Hello Teams and Volunteers,
This is the thirteenth in the continuing series of Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics emails. Hopefully you received the last email #12 highlighting the opportunities to Volunteer. We are constantly seeking student and adult volunteers to assure success of our events. Please do consider. As always, previous emails can be found on our website in the COMMUNICATION Archives.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/communications
As of this today we have 143 Teams that are officially Registered with FIRST Inspires for this 2023-2024 CENTERSTAGE Season. There are 28 Rookie teams that have registered. Thank you to the veteran teams that have successfully promoted and encouraged new teams to join the program.
Of the 143 teams, 121 have Registered for one or more of our Pennsylvania events, so there is still time and plenty of space to get your teams into either a workshop, scrimmage or qualification tournament. Please go to our Event page to view the schedule. Note that we have retained full functionality for tracking the team status for each individual event with regards to Registered (P1) and Waitlist status (P2-P6).
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2023-2024-season
This email is to inform our teams that, per our “Waitlist Invitation Schedule” (attached), we will be inviting P2 and above teams to the 2023-12-16 South Central PA Qualifier (York) and 2023-12-17 Greyhound Sprint Qualifier (York) commencing this Friday, Nov 17th.
For teams that are already confirmed as registered (P1) there will be no additional communication, your slots are secured (unless you want to make a change). For teams that may want to predict their status and chance of being invited, you can check your own status. Go to our Team Search page, type in your Team Number and then select Event Status: select the box Upcoming / Results Pending. Your Waitlist position relates directly to whether your team is a P1, P2, P3 or above and was assigned based on the Date and Time stamp of either your original, “New” registration or “Update” registration. This is also a great opportunity to check your status for all Events that you registered fords assess and perhaps make adjustments. Link follows:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/team-search
Please let us know if you have any questions or issues.
Event Registration selection guidance:
For unregistered teams, you must open the individual event to determine how many and which teams already occupy slots. This will provide you guidance to enhance your decisions for which events you may want to join and register. Open each individual event and note that they are slated for either 18, 24, 30 or 36 teams as indicated by the number of entries allotted for each event in the Registered Teams section of the page. The Waitlist section lists the teams by preference (P2-P6), date and timestamp order. Approximately four (4) weeks before a particular event, we will invite teams to Register for any open slots for that event, in the exact order indicated in the Waitlist. Please see the attached “Waitlist Invitation Schedule” for invitation dates.
At the bottom of the Event page is an Advancement section. This indicates how many teams we expect to advance from the event to the State Championship. Note that this is subject to change based on how many teams actually compete at the individual event. We expect to hold a 36 team State Championship, location now being determined. More to come.
Event Registration
Prior to registering, please carefully read the Event Participation Policy:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration/event-participation-policy
For this season it may be possible for Out-of-State teams to compete in PA, however in our registration process, PA teams are given preference and priority over out-of-state teams. Also, per Game Manual 1 section 6.1 Eligibility for Advancement – Teams are only eligible to advance from events within their Home Region. Teams may choose to compete at Tournaments outside of their Home Region, however, do so for the opportunity of additional gameplay and to compete with other teams from outside of their area. Teams may NOT advance from Tournaments outside of their Home Region.
Please read the Processing Event Registration Requests section and let us know if you have any questions.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration/processing-event-registration-requests
Then follow the instructions on our Event Registration page and associated form.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
Thank you. We hope your season and teams are progressing well. See you soon.
Tom and the FTC PA Team!
Pennsylvania FIRST® Robotics
FIRST Tech Challenge® Program Delivery Partner
phone: (302) 383-9925
email: ftc@pennfirst.org
Website: www.FTCPenn.org