FIRST Technology Challenge

By FIRST ® President, Don Bossi For those of us at FIRST® Headquarters (HQ) and many of our affiliated organizations throughout the world, the most fun and rewarding part of our roles is having the opportunity to meet and speak with the kids who participate in our Programs, as well as the adult Coaches, Mentors and Volunteers who support them.  I love hearing their stories of impact, growth and change.  If you wonder whether we ever get tired of those stories, we don’t!  Please keep them coming. That said, I do get one question more frequently than all the rest, so I decided to answer it here today – Where is FIRST going? Let me begin by giving you a little background on where FIRST is today. Using the United States as an example, FIRST programs only exist in about 9 percent of all K-12 schools in this country. In addition to these school-based teams, we do have many community-based teams that help fill the gap. However, even with those, it’s safe to say that FIRST programs are onl

Listed below are all pages that FIRST ® Tech Challenge Teams may require both throughout their competition season, and during the off-season. Make sure to bookmark the pages you feel would best help you and your Team! If you still find that you require additional help, feel free to reach out to the FIRST ® team at ftcteams@firstinspires.org. Overview Pages FIRST ® Webpage www.firstinspires.org FIRST Tech Challenge main page www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc Regional Contacts Search Portal - Find your Regional FIRST Contact. http://www.firstinspires.com/node/2546 Game Materials - Includes all the season materials, including the Game Manuals, link to the Forum, Forum Answered Questions, Field instructions, and link to buy field element. http://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/ftc/game-and-season-info Getting Started Starting a Team Resources - Includes step-by-step resources for starting an FIRST Tech Challenge team. http://ww

AndyMark will start accepting Team pre-orders for the 2016-2017 field sets beginning on 7/1/2016! All team shipments will be sent out on 9/9/2016. There will not be Saturday deliveries. For orders to ship by 9/9/2016 they must be placed with AndyMark and processed by 8/26/2016.  2016-2017 Beacons FIRST Tech Challenge is excited to announce that for the 2016-2017 seasons’ game, we will be reusing the RES-Q℠ Beacon. The beacon will function differently than it had for the FIRST RES-Q℠ game, and there will be a total of four Beacons on each field instead of just two. Teams do not have to purchase brand new beacons, they will be able to reuse Beacons purchased from last season. The Beacons used last season will need to be reprogrammed with the 2016-2017 game’s software for those Teams that would like to reuse their already purchased beacons. AndyMark will be offering a Programming Tool to reprogram each beacon*. AndyMark has been hard at work this summer to make some significant changes a