We are excited to be participating in the Bay Area Maker Faire again this year!

The Maker Faire is Saturday May 19th and Sunday May 20th.  We will be setting up Thursday and Friday and would welcome help!

We are again running the FTCquel off-season competition.  Match play will extend across both days of the Maker Faire, with plenty of time for participants to wander around and explore the amazing exhibits and demos!

Currently there is space for one or two more teams.  You can signup to participate at http://www.playingatlearning.org/FTC/MakerReg/Maker_Registration.php.

We are also looking for a handful of volunteers to help with the event.  Volunteer signups are being handled through this Google Form. Please consider coming and helping!

A couple of items/updates for everyone!

– Qualifying Tournament Registration Status
– Dean’s List Process
– Inspection at Tournaments
– Screamage (scrimmage) 10/28/17 at The Play Space
– Open Practice Field at The Play Space
– Grants for Eligible Teams

Tournaments will start up VERY quickly and we are excited to see everyone’s robots in action!

– Mark Edelman

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Qualifying Tournament Status

November registration is running OK. There is still space for teams at 2 tournaments; Redwood City and Folsom. I would STRONGLY encourage teams.

Registration for December tournaments will open up next weekend. Not all potential December events are confirmed yet. Registration will open as scheduled, with tournaments added to the list as they become fully confirmed.

Dean’s List Process

Coaches/Mentors, if you are not familiar with the Dean’s List award, we would strongly encourage you to read the section in Part 1 of the FTC Game Manual. Nominating a student on your team is a great way to recognize the contributions of your students and reward their leadership within your team!

For Northern California, all Dean’s List Nominees will be interviewed as an “Interview Only” event that will take place in early February. Interview will NOT be performed at the qualifying tournaments. Details on the event will be published soon.

Inspection at Tournaments

New this year, all teams will be provided a scheduled inspection slot as a part of the tournament schedule. Teams are expected to be prepared for inspection at that time! We wish to conclude robot inspection in a timely way to allow the potential of adding an additional match per team into the match play schedule!

Teams that miss their scheduled time slot and/or are not able to complete inspection by the time the inspection schedule concludes may end up not being able to participate in match play!

If your team is not familiar with the inspection process, we would strongly recommend coming to the scrimmage on 10/28 for a dry run through inspection! You should also read through the inspection section in Part 1 of the FTC Game Manaul

Screamage 10/28/17

We will be hosting a Halloween themed scrimmage (i.e. Screamage) at The Play Space in San Jose on Saturday 10/28/17. This will be an informal event, with pit tables and opportunities to run matches on a full field. Robot troubleshooting help will also be available for teams. The Screamage will run from 10am to 4pm.

Registration is free and first-come, first-served for up to 16 teams. Registration can be done by sending an email to ftc@playingatlearning.org with the subject “SCREAMAGE Registration”. The body of the email should include the team name, team number, and contact information for the coach, including both email and cellphone.

Open Practice at The Play Space

Thanks to a generous volunteer, we have open practice on the field at The Play Space two nights a week, Tuesday and Friday. Teams are required to register to attend and there is paperwork that must be competed to participate.

Additional information, including links to the required paperwork and the calendar of open practice sessions can be found at http://www.norcalftc.org/ftc-practice-field-usage/

Grants for Eligible Teams

There are currently a couple of grants open and available to eligible teams. Playing At Learning has PG&E Grants available to teams that meet certain diversity and need criteria – http://www.playingatlearning.org/pge/

FIRST has grants that target new, rookie teams – http://info.firstinspires.org/first-tech-challenge-grants

Several items for today’s update:

• Opening of Qualifying Tournament registration
• Tournament Registration Fees for the Relic Recovery Season
• Practice Field Availability at The Play Space in San Jose
• Scrimmage at The Play Space on Oct. 28th (Screammage)
• NorCal FTC Championship Date Opinion Poll Closing 9pm 10/5
• Additional Tournament Hosts?

Please take the time to read completely through the entire email and share the information with your teams!

– Mark Edelman

Opening of Qualifying Tournament Registration

Registration for this season’s series of qualifying tournaments will open up on Sunday 10/8 at approximately 8pm. If you are not familiar with the way we manage registration in our region, please take a few minutes to read through the article on the NorCalFTC.org website that explains the process:

http://www.norcalftc.org/2017-relic-recovery-qualifying-tournament-registration/

The list of confirmed tournament dates & locations is on the website as well at:

http://www.norcalftc.org/2017-norcal-ftc-qualifying-tournaments/

Payment for tournament registration is due immediately after you register your team.

Teams are eligible to register based on their status with FIRST.  A team must have paid their FTC registration fee and have 2 screened coaches to be eligible to register.

Status updates in FIRST’s database take up to a day to reflect (payment and screening). Additionally, our download of the database is done manually and takes place no more than once a day – typically early in the day.

Tournament Registration Fees for the Relic Recovery Season

For the 2017–2018 season, the registration fees will be on a sliding scale. Based on the number of tournament registrations your team has completed.

• 1st Play = $150
• 2nd Play = $175
• 3rd Play = $200

Practice Field Availability at The Play Space in San Jose

Thanks to a gracious volunteer being willing to host, the practice field at The Play Space will be available for teams to use on a reservation only basis two nights a week; Tuesdays 6:00pm-7:45pm and Fridays 7:00pm-9:30pm.

Teams that are interested in utilizing the field will need to register with Playing At Learning, agree to a set of rules and reserve time through an online form. The details are being finalized and will be on the NorCalFTC.org website.

The field will be available beginning next week, starting with Tuesday 10/10!

Scrimmage at The Play Space ion Oct. 28th (Screammage)

We will be hosting a scrimmage at The Play Space on Saturday 10/28 (with a Halloween theme = Screamage). We will be able to host approximately 16 teams for the scrimmage.  We will have a handful of experienced volunteers on hand to help with robot issues and help teams understand inspection and game rules.

Additional details, including how to register, will be posted on the NorCalFTC.org website soon!

Dress up in your favorite costume, bring your robot and be ready to “trick or treat” the game!

 

NorCal FTC Championship Date Opinion Poll Closing 9pm 10/5

Thank you to all that have taken the time to participate in our opinion poll.  If you haven’t had a chance to offer your opinion on the possible NorCal FTC Championship dates yet, it is not too late!

Remember, only 1 opinion per team will be counted, and only opinions from one of the two registered coaches will be counted.

You can find the poll at:

https://goo.gl/forms/WXvfn8Fslg2i95cn1

Additional Tournament Hosts?

As we are finalizing the list of qualifying tournaments, there will likely be a couple of weekends that could use an additional event. If your team is interested in exploring potentially hosting a tournament, please send an email to marke@playingatlearning.org.

The FTC West Super-Regional Championship is again in early March. The early date puts pressures on our season calendar and on our advancing teams!

Last year, we moved the NorCal FTC Regional Championship a week earlier than traditional to allow our teams that advance to FTC West an extra week of travel arrangement time.

This had the side effect of requiring us to close the NorCal FTC qualifying tournament calendar a week earlier than normal to allow enough time to make local arrangements!

I have put together a short poll that allows us to gauge the opinions of all of the teams.

Please have one of the two registered coaches for your team follow the link below to register your team’s opinion.  Only one vote per team will be counted and only votes from a registered coach/mentor will be counted.

The poll can be found at:

https://goo.gl/forms/WXvfn8Fslg2i95cn1

I will the poll up until 9pm on 10/05 and tally the results the following days.

Thank you for voting!

Kickoff is coming … September 9th is just around the corner!

 

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