Challenge       (scroll down for  Explore )

New Team Registration

  • Team registration with FIRST is still open – if you are not worried about being “ready” for the BC qualifying tournaments at the end of February, or if attending any tournament is not super important to you, or if you want to split an existing team into two, it is not too late to register a new team.

Youth Sign-up within a team

  • As mentioned before, ALL team members need to get signed up via the FIRST website at the beginning of the season – preferably before the first team meeting. Please impress this on the parents/guardians of your team’s members. (It is the parents who have to sign up their kids, not the kids doing it themselves.)
  • Signing up includes signing a consent and release form which in turn means acknowledging a possible danger due to COVID 19.
  • “Remote” event participation is possible for signed-up team members only.

Events in BC

  • Our events in BC are finally getting a bit closer. 
  • The first event will be a scrimmage on January 30, 2021, followed by three qualifying tournaments on February 20, February 27 and March 6. 
  • These events will be held “remotely”.
  • The championship tournament is set for April 10 and will likely be held remotely, too. Of course the COVID situation may relax and allow this to be a part remote, part in-person event… we’ll see! 
  • While regular, in-person tournaments are usually one-day events, both for the teams and for the volunteers running the tournament, remote events are different. They seem to work best if run over several days. There will be a deadline for teams to send in their robot run and presentation videos; the referees and judges will review these videos on a different day, and the online meetings with the teams may happen on yet another day. The judge deliberations and the announcements of awards will be done in another special session after all this.
  • So, while the scrimmage and the qualifying tournaments may be listed as being on a certain day, please expect things to happen during the week before that day! 
  • We will be using the new Remote Event Hub for all events. It should be available to us in early January.

Event Registration

  • Registration for the January 30 scrimmage is now open! Please use this form to register: 

https://forms.gle/gkcAFjE7rY1KwMXA7

  • This will be a small scrimmage for up to 10 teams. It will include 3 robot runs but only a short judging session and limited judge feedback. It is a chance for all of us to test the new Remote Event Hub and to see what remote events are like.
  • If more than 10 teams register we will start a waitlist, and we may be able to add another scrimmage. 
  • Registration for the qualifiers will open in mid-January.

Workshops

  • A new workshop will be posted on FIRST BC’s youtube channel soon – by Tony Liu, about using sensors. 

Online Coach Get-together

  • We’ll have another Online Coach Get-together: A chance to “meet” and to talk about coaching and everything FIRST-related on Monday, January 18 at 7 pm via RingCentral.  
    Please email Uleslie@firstpartners.org for log-in info

Explore

New Team Registration

  • Team registration with FIRST is, of course, still open, and will be until April 2021. Once the COVID situation relaxes a bit we will probably see lots more Explore teams!

Youth Sign-up within a team

  • As mentioned before, ALL team members need to get signed up (by their parents/guardians) via the FIRST website at the beginning of the season – preferably before the first team meeting. 
  • Signing up includes signing a consent and release form which in turn means acknowledging a possible danger due to COVID 19.
  • “Remote” event participation is possible for signed-up team members only.

Events in BC

  • Our events in BC are finally getting a bit closer. 
  • The first Explore event will be a Festival on January 31, 2021, held “remotely”.
  • At the moment there are very few Explore teams registered in BC, and we may need to cancel the festival planned for February. However we WILL have festivals in April and June.
  • While regular, in-person festivals are usually one-day events, both for the teams and for the volunteers running the tournament, remote events are different. They seem to work best if run over several days. There will be a deadline for teams to send in their model presentation video; the reviewers may look at these videos on a different day, and the online meetings with the teams may happen on yet another day. A closing ceremony with the announcements of awards may be done in another special session after all this.
  • So, while the festivals may be listed as being on a certain day, please expect things to happen during the week before that day!
  • We will be using the new Remote Event Hub for the festivals. It should be available to us in early January.

Event Registration

  • Registration for the January 31 festival is now open! Please use this form to register:

https://forms.gle/L5gKx8pe21kvq1ke7

Online Coach Get-together

  • We’ll have another Online Coach Get-together: A chance to “meet” and to talk about coaching and everything FIRST-related on Monday, January 25 at 7 pm via RingCentral  
    Please email Uleslie@firstpartners.org for log-in info.