This week in FIRST Tech Challenge!
BREAKING NEWS!! Grab your Indiana Jones hats! We're going on an adventure. 

FIRST Tech Challenge 2017-2018 Game is announced!
FIRST Relic Recovery! Watch the teaser video! 

Kickoff- September 9th! Oregon Kickoff locations TBA.
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Items I've mentioned before and would like you to keep in mind:

1. FIRST Tech Challenge national registration grants. Apply NOW, find out May 31st, don't pay for your national registration until you find out if you received the grant.

2. DO update your national registration team profile for the 2017/2018 season. If you are brand new to FIRST  you'll need to create a profile. Click here for both veteran and rookie teams 

3. Congratulations to our graduating Seniors! Sign up for the ORTOP FIRST Alumni Association  

4. Deadline to apply for the Portland Community College Machine Shop Class is May 30th. Details Here 
5. Signing up for SLACK! We've started a SLACK channel for FIRST Tech Challenge OREGON Mentors with 11 separate topic channels .  At this time we are allowing team members to also join. CLICK HERE . We hope the SLACK application can provide technical and program support to every mentor in our region.

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NEW ITEMS

1. SuperQuest 2017- Oregon Computer Science Teacher's Association - SuperQuest 2017 is a summer professional development program open to teachers and other adults who are facilitating students learning various aspects of science, technology, engineering and math.  Yes, there are robotics workshops but there is a lot more. I highly recommend looking at these. SuperQuest FAQ

Here are the SuperQuest 2017 summer locations and workshop choices with registration link:

• Wilsonville* - June 27 - 29 / Clackamas Community College  
• Redmond - July 12 - 14 / Ridgeview HS 
• Pendleton - July 19 - 21 / InterMountain ESD 
• Newport - July 26 - 28 /Newport Middle School 
• Eugene*  - Aug 2 - 4 / Lane ESD 
• Salem - Aug 7 - 9 / W. Salem HS
• S.Oregon - Aug 15 - 17 /Rogue Community College - Table Rock Campus - White City 

* FTC Oregon FTA - Dale Jordan will be teaching FIRST Tech Challenge programming classes at the Wilsonville and Eugene SuperQuests sessions.

2. JOB OPENINGS AT ORTOP - Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program !!
Please note our office is located in Beaverton, Oregon.

• Bookkeeper  Position
• Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator Position 

3. ORTOP Team Financial Support Award opportunity - I hope to have the ORTOP Team Support Award application posted on www.ortop.org/ftc  by May 26th.

This is the way ORTOP funding works:

• ORTOP will post a common application. It is possible some funding opportunities will require different applications, if that occurs, we will let you know. 
• Teams apply by reading all of the instructions, gathering needed data and submitting the online application. 
• ORTOP reviews applications 
• ORTOP will award funds from a variety of sources available to us and create funding packages for teams who qualify for financial support and meet the funding criteria for each funding sponsor.  
•  Currently, funding from the common application will be potentially be sourced from Rockwell Collins, Google, Qorvo, and MJ Murdock Charitable Trust.   
• I estimate there is about a 3% chance of seeing any funding directly from ODE. And there will not be any funding from Daimler  this coming season. 

4. Game News from FIRST HQ! 

•  FIRST Tech Challenge has worked to keep the cost of the fields at a steady $450 each year. This season, we faced challenges with increased costs of materials. To ensure quality, we had to make the decision to increase the cost of the full field sets from $450 per set to $480 per set." 
• In preparation for the 2017-2018 season, we would like to advise our Affiliate Partners and Teams that the 2017-2018 game will not be using the beacon that has been used the past two seasons."   GIMME A YAY!!!