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We are almost two months into the FIRST Relic Recovery Season presented by Qualcomm , and teams are now heavily into the design, building, and coding phase of their year. With so much to do and events beginning to happen around the world, teams may have additional questions as they prepare. The FIRST� Tech Challenge Forums are the perfect place to have those questions answered! We have highlighted these forums in almost every resource shared with our community, but we wanted to take a minute to explain why teams would peruse these pages. The main forums include: �          Game Q and A Forum - The Game Q&A Forum is a place where teams can ask questions and receive official feedback about the game rules, robot rules, advancement criteria, and judging. This forum is monitored and answered by our Game Design Committee and answers are often further clarifications of the game rules. �          Technology For...

Building, programming, recording, connecting with the community, practicing, testing, more testing, and compete. Those are the main steps every team takes during a season and it is our goal here at FIRST� to make sure we have resources to help teams throughout their journey. Teams who compete in the FIRST� Tech Challenge will need to select a programming tool to be able to write programs (referred to as "op modes") for their competition robots. There are currently three recommended programming tools available for teams to use. The recommend tools include the FIRST Tech Challenge Blocks Programming Tool, the FIRST Tech Challenge OnBot Java Programming Tool and Android Studio. FIRST has produced a video that includes a brief overview of each recommended tool and reviews each tool's benefits and disadvantages. Learn more about your options and determine which tool is best suited for your team's needs: Programming resources are located on our  Programming Resources Pag...

We are so excited about the new website, www.firstinspires.org . It looks so awesome! But where's all the stuff? It's still there, but moving over to the new website, we re-organized and cleaned up to make it more user-friendly. Let's take a brief tour through the new website and help you locate what you need. When you arrive at the FIRST website , click on Programs, hover over FIRST Tech Challenge, and select a category to get to the FIRST Tech Challenge program pages . Here you will find information about the Game, Season, Starting a Team, Budget, Social Media, and more. But those pages are really geared more toward folks who are new to FIRST and FIRST Tech Challenge; the resources and materials for Team, Mentors, and Volunteers is located in the Resource Library . The Resource Library houses individual documents and lists of resources. We've organized most of the resources into lists, such as: Start a Team Resources Game and Season Info Volunteer Resources and l...

FIRST Tech Challenge is so excited about the release of the revamped and updated FTC Mentor Manual ! In addition to necessary updates, we added a ton of useful information on teambuilding, fundraising, conflict management, team longevity, writing a business plan, press release, the Engineering Notebook, and loads more. Here�s a quick tour of what you will find in the new manual. Hyperlinks - they are everywhere, connecting you to documents, web pages, videos, and other places in the Mentor Manual for quick navigation. Pictures and examples � this is a real visual guide, similar to an interactive textbook, including call-out boxes with tips! Loads of information - It�s a big file, but it can be broken up into five sections:   Getting Started- Includes: Season Timeline, the Mentor Role, Registering the Team, Funding the Team, and FTC in the Classroom. Teambuilding and Team Management - Includes: Building the Team, Team Meetings, Team Roles, Teambuilding, and The Engineering Not...