It's a new FIRST Tech Challenge Season and the Force is with us! 

At the finale of the  FIRST World Championship in Houston FIRST announced that the 2019-2020 season will be in Partnership with Star Wars: Force for Change.  Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)  made the announcement via a pre-recorded video.  We've created a 2019/2020 national registration information page on the ORTOP website with  links to the videos announcing the partnership and season theme, FIRST RISE: The Force is Building powered by Star Wars Force for Change video. 

Other resources for starting our  SKYSTONE season

• Overview of our 2019/2020 calendar   
• Team resource page 
• ORTOP Information Flyer - please share with others in your community to help start new teams  and interest others in joining yours. 
• ORTOP Team Support Award application process will open on May 15th. Announcements regarding awards cannot be made until at least mid-August.  We will not know the status of our ODE funding until the State Legislature votes on a budget and the governor signs it. 

FIRST World Championship - Houston! 
Yet again Oregon turned in stellar performances. Yes, single alliance scores were over 500 points!  We are very proud of our teams.
A list of results and awards can be found here.  
And a special congratulations to Rispa Vranka Wafula, #7776 – Loose Screws on being named a FIRST Dean's List Winner.  This marks the third time an FTC Oregon student has received this honor. 
If you missed watch teams play Rover Ruckus at it's highest level, you have an other opportunity this week (Wed - Sat) as the FIRST World Championship moves to Detroit.    

ORTOP is working with Dialogues in Action to complete an evaluation study for our program.  Your consideration to participate as an Evaluation Interviewer is appreciated.

David Perry, ORTOP Executive Director,  wants to invite mentors, coaches, alumni, other adults or mature senior team members associated with your team(s) to take part in an unprecedented study of the impact this program has on the young people that participate. ORTOP is recruiting interested adults to conduct interviews with a handful of students on FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition teams during the month of May. No experience with evaluation is needed; we will provide the necessary training and technical support with our partner, Dr. Steve Patty of Dialogues in Action. A small stipend is available for those who attend the training and complete five or more interviews during the month of May.
Please contact David-Perry@ortop.org if you are interested.  Training is scheduled to take place either in-person in Portland and Roseburg or via web training the weekend of May 4 and 5.

It's STILL TOURNAMENT WEEK!!!

Follow-up on last weekends events and registering for Super-Qualifier Weekend. 
We had some great action last weekend. 

• ALL Judged Award results and advancements for both weekends will be posted on Monday, Jan 28.  
• If your team was announced as an advancement team to Super-Qualifier Weekend, the mentor will be sent a link by email to submit an online preference for SQ dates. This will happen on Tuesday, January 29th. 
• SQ Events: SQ-Delta-Feb 9-Roseburg / SQ:Theta-Feb 9-Hillsboro / SQ:Pi-Feb10-Hillsboro 
• Please do not email me with your preferences or reasons. There will be a spot on the form  for that.
• Match results and final rankings are posted here. Be sure to read the "Please Note" about the rankings on ftcscores.com

__________________________________________________________________________
ARE YOU ROVER RUCKUS READY??? 

Schedules FOR JAN 26 and JAN 27 !

BEND - HILLSBORO - JUNCTION CITY - TIGARD- SATURDAY  --- TIGARD-SUNDAY

Our final weekend of qualifying tournaments are here!!!  We've been super busy preparing for the events this weekend and I almost forgot to send an email. 

You've all worked hard. I hope the robots are put together and ready to roll.

If you have a tournament on Jan 26 or Jan 27  and have not directly heard from your Tournament Director, please email me. 

A few reminders!

• Download your copy of the 2018-2019
   QUICK GUIDE to Preparing for your League or Qualifying Tournament
• Folder of helpful documents for preparing for the upcoming tournaments 

• Team Check starts 7:45 am and ends at 8:15 am 
• Mentor must arrive with the official printed Team Roster from the Dashboard with an additional signed consent and release forms. Every team must do this.
• Be prepared to surrender you Team Engineering Notebook at the Team Check-in Desk. 
• Question from the Judge Certification Test: 
• Q: Engineering Notebooks may not be considered for deliberation if a team has not put their team number on the cover.  True or False 
• A: TRUE THAT! Arrive with team numbers on the front cover! 
• Have your robot ready for inspection. 
• The morning of the event is not the time to be building your robot. Show up ready to roll.
• Robot Form / Field Form
• At Team Check-in teams receive an official Inspection form, complete the left column again prior to going to Robot Inspection. 
• Rookie Teams - Judging is different from Inspection. Teams do both. Judging session time is inflexible. Inspection time is more flexible.  See schedules above. 
• Pack a copy of Game Manual 1 and 2 - latest forum - in case you end up in the question box. 
• Remember your gracious professionalism!  
• And last but not least - this is the hardest fun you'll ever have while wearing safety glasses. Bring them! Wear them over your eyes! 

LET'S DO THIS!
---Cathy Swider

FIRST Tech Challenge Affiliate Partner, Oregon

It's TOURNAMENT WEEK!!!

ARE YOU ROVER RUCKUS READY????

SCHEDULES
PHILOMATH-Sat - PHILOMATH-SUN - ROSEBURG - PENDLETON - TILLAMOOK!

