Welcome to the new weekly newsletter, Sep 30, 2020!
Hi everyone – we hope your season is off to a good start, even if you aren’t able to meet in person. There will be plenty of opportunities to participate this year. We hope to have some more specifics to share about how the season will work and details about when event registration will start in next week’s newsletter.
October 10 — FTC Help Session via Zoom
We’re going to have a drop-in help session for teams from 1-3pm on October 10 on Zoom! Please let us know what type of help your team needs so far, whether it be robot design in CAD, mechanical or electrical help, programming assistance, or whatever, and we’ll set up some breakout sessions for students and mentors to participate in together.
Please RSVP here so we know what you are looking for and can get a rough estimate of how many are planning to attend.
Team Registrations
As of today, we have 56 teams paid with FIRST. This includes 10 rookie teams! If you’ve not paid your national FIRST registration, yet, please log into your dashboard and do so. We’re trying to get the national registrations taken care of so we can send out invoices for the Oklahoma registrations in bulk. If your team might be taking the year off, please email tsmith@firstpartners.org to let us know – this year is a very challenging year to run a team and events.
Monthly Coaches’ and Volunteers’ Hangout
We usually do this the last Friday of every month, but we thought we’d be different and move it back a week and just pretend that it is September 32nd. Our come-and-go hangout will be Friday, Oct 2, from 4-6pm. You can drop in at this link:
It’s super casual! Ask questions, talk about your week, tell funny stories.
Want to see how a remote match will work?
Check out this video by FTC Alumni Team 11115, Gluten Free, demonstrating Ultimate Goal!
You can find the remote field requirements document here, and the rest of the information about Ultimate Goal (game manuals, etc) on this page. If you need help attaining a field or finding a team who can share theirs with you then please reply to this email and let us know!
New software for 2020 (Important)
The new FTC SDK 6.0 has been released. That means you need to update your phones and control hub to be legal for this year.
- FTC Driver’s Station: Google Play
- FTC Robot Controller: Google Play
- Android Studio users can access the new version on github and you can also find the 6.0 release notes there.
You should also download the REV Hardware Client. This program will help you get your expansion and control hubs up-to-date.
Prize winners from kickoff
Your teams have been submitted to the vendors, so you should be hearing something this week about how to get your freebies!
Mailing list information
Coaches or mentors will be added to this distribution list automatically, but anyone can join – volunteers, competitors, parents, administrators, sponsors, students, etc. are all welcome! They can subscribe by sending an email to:
ok-ftc-newsletter+subscribe@googlegroups.com
(sign in with a Google account may be needed). If you cannot get that work for some reason, then please email tsmith@firstpartners.org with the subject “newsletter subscription” and you will be added manually. Please check your spam/junk email folder to make sure it’s not ending up in the wrong location.