FIRST Technology Challenge

FIRST Tech Challenge changes the world, one student, one mentor, one volunteer at a time. The way we do that is through our current students, mentors, and volunteers sharing the passion they have for FTC. Helping to start and support new teams is one of the most successful methods teams use to spread the word about FIRST , and the 2015-16 FIRST Tech Challenge Need-Based Hardship Grant can help.  Currently there are 400 need-based Rookie Grants left, each worth $575. This grant is available to anyone wanting to start a new FTC team, but it is a need-based, competitive grant, so the team must demonstrate need. Complete the application fully, and in the written response section, highlight the team’s need and the way the grant will help your team get started. Whenever possible, use details to support what you are saying. When teams do outreach or start and mentor other teams, it helps spread the word about FTC. This service work is recognized in three FTC awards : the Connect Award,

Have you slept since Kickoff, FTC community ? Or have you been lying awake replaying the Kickoff video and mentally designing a robot to compete in the game? It’s going to be a season of challenges, but we know that you are ready and able! Each Kickoff, we are so excited to share the new Game Challenge with you, and this year there were over 15,000 people at more than 70 Kickoff events around the world learning about the new game at 12 noon on Saturday – really exciting! Truly, the important question is, what do you think of FIRST RES-Q sm ?   So far the word on the street is that this is an awesome game with lots of opportunities to explore on the field and in designing your robot. Of course, huge thanks to the Game Design committee for all the work they put into creating this game over the past two years, and remember everything you need to know about the game is on the FTC Game Page. As always, we had a lot of fun with game hints this summer, and now we get to reveal them to you.

Posted By   Mike Roberts on the Qualcomm Developer Network blog on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2015   Here’s a guest post from Ken Johnson, national director for First Tech Challenge . FTC is a program of local events in which students in grades 7 through 12 design, build and program robots to compete against other teams. This year’s kickoff is on September 12, when FTC’s “Sport for the Mind” extends to software development on Android and the Snapdragon™ processor. What are you doing to create the next generation of developers? Most of us are just trying to keep up with technology and build the next killer app or breakthrough smart device. That’s fine, and that challenge will be there tomorrow (and the next day), but think back to what got you interested in being a developer. Just a few year

Hey FIRST Tech Challenge Teams! We’ve been so impressed with all of the amazing outreach that our teams have done this summer. We’ve seen you guys at state fairs, libraries, community centers, middle schools, high schools, elementary schools, at STEM fairs, Science Days, Innovation Fairs, camps, and even online! We know that recruiting new members to your FTC team or convincing a group of people to join our FTC community as a new team can sometimes be challenging and we wanted to share some resources with you. We’ve compiled them all in one place in this handy dandy blog post. If you have an awesome resource, please feel free to add it in the comments. Now for the fun part. We want to encourage all of our FTC teams to continue your outreach efforts into the fall. Plus we know that the start of school is a great time to recruit new rookies. We want to see your outreach and recruitment efforts in action! Upload a video to Vine, tag us ( FIRST Tech Challenge), and add the hashtag #FTCOu