Yes, the time is finally here. We've been super busy preparing for the events this weekend and I almost forgot to send an email.

You've all worked hard. I hope the robots are put together and ready to roll.

If you have a tournament on Jan 18, 19 or 20 and have not directly heard from your Tournament Director, please email me. 

A few reminders!

• Download your copy of the 2018-2019
   QUICK GUIDE to Preparing for your League or Qualifying Tournament
• Folder of helpful documents for preparing for the upcoming tournaments 

• Team Check starts 7:45 am and ends at 8:15 am (except Tillamook which is earlier) 
• Arrive with the official printed Team Roster from the Dashboard with an additional signed consent and release forms. Every team must do this. 
• Be prepared to surrender you Team Engineering Notebook at the Team Check-in Desk. 
• Question from the Judge Certification Test: 
• Engineering Notebooks may not be considered for deliberation if a team has not put their team number on the cover.  True or False 
• TRUE
• Have your robot ready for inspection. 
• The morning of the event is not the time to be building your robot. Show up ready to roll.
• Robot Form / Field Form
• At Team Check-in teams receive an official Inspection form, complete the left column again prior to going to Robot Inspection. 
• Rookie Teams - Judging is different from Inspection. Teams do both. Judging session time is inflexible. Inspection time is more flexible.  See schedules above. 
• Pack a copy of Game Manual 1 and 2 - latest forum - in case you end up in the question box. 
• Remember your gracious professionalism!  
• And last but not least - this is the hardest fun you'll ever have while wearing safety glasses. Bring them! Wear them over your eyes! 

LET'S DO THIS!
---Cathy Swider

FIRST Tech Challenge Affiliate Partner, Oregon

It's FTC Oregon Qualifying Tournament Month!

Happy New Year! 
Welcome to 2019!  It's FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon Qualifying Tournament Month!

COMMUNICATIONS for QUALIFYING TOURNAMENTS  
Last Friday, December 28th I dropped 125 letters in the US mail addressed to every Lead Mentor #1 in the  FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon program.   The letter outlines key details for our upcoming Qualifying Tournaments.

In case it did not arrive in your mailbox or if you are LeadMentor2, team parent or student team representative or volunteer, you can also read the letters online. The letter highlights what is important to know and directs teams to the Quick Guide to Preparing for the Qualifying Tournaments

• Pre-tournament letter for Non-League Teams 
• Pre-tournment letter for League Teams 

Teams should lookout for emails coming directly from their Tournament Director. 

List of Events and tournament directors here. 

 LEAGUE RANKINGS for LEAGUE and InterLEAGUE QUALIFYING TOURNAMENTS
The 10 best matches for every team participating in Leagues has been compiled and ranked for the upcoming League and InterLeague Tournaments.  These rankings will be used to start the League and InterLeague Tournaments. 5 more qualification matches played at the LQTs will be added to the rankings.

•  Pre-Tournament rankings are posted at https://ortop.org/ftc/ftc-home/
• Match details from league meets can be found at https://ftcscores.com/ 

WAYS TO HELP OUR UPCOMING EVENTS 

As a community coming together, we make tournaments possible. That's the way FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon works.  There are always ways teams can do a little more, or lot more than just showing up at an event.
Your Tournament Director will be sending out emails to teams asking for the help they need. 

Here is a list of ways you can help: 

• Ask team parents/friends to volunteer for logistics roles like Judge Door Assistants, Bullpen Table Monitors, Pit Runners, Field Queuers, etc. Younger siblings (8 year old+) are excellent  great re-setters. Those closely associated with teams cannot be referees or judges.  Just one volunteer per team can make a huge difference in helping the events run smoothly. 
• Offer to bring a Practice Field. Our League events have been running with only one field, having a practice field at the tournament is very helpful and ORTOP is in short supply of providing them. 
• Offer to show up early or stay after the event to help with load-in or load-out. Many hands make for light work. 

SAFETY GLASSES - YES! YES! YES! 
Fair warning..... Safety Glasses are required to be worn over the eyes in the PIT by Team Members, Mentors, and any Guests at/near your Pit Table. Ignoring this rule can result in a yellow card.  Team members must wear safety glasses at the field. If you expect to have team parents/guests visit your Pit Table, stock up on extra safety glasses for them.  ORTOP cannot provide safety glasses for team members or guests. 

FIRST DEAN'S LIST and Tournament Dates

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
• 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. 

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. 

Event Results, Cyber Monday and This week in FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon

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/
Event Results are also available off the ORTOP home page

This Week in FIRST Tech Challenge Oregon
What we saw in during League Meet 1 events 
In League Meet 1 weeks we saw most robots able to score minerals in the depots, quite a few robots parking partially or completely in the crater, a few robots latching to the lander and successfully deploying and reattaching in end game, and very few robots are scoring in the lander. 

