FIRST Technology Challenge

As the 2013-14 FTC Season winds down, the time has come for us to ask you how it went. To gather your feedback, we've put together another (groan) survey for you to let us know what you liked and didn't like about the FTC BLOCK PARTY!.  I hope you'll take the time to tell us how we did. So who's this survey for? Are you a Coach? Yes? It's for you. Are you a Student on a Team? Yes? It's for you. Are you an event Volunteer? Yes? It's for you. In order to cut down on redundancy of e-mails and communications to you, we've combined all of our end-of-season feedback tools into this one super-survey.  By taking the time to fill out this anonymous, 5-10 minute survey, you will help us shape the future of this exciting robotics program. You'll find our super-end-of-season survey here:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013FTCEndofSeasonSurvey

Travis Menghini was already a two-year veteran FIRST  Robotics Competition student when he joined the newly-formed FTC Team at his Missouri high school during his junior year in 2011.  When his team did not advance to the state championship, Travis signed on to help run the Field Control System. Travis Menghini, learning the ropes of being an FTA from Tom McGovern Travis, who was planning to attend the championship to watch his friend's team compete, figured "I was going to be there anyway, why not volunteer and give back to the program? After that first experience, he was hooked.  In addition to his duties on FTC Team 5095, the Leptons, Travis continued to explore different volunteer roles, but eventually came under the mentorship of Tom McGovern, the lead Field Technical Adviser (FTA) for Missouri, as an FTA Assistant. Travis graduated from Rockwood Summit High School in 2013 and decided to attend college at Colorado State University.  This didn't deter him from voluntee

Here at FTC Headquarters, we know that the World Championship is the pinnacle of the competition season.  We also recognize that only a select few teams are able to travel to, and take part in, this extraordinary event. In order to allow more of the community access to the FTC World Championship, this year we will be live streaming match play (courtesy of NASA), Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and offering news-type broadcast at the end of each day. FTC has partnered with Lindenwood University, in St. Louis, to capture highlights from World.  Tune in each day of Championship, after matches have ended, for a live broadcast of match standings, exclusive interviews with Teams and VIPs, and more! Where can you find these live streams, you ask?  Head over the FTC website and bookmark  the FTC Live! page .  All of the streams will be embedded or linked right from there and we'll make broadcast times for the daily newscast available closer to the week of Championship. Have an idea about w

When Ray Holt's FIRST  LEGO League team graduated after two years in the program, he was happy to learn about another FIRST  program just starting in Mississippi. Ray, who is a retired computer scientist and STEM educator, was visiting a friend in Mississippi in 2010 when a local ministry started talking to him about the need for technical learning in the rural community of Mt. Olive, population 800. He sympathized with the struggle and agreed to stick around and help teach extracurricular classes on Saturdays for elementary, middle and high school students.  In addition to curriculum he developed to teach the kids, he also started an FLL Team when the program was in it's pilot year in the state.  Two years later, he was still in Mt. Olive teaching and looking for more opportunities for his students.   Ray Holt with his FTC Team, Purple Thunder In 2012, he decided to add to his schedule and go back to college at the University of Mississippi to earn a master's degree in edu

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to the NYC FTC Championship , at NYU Polytechnic, in Brooklyn, NY.  While I was there, I had the privilege of working alongside some great volunteers and I was blown away by the outpouring of support they gave to the competition. The hundreds of students who were present for the tournament were able to have a great experience thanks to the dedication of the volunteers who showed up from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  It was inspiring to see these men and women give up their own time and resources to teach our future leaders the importance of science and technology, as well as the power of team work and gracious professionalism. The NYC Championship, however, was just one of over 400 FTC events this season.  Thousands of individuals from around the world decided to commit their time to support teams and events at competitions from Brooklyn to Anchorage, Asia and Europe.   These individuals spent their weeknights planning and or

The FIRST progression of programs is an amazing community of passionate students, mentors, coaches, and volunteers.  Collectively, this community has over 25 years of accrued knowledge and expertise in the areas of science, math, engineering, and especially building robots. As our FIRST community has grown, this knowledge has spread out over eighty countries and between hundreds of thousands of people.  Sometimes finding information is not always easy – even with the internet. This has produced an opportunity we can’t resist, with a very modern solution: the first FTC Virtual Conference. This event is designed to bring members of the FTC community together to share ideas, tips, resources, and FTC enthusiasm with other members of the community through an easy-access live conference that will be recorded and available for watching after the event. We’re now taking presentation proposals for this community-driven summer virtual conference.  If you have a wealth of FTC knowle