Good evening, Teams and Volunteers,
Please liberally and broadly share this email with your parents, students, friends, co-workers and acquaintances in and outside of the FIRST robotics community. As always, if you missed any of our season Blasts, please go to our Communications page to reference Announcements and Archive Emails for this and all past seasons.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/communications
PA FTC Qualifier Registration Update – Plenty of Open Slots
Qualifier Registration opened as planned on Sat Oct 10th at 8:00 am.
Since then and through today, we have 130 of the 152 FIRST Registered teams completed their Qualifier choices (86%). There are still many slots open for each qualifier that in all practically ensure that teams can still get into their P1 choice. We still have P1 slots open for the 1 remaining Scrimmages – 2026-12-05 Green and Red Scrimmage (Gibsonia)
The upcoming Longhorn Roundup Scrimmage is full and registration is closed
We also have open slots for our first 3 Qualifiers in December:
- 2026-12-05 South Central Pennsylvania Qualifier (York)
- 2026-12-12 Lancaster Area Qualifier (Lancaster)
- 2026-12-13 Red Tornado Qualifier (Lancaster)
The 2026-12-06 Greyhound Sprint Qualifier (York) has been cancelled due to lack of Registered and Waitlist teams.
P1 slots are still open for all three however as of today Oct 30th, we are sending out Invitations to the Waitlisted teams for the Lancaster and Red Tornado Qualifiers so they may fill quickly as teams accept their invitations.
Also note that we will be advancing two (2) teams from each of these first three small events regardless of how many teams ultimately compete up to 24.
Refer to our EVENTS page for the full listing of this season’s events.:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/ftc-events/2026-2027-season
Event Registration for NEW and UPDATE Registrations:
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
Be sure to get in as early as you can to grab your favorite slot for an upcoming season qualification tournament.
Call for Volunteers:
Now that we have our season events set, we are now focusing on Volunteer recruitment. We need to fill all the roles going forward but especially the most important and key roles: Judges, Referees, Inspectors, Field Tech crew
General Instructions on registering to volunteer below in this email.
If your team is competing one day but not both, please consider volunteering for the day your team is not competing. Our PA essential roles are open for both Adults (ex. Judges and Referees) and Students (ex. Queuers, Score Trackers, Field Reset)
We would love all of you to personally join us and to recruit aggressively and widely to assist us in expanding our reach. Volunteer opportunities abound! We welcome new volunteers from family, friends, the community, co-workers and businesses alike. Please recognize that this is a great opportunity for coaches, mentors and parents to get an insider’s perspective of how FTC events are conducted in our State and Region. The perspectives and guidance gained will also translate into helping your own team and students to be successful.
You will find that most all those who want to attend would rather be directly engaged in the festivities than gather splinters in the bleachers. Our experience is that people truly do appreciate direct participation in the event and explore contributing in special ways, as well as having fun! Also, not all roles require attendance for the entire day of competition, so there may be flexibility that we can manage. Of course, if you are already registered to volunteer, then thank you, but please continue recruiting.
Full descriptions can be found on the FIRST website under Event Volunteer Roles – FIRST Tech Challenge
https://www.firstinspires.org/community/volunteers/roles#first_tech_challenge
Essential knowledge, especially if your role requires training or attending a training call is on the FTC Specific Volunteer Resources page which contains resources for FIRST Tech Challenge volunteer training and development.
https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/ftc/volunteer
Additionally, https://www.firstinspires.org/resources/library/general-volunteer-resources
has several good General Volunteer Resources including a Volunteer Registration Step by Step Guide if you have further questions about the Volunteer Registration system.
General Instructions:
We use the FIRST Event Volunteer Registration system for all our events. Volunteering for an event is one of the options on your personal FIRST Dashboard on the FIRST Inspires website. Note that the Dashboard experience has changed compared to previous years.
To access the FIRST Event Volunteer Registration system:
Browse to http://www.firstinspires.org.
Click Log In in the upper right-hand corner. If you already have a FIRST account, enter your FIRST username and password, and click LOG IN.
If you do not have a FIRST account, click Register in the upper right-hand corner, then fill out the account form.
Once into your personal My Volunteer Dashboard. See the Quick Action Tabs where you can Manage Your Volunteer Information and Volunteer for an Event
To narrow the available events to Pennsylvania FTC events, under Event Filters select FIRST Tech Challenge, United States, Pennsylvania; optionally enter dates and/or event names and then click Apply Filters. Scroll down to see the PA Events Select the event on the right-hand side and click Volunteer. Follow the prompts to select the roles you are interested in.
Youth Protection:
As with all FIRST Pennsylvania events, Youth Protection is paramount and mandatory and as such, volunteers are required to comply with Youth Protection protocols as is necessary to assure compliance with Pennsylvania Child Protection Services Laws.
Please go to the following link for detailed information and how to ensure your compliance and let us know if you would like additional guidance or instruction. We would be more than happy to assist you!
https://www.firstinspires.org/programs/youth-protection-program
Besides the standard FIRST YPP compliance Pennsylvania has additional requirement for adult volunteers requiring three elements:
- Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Clearance
2. Pennsylvania State Police Criminal History Clearance
3a. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Background Check – required for all volunteers who have not been a resident of Pennsylvania for the entirety of the previous 10-year period, or
3b. PA Resident Disclosure Statement – for individuals who have resided in Pennsylvania longer than 10 years.
Gaining PA compliance and providing reports and evidence of compliance must be provided to FIRST directly. Scroll down and see the “Local YPP State Requirements for California and Pennsylvania” section of the Youth Protection Program site referenced above and here for details and links to State sites and FIRST.
https://www.firstinspires.org/programs/youth-protection-program
Again, we would be more than happy to assist you!
REMINDERS – FROM PAST EMAIL BLASTS: https://www.ftcpenn.org/category/email-archive
- FIRST Leadership Award Nominations are open, see Blast #10
- Team Grants Update: Blast # 10
- Event registration process, see Blast #9
- Links to Team and Volunteer Resources, see Blast #8
- Kickoff Results
- Bee in the Know
- Legislative Update – SB 1419 and Advocacy
- FTC Pennsylvania Live and Remote Kickoff Event results
Bee good and safe. Next emails VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT
Tom Zawislak and the FTC PA Planning team,
Pennsylvania FIRST® Robotics
FIRST Tech Challenge® Program Delivery Partner
phone: (302) 383-9925
email: ftc@pennfirst.org
Website: www.FTCPenn.org