Good day, Teams and Volunteers,
Welcome to the second 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 1st blast 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
This email blast is an invitation for teams to compete in one last 2024-2025 Season event called the Kennett Square Off to be held Saturday June 7th ,2025 at Charles F Patton Middle School located in Kennett Square. Please go to the following link for information and agenda.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2024-2025-season/kennett-square-off
This one-day event will be unique as teams will compete in a variation of this past season challenge called INTO to DEEP-er, a similar but much more challenging version. To pique your interest, the competition rules for this game are detailed in the attached document as created by our dynamic and creative Head Referee, Noah Dillard who has a reputation for dialing up everything he touches more than a notch or 2.
This invitation is to go out to FTC teams in PA and some teams outside our region who otherwise do not get a chance to compete in PA. We are limited to 24 teams in this venue so acceptance of your registration will come on a first-come, first-served basis. Team registration requests will be tracked, as usual, by date and time stamp, and you may register through our website. Requests will be accepted through Sun June 1st or until all 24 slots are filled. The event is listed as a Scrimmage. It is hosted by FTC Team 20153 Silver Wolves who competed at the FTC Championship in Houston for the 2nd year in a row. I know they would love to share their experience with other teams as well.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
Please sign up ASAP as we expect the slots to fill up quickly. We look forward to seeing you soon.
NEW 2025-2026 SEASON REMINDERS: The new overall theme for all programs is FIRST AGESM presented by Qualcomm. Uncovering the Future. The FTC Challenge is aptly named DECODE™ Presented by RTX.
https://info.firstinspires.org/first-age
“Every artifact we uncover holds a story. Each tool, each innovation, each work of art connects us to the people and ideas that came before us. Using STEM skills and teamwork, today we can dig deeper into discoveries than ever before.”
Please join us for the 2025-2026 season and, as you all know how, encourage, invite, and assist new teams to join us in the challenge and fun that is FIRST Tech Challenge.
So, as announced, our Pennsylvania Kick-off will correspond with the official kickoff on Saturday, Sep 6th, 2025.
We are working on arranging at least five (5) live and in-person locations across the state as we did last season. Please be sure to check our website as we add the Kickoff and Qualifier locations. We will have all posted before the start of the season and will send additional emails throughout the summer as we add them. We also plan on specific Pennsylvania FIRST Robotic event registrations to start on Saturday, Oct 4th, 2025.
FTC Team REGISTRATION with FIRST opens Wed May 14th, 2025.
https://community.firstinspires.org/2025-2026-first-program-registration-pricing
Please expect more emails to come and, as always. Let us know if you should have any questions or require additional information.
All the Best,
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