In British Columbia, the 2019/20 FIRST LEGO League season will have most teams participate in qualifying tournaments in January 2020 prior to a BC Championship tournament in February 2020.
Find out about 2019/20 City Shaper Challenge at the official site.
Teams/Coaches should review the November 11 season update.
Tournament registration link: https://forms.gle/QcWs1jhjdBsE4Wc6A
Tournament payment: https://firstroboticsbc.org/payment/
BC FLL Championship Feb. 16 2020: Team Information
Overview:
Team members must be no older than 14 years on January 1, 2019 (unless there are very special circumstances for individual kids). Team members may be 8 when joining a team, but not younger than 8.
This season, BC will run two qualifier tournaments, one in Greater Vancouver and one in Victoria. All teams on the Island and in the Lower Mainland need to attend one of the qualifier tournaments, The top-ranked 30-35% of those teams will advance to the championship.
We will make special arrangements for those teams that are from much farther away since they don’t have a qualifying tournament anywhere near them. Next season, there will be more qualifiers so that all teams in BC can reasonably attend one, but please be patient… we can’t do it for this season.
We will also invite two teams from the Yukon to the championship.
Any team at the championship will have the chance to advance to the World Festival.
Coaches and team member online sign-up
- Please remember that each team needs two coaches with their YPP screening done. I noticed that a few teams have not yet finished this process – please do it soon.
- Also, please encourage the parents/guardians of your team members to get their FIRST accounts and to sign up their kids for the team. (You will have to invite the adults to sign up; they then have to apply for team membership of their kids). The adults also need to sign the online consent and release form for their kids.
- It sometimes takes a while before all adults do this, so it is a good idea to start early.
- If one of your team members is under 9 years old the online system will not allow them to sign up. For these kids you’ll have to bring paper consent and release forms to any event, and they have to be added to the team roster by hand.
Team advancement:
The judges will determine an overall ranking for all teams at each tournament. Core Values, Innovation Project, Robot Design and Robot Performance are equally weighted to determine this ranking. The top teams are invited to the next level of competition. (For example, if there are 12 teams at a tournament and the top 30% advance, 4 teams would advance. If there were 36 teams at a tournament and the top 30% advance, 12 teams would advance.) Teams will be notified at the awards ceremony at the end of their qualifier.
Each qualifying tournament will accommodate up to 32 teams (possibly up to 36 for the Vancouver qualifier). However since there are over 40 teams in the Lower Mainland, some teams will have to travel to Victoria for their qualifying tournament. (Sorry! But it is a nice trip and will give the travelling teams a chance to be together and practice their interviews… We will also arrange the tournament schedule so that teams don’t have to stay overnight.)
Registration for the qualifying tournaments are on a “first come, first serve” basis. If is it important to your team to attend a specific qualifier, or if you have several teams that should be at the same tournament, please register promptly after registration opens.
Qualifying tournament registration
- We will have a 3-week registration period, starting on Monday, November 18 at 8pm and ending on Monday, December 9 at 11pm.
- I will email you a link to the registration form and also post the link on the website https://firstroboticsbc.org/2019/10/16/fll-season-city-shaper/ when registration starts.
- The registration form will allow you to choose
- 1st choice: tournament in Victoria, tournament in Vancouver, or “either is fine”
- 2nd choice: the other tournament, or no tournament
- We will assign tournament spots according to when registration information AND payment was received. (For example, a team filling out the form on Nov 18 and paying on Nov 24 will be assigned a spot after a team that filled out the form on Nov 20 and paid on Nov 21, and that team will be assigned a spot after a team that paid on Nov 10 and filled out the form on Nov 20.)
- Once your 1st choice of tournament is no longer available we will assign you to your 2nd choice. If is it important to your team to attend a specific qualifier, or if you have several teams that should be at the same tournament, please register promptly after registration opens.
Tournament registration fees:
A one-time $150 fee will cover all BC tournaments, i.e. if a team advances to the BC championship there will be no extra tournament registration fee.
- If your team registers and pays for a tournament and then has to cancel
- You will get a full refund if cancelling by the end of the registration period (December 9)
- You will get a $100 refund if cancelling between December 9 and December 31
- You will get no refund if cancelling after December 31
- If a tournament has to be cancelled, we will do a random draw to determine the advancing teams. If a tournament gets rescheduled and your team can’t make the new date, you will unfortunately have lost the chance to compete.
Championship Tournament
- The BC FLL Championship tournament will be held at Royal Bay Secondary School in Victoria on February 16 2019.
Championship Tournament Registration
- For teams from Northern, Interior and Southeastern BC, and from the Yukon: You need to register and pay the registration fee by December 31.
- For all teams advancing from a qualifier: You need to register within one week of your qualifier in January.
- We’ll email registration form links to all teams.
Global Innovation Award:
BC will nominate one team for the Global Innovation Award. This team will be invited to submit more details about their Innovative Solution online and may be chosen as one of twenty teams for a special event in June 2020.
We will nominate the top-ranked team in the Innovative Solution Project Award category at the Championship.
Dates:
October 30, 2019 – Last day of registration for FLL teams in BC
November 18, 2019 – registration starts for qualifying tournaments
November 24, 2019 – scrimmage in Victoria (robot game and brief project discussion)
December 9, 2019 – registration ends for qualifying tournaments
January 11, 2020 – Qualifying Tournament – Victoria
January 19, 2020 – Qualifying Tournament – Vancouver area – Maple Ridge
February 16, 2020 – BC FIRST LEGO League Championships in Victoria
April 15-18, 2020 – FIRST Championship – Houston, TX.
June 7-9, 2020 – Innovation Award – Disney’s Contemporary Resort and World Showcase Pavilion, Epcot