Season's Greetings FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon teams!
We hope all of you are enjoy a relaxing winter holiday.
FTC Oregon Qualifying Tournament Season
We are days away from an exciting qualifying events season. FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon has 7 League Qualifying Tournaments and 3 Non-League Qualifying Tournaments scheduled to take place.
REQUIRED PRE-TOURNAMENT INFORMATION FORM - DUE JANUARY 9
In the ORTOP office we are gearing up and preparing tournament materials. Before we can do that, we need information from EVERY TEAM's MENTOR. PLEASE COMPLETE ON ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRE BY JANUARY 9! This is a hard and fast deadline.
Two easy steps to completion
1) Preview the questions on the worksheet for your own use.Click here - Do not fill out the worksheet and send it to me. I need the data from the ONLINE FORM
2) Enter your information into the ONLINE FORM and click Submit
WHY ?
- TEAM NAMES: Make sure team names and other info is correct in the printed tournament programs/scoring system. If you sent me an email about a name change - doesn't count, fill out the online form.
- HOW MANY TEAM MEMBERS: We need to have a correct count of team members so that each team member receives a commemorative Velocity Vortex collector pin.
- GRANT REPORTING: Additional demographic and other information for our grant reports. It goes without saying we need the support of sponsors and grants to make this possible.
- Remember this? Every mentor agreed to this when applying for a League or Non-League tournament. "Yes, I acknowledge that instead of collecting demographic information this early in the season, my team will complete brief questionnaire in December to confirm the number of students on the team (for Velocity Vortex pin ordering), and statistics necessary for grant reports. Complying by answering the December questionnaire will hold our slot in our assigned league or non-league qualifying tournament."
Rescheduled FTC Oregon League Meets
Before we can hold the Qualifiers, we need to finish up the League Meet season. Due to inclement weather, we were forced to postpone five league events.
NEW DATES:
- Central Oregon League- Summit HS - Thursday, Jan 12
- Mid-Columbia League - WAAAM - Thursday, Jan 12
- Portland League - Madison HS - Friday, Jan 6
- Capitol League - Sprague HS - Saturday, Jan 7
- Beaverton League - Conestoga Park & Rec - Saturday, Jan 7
- Hillsboro League - Hillsboro HS - Saturday, Jan 7 (double league meet #2 & #3)
TIPS for Preparing for your Qualifying Tournament
- Review Game Manuals, the Forum and other resource reference materials
- Robot Building Resources
- Specifically - Go through the Inspection Checklists - line by line by line.
- Programming Resources
- Engineering Notebook and Preparing for Competition
- FIRST Tech Challenge YouTube Channel - Resources, Tutorials, Help videos
- Oregon reigning FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship Inspire Award Winner - Hot Wired Robotics - 7013 has excellent practical help videos on their YouTube Channel.
- YouTube - Southern Oregon Area Robotics Summer Workshop Videos
- If you think it would be beneficial to understand how Judges, Referees and Inspectors are trained? You can! All FTC Volunteer Manuals are public. These are a great resource for preparing to be successful.
- Finally, food for thought about your Judging Session. Over the years, experienced FIRST Tech Challenge teams have evolved how they handle their 10-minute judging session.
- Successful teams walk into the room prepared to speak about how their team has best met the FIRST Tech Challenge awards criteria by adopting a presentation style for their judging session. There is nothing in the Game Manual that prohibits this.
- This means the team walks in, introduces themselves and begins to tell the judges about their design, build, programming, accomplishments and challenges of their robot season.
- Highlights what should be of most interest to the judges in their Engineering Notebook.
- Talks about their team experiences in connecting with their mentors and others in their community and how they motivated themselves and others.
- The team should be prepared to pause and allow the judges to ask questions if interrupted. This differs from the FIRST LEGO League judging presentation experiences.
- Your prepared material not take up the full 10 minutes. It is important to allow time for the judges to ask their questions.
- This style of judging session helps the judges to make the most of the session and ask probing questions specific to your team.
- Helpful hints: All team members should vocally participate in the presentation in someway. It is ok to have boards and other media to support your interview.
- Teams should practice what they want to communicate and practice answering possible questions prior to the event.
- Remember, this is your most important shot at gaining the attention of the judges.
