Welcome to the newsletter, December 9, 2020 – Competitions have begun!
Wow, what a great first event! We had 18 teams compete – scroll down for results, following some other important stuff. We’ve heard lots of positive feedback from teams about their competition experience – it’s great that we’re able to compete at all, given the circumstances!
League Meet #2 starts on Sunday!
In-person tournaments – schedule adjustments
Our organizing committee has been closely evaluating the situation with the pandemic in Oklahoma, as I’m sure most of you have as well. Our initial deadline for tournament sign-up has blown by, and we only have 15 teams (total) signed up for four in-person events. So here are the actions we are taking:
- The two Feb in-person league tournaments will be moved to April
- The other two will stay as they are; the remote “last chance” qualifier will also move back a week
- We will re-open tournament registration next week and teams will select which events they can try to attend
- Deadline to register will be Dec. 31. At that point, we will assign teams to a league tournament; Oklahoma ($150/team) invoices will be sent out in early Jan. If you are still uncertain at that time, let us know and we can probably work something out, but we’d like a count of which teams still need an extension
- We’ll add a couple more remote league meet events in Feb. to make up for the tournaments being moved and to give later-starting teams more chances to compete.
- Two weeks before each league tournament start date, we will evaluate whether or not the tournament will be held in-person. In-person events will have safety guidelines in effect, which will likely include restrictions on attendance numbers. The decision will be made by including, at minimum, the following information:
- Discretion of the host site – what is their local situation (is the school open and holding events?)
- Team feedback – we will survey the invited teams to see if they can attend and require a minimum number for the event to take place in person
- Volunteers – are there enough who can attend to make the event happen? (Keep in mind that judging will be remote, in either case)
Watch for a new tournament sign-up form coming next week after we finalize the venues. Each team will attend one in-person tournament. Those new dates are:
- March 13
- March 27
- April 3
- April 10
The Last Chance remote tournament will be around April 17, and the tentative date for the state championship is May 1. We won’t be able to determine advancement criteria from tournaments to the state championship until later.
Remote League Meet #2 – Dec 13-19
The following teams are competing. If you are planning to compete and are not on the list, please email tsmith@firstpartners.org ASAP. If you need to back out, please do the same. We encourage any team that has a semi-functional robot and can safely meet to go ahead and compete this week, as there are no penalties for doing so and tons of benefits.
| 4962 | Rockettes | 6042 | Commandobots | 4155 | M.I.T (Muskogee’s Innovative Team) |
| 8638 | tadpole | 12766 | Thundercatz | 4378 | Black Box Robotics |
| 10641 | Atomic Gears | 11354 | The Midnight Ostrich Runners | 6735 | Team Medusa |
| 15657 | Millwood Robotics | 5553 | RoboComets | 7366 | The Lab Rats |
| 16505 | Quantum | 13806 | Project Agnizab | 7506 | System Overload |
| 12535 | Revolutionary Robots | 3638 | Atomic Shock | 8866 | Cybernetics |
| 18274 | PR0J3C7 P4R4D0X | 16240 | Chargers | 9898 | Tech No Pickles |
| 16426 | Absolute Zero | 4266 | Makin’ Stuff Move | 13049 | Prototypes |
| 11572 | Mouse Spit | 7242 | BC Robocats | 15665 | Liberal Tech Challengers |
| 4250 | LIGHTSABERS | 10355 | Project Peacock | 18410 | Lego Queens of Girl Scout Troop 2612 |
| 14671 | inside joke | 9838 | elopdat | ||
| 14906 | Leviathan Robotics | 7163 | The Bazinga Project |
League Meet #2 timeline
Friday, Dec 11, 7pm – Drivers’ and Coaches’ Meeting (Zoom link)
Sunday, Dec 13, 8am — Event opens for matches (https://ftc-scoring.firstinspires.org/)
Saturday, Dec 19, 8pm — Match submission deadline (https://ftc-scoring.firstinspires.org/)
Sunday, Dec 20, 2pm — Match Video upload deadline (submit match videos at this link)
Monday, Dec 21, 7pm — Results and Highlights show ( https://www.twitch.tv/firstinoklahoma)
Read on for details.
League Meet #2 Drivers’ and Coaches’ meeting
All competing teams for league meet #2 should attend the Drivers’ and Coaches’ meeting! The first 10 minutes or so will contain new information and those who already attended the League Meet #1 drivers meeting can just stay for that part. Teams who have not competed, yet, should plan to stay for the whole thing, as it contains important information that will help you score your matches correctly.
You can also watch the meeting from meet #1 here: https://youtu.be/lK_g7JItMgs
Time: Friday, Dec. 11, 7pm
Location: Virtual (specifically, this Zoom link)
Please mute yourself unless asking a question. Questions will be taken in both chat and verbally.
League Meet #2 highlights / results show
Tune in on Monday, Dec. 21 at 7pm to see the results and some match highlights! We’ll be broadcasting at https://www.twitch.tv/firstinoklahoma and everyone is welcome to come watch and join in the chat!
How to run and score your matches
Please watch the Remote Event Scoring for Teams video by FIRST Tech Challenge prior to the Drivers’ / Coaches’ meeting and come with questions!
All scoring will be done on the FTC Remote Scoring platform (https://ftc-scoring.firstinspires.org/). If you have internet connectivity issues, please bring this up at the Driver’s / Coaches’ meeting and we’ll work with you on a back-up plan.
You can run your official matches at any time during the scoring window (Sunday 8am to Saturday at 8pm). They don’t all need to be recorded during the same meeting. For instance, if your team meets on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, you could run 2 official matches each day.
League Meet #2 video submission
Although our matches are remote, we want to make sure that teams still get to see each others’ robots and interact with each other. We ask that each team record and upload your matches. Some matches may be shown on the highlight show and we’ll also make a Youtube and/or Google Drive playlist so we can all see each others’ work. Teams can have follow-up conversations on the Twitch steam during the highlights show or on the discord server. Getting to know each other and learning from each other is a huge part of FIRST Tech Challenge!
Please be sure to upload your match videos at this link by 2pm on Sunday, Dec. 20!
Remote Event Resources
- Game Manual Part 1 – RemoteEvents: This is a pared down version of the traditional manual, with many of the in-person event rules and resources removed. Robot build rules are the same for both traditional and remote events.
- Game Manual Part 2 – RemoteEvents: The remote game manual covers the rules for a single team competing in the challenge. Rules that referred to a traditional, head to head alliance style competition are removed or altered to fit with single team gameplay.
- Remote Field Requirements Guide: This guide provides options for teams on how to set up their own remote playing field while stating the minimum requirements to compete remotely in official matches.
- DIY Field Element Guide: This guide offers detailed instructions on how to build a tower goal, return rack, and power shot out of cardboard. These items are competition legal and can be used to compete in official remote matches.
- Return Rack PDF: This is the template teams can use to help trace the return rack when building the cardboard field elements.
- Low Cost Field Perimeter Guide –Remote: This guide is optional and shows the steps on how to build a field perimeter out of PVC pipe.
Competition Questions and Answers
We’ve added a section to the web site that will hopefully answer more of your questions:
Reminder – check out the discord server to communicate with other teams!
We’ve got teams asking for help with specific things, teams offering help, and teams who are planning events that you could check out! Sign up at this link:
League Meet #1 results
Congratulations to all the competing teams. You did awesome!
Results can be found here: https://ftc-events.firstinspires.org/2020/USOKSLM1
The highlights show is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqjuGj3Azxk
Match videos will be posted on the FIRST in Oklahoma Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsUww1VSkjYra40LdB0FBpA
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