Team Status 2023-01-22 Blue and White Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-02-04 Philadelphia Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-02-11 Red Tornado Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-02-18 Lehigh Valley Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-02-19 Green and Gold Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2022-12-17 Eastern Qualifier12-7-22 Team Status 2022-12-18 Red and Black Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-01-14 Southwestern Qualifier 12-7-22 Team Status 2023-01-21 South Central Qualifier 12-7-22
Hello Teams and Volunteers,
This is the 10th in the continuing series of Pennsylvania FIRST Robotics emails. If you think you may have missed any of our previous email blasts, they can be found on our website in the COMMUNICATION Archives.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/communications/email-archive
We hope you are all well and working diligently to get ready to compete in this FTC Power Play Season!
We are about ready to embark on our first two Qualifiers in Coatesville this month, the Eastern Qualifier and the Red and Black to be held consecutively on Dec 17th and 18th. We are super excited to get this competition season underway. By the way, we continue to seek VOLUNTEERS for all of our upcoming events, but especially these two, short term. Please consider volunteering. See below for instructions.
We apologize for not addressing the subject matter of this email sooner, and many of you have asked…what is the status of our team’s position for preferences (P2 – P6) beyond our confirmed P1/Registered choice?
As many veteran teams are aware, in past seasons we would have these lists posted on our website incorporated into the specific Event pages for teams to see their position on the Waitlists and allow them to strategize on any potential season and competition changes. We have had hiccups in getting the website populated with this information, however I did not want teams to remain in the dark and uninformed any longer as we get the website up to speed. As such, please find the attached excel worksheets for each event as of yesterday, December 7th.
If you have any questions or need guidance on interpretation of this information, please let me know at ftc@pennfirst.org . If you want to make any changes going forward, please do so through our Registration site and be sure to identify the change as an UPDATE to a Qualifier registration (about for clicks in).
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration
Note that each Qualifier event sheet displays the teams that are currently Registered (by virtue of their Preference 1 choice) and then, below this list, the list of teams on the Waitlists by their selected category of P2, P3, P4, etc. Please be assured that this list is ordered by the date and time stamp that was automatically applied when you originally Registered on our webpage or updated when you requested Updates and changes up through today. A new date and timestamp are applied for only event and line-item Updates and changes.
All qualifiers beyond the Eastern Qualifier on December 17th have open slots, some have much more than others. The individual files will display how many additional slots we will need to fill to get to our maximum registration quantity. In most all cases this is 24 teams, although we may extend beyond this number based on interest, but more importantly, how many VOLUNTEERS we can muster. Getting the appropriate number of volunteers and venue space are our limiting factors.
With regards to the Philadelphia Qualifier, this event is created to be near exclusive to serve Philadelphia City based teams and a few from surrounding towns who may have resource and travel limitations, or can only attend one local qualifier. We have also expanded the number of teams at this event and hope to fit as many teams as we can. We will be working very closely with the Philadelphia Robotics Coalition and the venue, Central High School, to assure that we can maximize attendance. More to come.
We will continue to process event registration requests per or policy.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration/processing-event-registration-requests
An exception to this policy is that any open slots will be offered to teams on Waitlists starting within four (4) weeks before the Qualifier date, (versus the 6 weeks in our policy). The Priority 1 Waitlist is processed first, then the Priority 2 Waitlist, and so on until all slots at the event are filled.
Dates where we will start sending out invitations to P2 and above teams are therefore:
- Eastern and Red/Black Qualifiers – Invitations already sent
- Southwestern Pennsylvania Qualifier– Send Invitations starting Mon Dec 19th, 2022
- South Central and Blue/White Qualifiers – Send invitations starting Mon Dec 26th2022
- Philadelphia Qualifier – Send invitations starting Mon Jan 9th 2023.
- Red Tornado Qualifier – Send invitations starting Mon Jan 16th 2023
- Lehigh Valley and Green/Gold Qualifiers – Send invitations starting Mon Jan 23rd ,2023
Also, please carefully read the Event Participation Policy for additional information
https://www.ftcpenn.org/event-registration/event-participation-policy
Call for Volunteers:
Please, and as always, we would love all of you to personally join us and to recruit aggressively and widely to assist us in expanding our reach. The response to our requests has not been as robust as we would prefer to this point, so please consider events that you may be able to volunteer at as soon as you can. Volunteer opportunities abound! Please find this schedule for all seasonal events on our website. As always, we welcome back our awesome regional volunteers who participated with us in past years, but also welcome new volunteers from family, friends, the community and businesses alike. Please know that this is also 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. If you are already registered to volunteer then thank you!
As with past years, we use the FIRST Event Volunteer Registration system for all of our events. Volunteering for an event is one of the options on your personal FIRST Dashboard on the http://www.firstinspires.org website. General Instructions detailed below.
Volunteer roles are defined in the link provided below. We welcome volunteers in all capacities, but especially in key roles such as Judging, Referees and Inspectors.
https://www.ftcpenn.org/volunteer/volunteer-roles
As always, please let us know if you have any questions or require additional information.
All the best,
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