages 

These events are opportunities for your team to practice on a full field, get your autonomous dialed in, get help with programming and design, and run practice matches with other teams. Please RSVP directly to the listed contact to attend. 

• Trunk or Treat - October 29
• 5 PM to 7 PM
• Si Se Puede Foundation (3225 N Washington St. Chandler, AZ 85225)
• Costumes welcome, please be sure they are appropriate
• RSVP using this link
• Flagstaff - November 5
• 10 AM to 2 PM
• Coconino High School Cafeteria (2801 N. Izabel St. Flagstaff, AZ 86004)
• RSVP to Christine (csapio@firstpartners.org) 
• Chandler - November 5
• 8 AM to 12 PN
• Valley Christian High School (6900 W Galveston St, Chandler, AZ 85226)
• RSVP to Matt (robotics@valleychristianaz.org)
• Goodyear - November 5
• 11 AM to 4 PM
• Trivium Prep (2001 N Bullard Ave, Goodyear, AZ 85395)
• RSVP to Zach (zarriaga@triviumprep.org)

Dean's List Nominations

Teams may nominate up to two students (10th and 11th grade) for the FIRST Dean's List Award. Nominations are due by December 15, 2022 at 11:59 PM EST to be considered. Interviews of each student nominee will take place January 24 - 26 in the late afternoon/evening. 

The nominees from each team are called Dean's List Semifinalists. We will announce our three Arizona Dean's List Finalists at the Arizona FTC Championship on February 25. Even if your team doesn't qualify for the Championship, all nominated students are eligible to become Dean's List Finalists! 

For more information on the Dean's List and how to nominate your students, please see the FTC Dean's List Guide.

Nominations for the Inspire the Future: FIRST Educators Recognition Program are Now Open! At FIRST, recognition is not only part of our name but core to our ethos, and we are proud to launch our second year of the Inspire the Future: FIRST Educators Recognition Program! Help us celebrate the FIRST educators who impact and inspire their learning communities; we truly could not further the mission of FIRST without them. Learn more about the Inspire the Future: FIRST Educators Recognition Program and how you can nominate an educator who has made an impact in your community.

Upcoming Gameplay and Dean’s List Team/Coach Webinars

FIRST^® Tech Challenge has scheduled a series of webinars to help teams succeed in this season’s game, POWERPLAY^sm presented by Raytheon Technologies. These calls have been created for the benefit of this season’s FIRST Tech Challenge teams. The topics will be Team/Coach Gameplay Discussion and Team/Coach Dean’s List Discussion. The first Dean’s List Discussion webinar will be Wednesday, October 19 at 8pm eastern time, register for the webinar here. The first Gameplay Discussion webinar will be Thursday, October 20 at 9pm eastern time, register for the webinar here. For the full team webinar schedule, check out our blog post.

Be sure to watch the FIRST Tech Challenge Blog for more updates. The latest posts include a summary of the rule changes for this season, the updated SDK, tensor flow, the "More Than" campaign, and more. 

New Resources Available! 

Did you know that FIRST Tech Challenge makes all their volunteer training manuals available to the public? If you’re interested in checking them out, you can find them online on our Volunteer Resources page.