FTC PA 2025-26 Season Blast #8 – PA Kickoff Presentation Slides and More!

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Good day, Teams and Volunteers,

Welcome to the eighth email blast for the upcoming PA FIRST Tech Challenge Season. Please liberally and broadly share this email with your parents, students, friends, co-workers and acquaintances in and outside of the FIRST robotics community.

 Also, if you missed our first 7 blasts of the season, please go to our Communications page to reference Announcements and Archive Emails for this and all past seasons.

https://www.ftcpenn.org/communications

Kickoff Event Thank You and Acknowledgements

Last Sat. Sep 6th, we had what we consider the largest and best attended Kickoff presentation ever by Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics and our incredible volunteers. Besides the Virtual Kick-offs presentation, we had 5 “live” and in person event and would like to give special thanks to the 42 PA Volunteers who contributed in so many ways and kept the game and season confidential right up to its release. We especially thank our Live program hosts. It takes a FIRST village:

  • Philadelphia – Central High Robotics and Temple University, College of Engineering
  • Exton – Downingtown Area Robotics and Chester County Council of Scouting America
  • East – FTC Team`16468 Green Lemons and Unionville/Chadds Ford SD
  • South Central – FTC Teams 9242 and 21324 and York Country Day School
  • West – Mars Robotics Association FTC and North Catholic High School

Overall, we had approximately 80 teams and 850 participants. Thanks for joining

Next on the agenda are our Coaches Calls. Please Join this Wed Sep 10th or the 17th, 2026 at 7:30 pm.

https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2025-2026-season/coaches-call-1

 Kickoff Materials – Relevant Information for Teams

 We presented a lot of pertinent and important info at the kickoff and now would like to share with our vast Team and Volunteer community. Coaches, once again, please share this with your student team members, mentors and parents who all have part in the team’s success this coming season. There are a lot of embedded links that will take you directly to the guidance every team should utilize as they move forward into this season DECODE™ presented by RTX, challenge.

 PA FTC Kickoff – Season Overview Slides and PA FTC Kickoff – Game Q&A Video

You can find both at  https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2025-2026-season/pennsylvania-ftc-season-kickoff

Guide to the Season Overview Slide Deck:

  • Slides 4 – 8 Congratulations to last season Championship and Premier Event Teams
  • Slides 9 – 12 FTC PA Season Overview
  • Slides 13 – 15 PA Grant Opportunities
  • Slides 16 – 26 FTC General Season Information from FTC HQ with important links to valuable resources. Season Overview, Key Season Dates, Season Resources – Quick links, Competition Manual Structure and Updates, AI Rules Assistant, Team Updates and Team Q&A, FTC Team Calls, Team Avatars
  • Slides 27 – 32 Advancement and Judging. Points-based Advancement Model, FIRST Championship and Premier Event Opportunities, Dean’s List schedule updates
  • Slides 34 – 50 Game Overview. Comprehensive overview of the DECODE™ game challenge including the Online Score Calculator

 Our PA Kickoff production of the Game Q&A Video is a bit choppy, but fortunately we have the FIRST produced videos that you can find on YouTube as well:

Finally, for this email, please also utilize the following as you see fit for your team

Press release – New DECODE Season

https://www.firstinspires.org/about/press-room/first-tech-challenge-teams-uncover-innovations-archaeology-with-decode-presented-by-rtx

 Logos, social graphics, recruitment posters, and FIRST AGE volunteer content

https://info.firstinspires.org/free-season-content

This is a lot to digest so, as we suggested, your entire team should have knowledge and take advantage of these valuable resources so feel free to split it up among your sub teams or student members as best as you can and write to us at any time at ftc@pennfirst.org.

Thanks and best of luck as you brainstorm, design, build and code in the coming weeks.

Tom and the FTC Planning Team

Pennsylvania FIRST® Robotics
FIRST Tech Challenge® Program Delivery Partner
phone: (302) 383-9925
email: ftc@pennfirst.org

Website: www.FTCPenn.org