A modest number of robots had some sort of autonomous program.  A few robots attempting to drop team markers, a few robots attempting to move the gold mineral off its mark. Partially parked in the crater seems to be the most successfully accomplished task.  
 Moving on to League Meet 2
Upcoming meets for Nov 26 - Dec 2  

• WED - Nov 28 - Central Oregon at Culver
• THURS -Nov 29 - MidColumbia (League Meet 1),  Columbia Basin
• FRI -Nov. 30 - Rose City 
• SAT - Dec 1 - Silicon Forest, North Coast

Upcoming meets for Dec 3 - 8 

• THURS - Dec 6 - MidColumbia 
• SATURDAY - Dec 8 - SOAR (Meets 2 & 3), Capitol ( Meets 2 & 3), Cedar Mill ( Meet 3) 
• Note this is also FIRST LEGO League Qualifying Tournament Weekend #1 -
    Please check the calendar and volunteer for an event. Lots of volunteers are still needed.

PREP FOR LEAGUE MEET 2 
Teams are still lollygagging getting through inspection. ugh....  This is slowing down the schedule. Please show up on time and ready. 

• League Meets and Tournaments are events for play, not redesigning your robot. 
• Use your meeting time to do major changes to your bots.  
• Use League Meet time to get your robot inspected early, tweak what needs to be fixed, practice, scout and be ready to play.   
• Show up at your event ready to go through Inspection. 
• Have the Robot Inspection sheet (left column) completed and a blank Field Inspection form ready to hand to the inspector. 

Still having trouble printing the Team Roster for the Team Check-in table? 
Click here for directions 

CYBER MONDAY 
REV ROBOTICS AND SERVO CITY are advertising good deals on their merchandise today, Monday, November 26th.   
Be sure to check Game Manual 1, the Legal/Illegal Parts Guide and the Forum before purchasing parts. 

NASA MARS INSIGHT LANDER

OH!!!! And the NASA MARS INSIGHT LANDER is GO FOR TOUCHDOWN ON MARS TODAY! You can watch the live broadcast starting at 11:00 AM PST. 

FTC Oregon - Keeping on the right track!

This is Week 10 of our Rover Ruckus Season.

Dates of Importance 

• Payment Deadline 
• Friday, November 16th is the last day to pay for League or Non-League Play.  
• If a Purchase Order, Check or Credit Card payment is not received on/by Friday, November 16th, those teams will be ineligible to take a discounted event fee.   
• Teams not paid by November 30th, and haven't communicated a reason why to ORTOP, risk losing their slot in their assigned events. 
• Was our PO or payment received? Check here 

Events for the next couple of weeks - details can be found here 

• Nov 15 - Rose City League 
• Nov 17 - SOAR, Silicon Forest, Midwestern, Cedar Mill 
• Nov 18 - Tualatin Valley  
• No events the week of Nov 19 - 25 - Happy Thanksgiving! Step away from the robot! Enjoy the family time. Put down the cell phone! 
• Nov 28 - Central Oregon at Culver
• Nov 29 - MidColumbia, Columbia Basin
• Nov. 30 - Rose City 
• Dec 1 - Silicon Forest, North Coast
  
  PLEASE THANK OUR VOLUNTEERS!!! They are awesome people to give their time to our program. 

Game Manual Highlights 
Mentors - Please take time during your practice/meeting time to go over Game Manual Rules.  As always the FTC Forum is the ultimate answer to Game Rule Questions.

• FIRST Tech Challenge Forum
• Forum Registration Instructions

I'd like to mention a few items from the game manuals that can impact the design of your robot to avoid penalties and others to keep your team on right  track.

#1 --  From Game Manual #2 - Page 22  <GS3> .  

What does this mean?  Don't design your robot is such a way that the referees can't see how many minerals are possessed by your robot. It must be transparent to them. Gone are the days of the big black box. 

#2 - From Game Manual #2 - Page 23 - <GS10> and <GS11>

#3 - And look for the rule about mineral possession. If a mineral accidentally lands in your robot and you are already in possession of the max amount, your team will be assessed penalties for over possession if you can't eject minerals out. Moral to the story: Build your robot to avoid unintended minerals getting stuck  in your bot.  

Homework! Find the rule and email the Number and Page to me!

UPDATE: Thanks Kraxberger Gearheads! You were the first team to email me the answer.
<GS3>Control/Possession Limits of Minerals – A Robot may Control or Possess a maximum of two (2) Minerals at a time. However, due to the density of Minerals within the Crater, Robots may temporarily exceed this limit while collecting Minerals that are In the Crater. Robots are required to shed excess Minerals before performing any other game play activities. Within the Crater, plowing through any quantity of Minerals is allowed but herding or directing multiple Minerals beyond the allotted maximum to gain a strategic advantage (i.e., Scoring, accessibility, defense) is not allowed. The Penalty for Controlling or Possessing more than the allotted maximum is an immediate Minor Penalty for each Mineral above the limit plus an additional Minor Penalty per Mineral for each 5-second interval that this situation continues. A Major Penalty will be assessed

#4 "There is no more important tool than these your safety glasses." - Norm Abram, This Old House
We are serious about this one. If you think this is a frivolous rule, think again. The rule is crystal clear.
Game Manual 2   <S3>  page 17 

#5 And this question came up last week at our North Coast League 
Are the craters owned by a specific alliance?  Look at Page 22 Game Manual 2 
ALSO,  Check out <G30>