How to be EVENT READY and other early season tips...

When your robot confronts the Truss for the first time....

Qualifying Tournament Registration Update

Welcome to the 13 new teams sponsored by Navajo Transitional Energy Company in schools on the Navajo Nation! They will be competing in northern Arizona qualifiers and a new qualifier at Dine' College in Tsalie! Please make them feel welcome and part of our AZ FTC Community. 

Over 80 teams have registered to play in AZ events! All teams have two confirmed events at this point. Most teams got their 1st and 2nd choice, a few got their 3rd event choice or alternate. We're also excited that so many teams are taking the opportunity to play early by signing up for a November tournament - both events will be full!

A special thank you to our tournament directors from Road Runner (Anna), White Mountain (Cory) and Red Rock (Annalisa), Turquoise (Matt) and Copper (David) who increased their tournament capacities to allow more teams to play!!!

We will be assigning 3rd events on Monday Sept. 25. We anticipate several events filling before all teams that requested them are assigned their 3rd play. 

These events are expected to fill early in round 3:

• Nov. 18 Road Runner, Gilbert
• Dec. 9 High Country, Flagstaff
• Jan. 27 Valley of Sun, Glendale
• Feb. 3 Copper, Queen Creek

These events are expected to have some space available after round 3

• Nov. 18 White Mountain, Show Low
• Dec. 16 Diamondback, Tucson
• Jan. 13 Palo Verde, Goodyear

If your third choice is full, we will look at your selected alternates. If your alternates are also full, we will send you a message letting you know which events have available space for your team. If your team is flexible and would like to updated your alternates based on the list above, please email Christine.

HOW TO BE EVENT READY

Even though tournaments are still two months off, now is the time to be getting your team ready to compete. The checklist below MUST be completed for your team participate in official events - we actually can't add teams to the scoring system without these!

• Lead Coach 1 & 2 - complete in your firstinspires.org dashboard
• Click on your name in the upper right
• Click "Acknowledgement forms" and complete Consent & Release, FIRST Code of Conduct, and Youth Protection policy. 
• On the same page, click Youth Protection Screening on the left side. If you need to complete your screening, please go to the website and enter your information. If you're a returning coach, check when your screening expires. 
• FIRST Registration
• Required every season - $295 per team per season
• Check out through your FIRST Dashboard after check, PO, grant funding, or credit card payment has been sent to FIRST.
• We can't add your team to the event unless this is done!
• Youth Registration
• All student members of your team are required to register with FIRST and have a parent or guardian sign the season consent form. 
• Instructions can be found here.
• New this season - coaches can generate a QR code from their dashboard to expedite youth registration (starting September 21). 
• Through the new Express Enrollment application, you can generate web links or QR codes in the FIRST Dashboard to share with parents and guardians of youth participants to invite them to register for FIRST and join the team roster.
• • To access the team roster and Express Enrollment application, two team lead coaches/mentors need to have completed and passed the FIRST Youth Protection Screening.
  • Learn more and view support resources on the Youth Registration System Walkthrough page.
• Team rosters showing completed consent forms will be emailed to Susan by the Friday before your event. 
• Tournament Payment
• Invoices will be sent to each team by the end of next week. Tournament registration fees are $225 for two events and $300 for three events. 
• Qualifying tournament payment is due by November 17 for all teams and all events. 
• Need help paying for your tournaments? Apply for a Registration Grant from the CocoNuts!
• Payment instructions will be included on the Invoice (so please be sure to read it! :)

Tech Tip of the Week

This week’s Tech Tip of the Week is a video full of tech tips from AJ Foster, FIRST® Tech Challenge World Championship FIRST Technical Advisor and Orlando Robotics League All-Star Volunteer. AJ gives a great synopsis of many of the key technical updates for the CENTERSTAGESM presented by RTX season and some background on those changes. Watch his video on the FIRST® Tech Challenge YouTube Channel.