It's FIRST Tech Challenge Dean's List submission time!!
- DEADLINE TO SUBMIT IS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15
- FIRST Dean's List Information Page
- Guide to nominating a Sophomore or Junior class team member(s) from your team.
- Two nominations per team limit
- Highly recommended that the nominating mentor(s) read the Nomination Guide prior to submitting.
- Nominations submitted properly to FIRST will be forwarded to ORTOP after the deadline has past. ORTOP has no way of knowing if a nomination has been submitted until after the deadline. Any issues with the submission process needs to be directed to FIRST HQ.
- Nominated students, known as FIRST Dean's List Semi-Finalists, will be interviewed at their January League or Non-League Qualifying Event during the inspection/judging period at a time your team is not scheduled for either activity
- From the pool of FIRST Dean's List Semi-Finalists, four students from Oregon will be selected as FIRST Dean's List Finalists to represent Oregon at the FIRST World Championship in Houston and compete to be a FIRST Dean's List Winner.
- Note from your Affiliate Partner: FIRST Dean's List students are about students' abilities to lead and inspire others around them; in and outside of the team environment. Although a student's grade point average is part of the consideration, it is not the primary attribute the interviewers and reviewers are accessing in choosing students to be Finalists.
What's Up with Events! EVENT RESULTS
ORTOP is pushing our event results up to The Purple Alliance, an online service for FTC results - Look for the date of your event. This is the URL - https://ftcscores.com/
League Meets and JANUARY and FEBRUARY AND MARCH TOURNAMENTS!
We are headed down the home stretch to complete our 3 official league meets per League.
Check here to see your remain league meet dates
Make a point to thank our awesome volunteers. Do that.
Lots of emails and some texts about the League Qualifying Tournament and Non League Qualifying Tournaments.
- FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon Qualifying Tournaments
- January 18, 2019 – Friday
- Tillamook HS – North Coast League Qualifying Tournament
- January 19, 2019 – Saturday
- Pendleton Convention Center – Columbia Basin League Qualifying Tournament
- Roseburg HS – SOAR Inter-League Qualifying Tournament – River and Mountain
- Philomath HS – Non-League Qualifying Tournament #1
- January 20, 2019 – Sunday
- Philomath HS – Non-League Qualifying Tournament #2
- January 26, 2019 – Saturday
- Hillsboro HS – InterLeague Qualifying Tournament – Silicon Forest and Cedar Mill Leagues
- Oaklea MS, Junction City – InterLeague Qualifying Tournament – Midwestern and Capitol Leagues
- Tigard HS – InterLeague Qualifying Tournament – Tualatin Valley and Rose City Leagues
- Mountain View HS, Bend – InterLeague Qualifying Tournament – Central Oregon and MidColumbia Leagues
- January 27, 2019 – Sunday
- Tigard HS – Non-League Qualifying Tournament #3
- January 18, 2019 – Friday
- FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon SUPER-QUALIFIER WEEKEND
- assignments to SQ events will be based on 1) geographic distance of team meeting place to SQ event, 2) order of receipt of submission, 3)team preference
- Saturday, February 9, 2019
- SQ:Delta – Roseburg HS, Roseburg
- SQ:Theta – Evergreen MS, Hillsboro
- Sunday, February 10, 2019
- SQ:Pi – Evergreen MS, Hillsboro
- FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon CHAMPIONSHIP
- LIBERTY HIGH SCHOOL, HILLSBORO
- Saturday, March 9, 2019 – Load-in, Inspection, Judging
- Sunday, March 10, 2019 – Competition Day, Awards, Advancements to World
A bit of techie advice
As your FTC Affiliate Partner I am admittedly about as un-techie person you'll find.
1) However, I am fairly active on social media and I've been reading discussions on failing REV Robotics Units. #1 reason for failure seems to be connection port getting "broken" or more accurately dislodged from its location. #1 way to avoid this is to train your students to very carefully plug in the connector and gently pull out the connector. The REV Robotics Hub is somewhat fragile in this regard. Also consider connection restraints to keep connectors form wiggling. The robots take quite a bit of jarring on the field. A wiggle at the wrong time can leave the bot dead in the water. Take steps to prevent this.
1) However, I am fairly active on social media and I've been reading discussions on failing REV Robotics Units. #1 reason for failure seems to be connection port getting "broken" or more accurately dislodged from its location. #1 way to avoid this is to train your students to very carefully plug in the connector and gently pull out the connector. The REV Robotics Hub is somewhat fragile in this regard. Also consider connection restraints to keep connectors form wiggling. The robots take quite a bit of jarring on the field. A wiggle at the wrong time can leave the bot dead in the water. Take steps to prevent this.
2) There has been chatter about phones out there. #8045 contributed this link on their Facebook page.
3) Keep READING and RESEARCHING. There are a number of very valuable resources out there.
4) Also - Consult the Inspector Manuals and Legal/Illegal Parts Manuals while making changes to your bot.
- Robot Inspector Manual - updated 11/12/18
- Robot Inspection Checklist - updated 9/10/18
- Field Inspector Manual - updated 11/12/18
- Field Inspection Checklist - updated 10/2/18
- Legal and Illegal Parts List -updated 9/10/18
FIRST LEGO League Volunteering
Shout out to all of our FTC Team Members and Mentors who will be volunteering at FIRST LEGO League events the next two weekends. Thank you for supporting the younger kids in FIRST and be sure to tell them how AWESOME FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon is.
