Looking Forward to Cascade Effect and Game Hints Revealed

Did you have a great Kickoff? Did you take pictures? We always want to see know what you are doing, so share your stories and photos with stories@usfirst.org. 

We are so excited to finally share FIRST Tech Challenge CASCADE EFFECT^smwith you all and to see what creations you will build to tackle this challenge. Don't forget to check out all of the information, tools, and tips on the FTC Team Reouscres web page.

Now, how about a huge round of applause to the Game Design committee for all the work they put into creating this game, and if you haven�t heard all about it, head on over to the FTC Game Page to learn more. So far the word on the street is that this is going to be an exciting and challenging season. Is your Team rip-roaring and ready to go build a cool robot?

We had a lot of fun with game hints this summer, and now we get to review them for you.

The kickstand aspect of the center game element was on our minds a lot, as you can tell from the following:

• Only 13 days until Kickoff!! Don't be a stick in the mud, find a Kickoff event near you on our events page! (Facebook)
• Can you STAND it?!?! 3 Days til FIRST Tech Challenge KICKOFF!!! #FTC #FTCTeams #2014Kickoff #omgrobots (Twitter)
• What SticksAbout Play and Bricks: Every child is a natural-born maker. By Maker Ed's @sdavee: http://makezine.com/magazine/make-39/what-sticks-about-play-and-bricks/ � #MakerEd #ece (Twitter)
• We can hardly stand it (Blog: 9/3/14 - Are YOU Ready? FTC Kickoff is Days Away!)

Of course, the ramps will prove to be an interesting element to work with, so we worked a few of those in:

• http://firsttechchallenge.blogspot.com/2014/08/jump-into-your-future-first-alumni-and.html � Brand new Blog post! FIRST #scholarship info just in case you're ramping up for COLLEGE APPLICATIONS! (Twitter)
• It may be summer, but we know there were lots of teams taking notes to ramp up their robot this coming season! (Blog: 7/29/14 - Gear Up with FTC Recap)

There are lots of scoring goals on the field this year, with four per team, so we hinted about that:

• http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/team-resources � Check out our FTC Team Resources page. It's brimming with helpful tools for our FTC Teams! (Twitter)
• Setting goals� (Blog: 7/29/14 - Gear Up with FTC Recap)

Of course, the biggest challenge will be picking up, and dumping or throwing those plastic balls (two sizes!). We alluded to this scoring element by calling up previous games that used a similar element:

• #TBT Who remembers our 2009-2010 FTC Game Hot Shot? http://ow.ly/i/6smTh (Twitter)
• Face Off! Image and hint (Blog: 9/3/14 - Are YOU Ready? FTC Kickoff is Days Away!)
• They rolled� (Blog: 7/29/14 - Gear Up with FTC Recap)

We also alluded to flying (those plastic balls will have to fly up into the higher goals) in the blog, and who noticed this gem on Facebook:

• How do you build the world's tallest water slide? This one is taller than the Niagara Falls cascades! Read about the design trials and tribulations here! P.S. Where's your favorite water slide?

Thank you to everyone who looked for game hints and made guesses. As always, a few folks were pretty close last week to getting it right! Let us know what you think of the new game below. Get out and build some cool FTC robots!