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Welcome Rookie Coaches and Mentors!  Congratulations on taking the first step on your FIRST � journey by signing up for FIRST � Tech Challenge! If you have stumbled upon this Resource Article and have yet to sign up for a team, check out our Start a Team Checklist & Resources that will take you through the process of starting a FIRST Tech Challenge Team. If you find you need help navigating the Team Registration - where you actually sign up for a team - look at our tutorials listed on the Information Management Systems User Support Article. If you still find that you need assistance in starting out, feel free to contact us here at FIRST by shooting an email to ftcteams@firstinspires.org . We also have a handy "Chat" function on this website that allows you to ask questions to our amazing Operations Team.  Once  on board , you will find that this Rookie Resource Article is your one-stop shop for everything you potentially will need to be s...

To the FIRST Tech Challenge program and whoever else's eyes this message finds its way to:               Oh, where to begin? I suppose a brief introduction. My name is Isaac and I am a Senior at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. For years, I would stay after school, sit in the cafeteria, and see this group of kids working on something, which appeared to a robot of some kind. Last year is when I really started to understand. Some of my closest friends are on Walnut's FTC team, 6133 THE NUTS!, and through my school and through some team bragging of how amazing it was, I became extremely interested. Still I decided to ignore whatever this robotics team was, as it didn't seem to be the thing for me. How wrong I was! THE NUTS! went to Worlds that year, and came home to Walnut as heroes.         A year passed, and I was asked to help set up for a regional FIRST Tech Challenge competition. I agreed, knowing that my fr...

Guest Blog Post from Christine Matheney from Microsoft I had the opportunity to participate in FIRST Robotics while in high school; it is these core values that have made me who I am today. I'm sure this is a story you hear from FIRST alum often, but I wanted to share my own story with you as well as why our team at Microsoft is so excited to put on the Imagine This Contest . In high school, I was part of a Girl Scout FIRST Robotics team who met at NASA. It was about 30 miles between my high school and our robotics lab, and I had amazing parents who drove me to and from the lab after school for three years. We had a blast - it was a team of brilliant young women, super supportive mentors, and a lot of creativity. On the team, I learned both technical skills and leadership skills.  By the time I graduated, I was both comfortable using a drill press and creating and executing a plan for the team to attend championships in Atlanta.  My time on the team, learning those technical s...

FIRST Tech Challenge Judged Awards Inspire Award � Team 7013 � Hot Wired from Portland, Oregon Finalists: Team 6081 � I 2 R Robotics from West Port Connecticut Team 6389 � The Lazybots from Eden Prairie Minnesota Team 7013 � Hot Wired from Portland, Oregon **Award Winner** Team 7655 � The Q is Silqent from Eagan Minnesota Rockwell Collins Innovate Award � Team 7350 � Watts NXT? from Edison New Jersey Finalists: Team 6022 � TBD To Be Determined, Aurora Ohio Team 7013 � Hot Wired  from Portland, Oregon Team 7152 � Robot Squad from Rochester Minnesota Team 7350 � Watts NXT? from Edison New Jersey **Award Winner** Team 7486 � Team Erebor from Suffern New York Team 9048 � Phiobots from Austin, TX Motivate Award � Team 4855 � Batteries in Black from Portland, Oregon Finalists: Team 4855 � Batteries in Black from Portland, Oregon **Award Winner** Team 5070 � N.U.T.S. from Orlando, Florida Team 5202 � Zip TIE Fighters from Decatur Illinois Team 5220 � RoboKnights from Fremont California...

Hello FIRST Tech Challenge Teams! Can you believe that Super-Regionals have begun? I don�t know where the time has gone, but I do know that at FIRST HQ, we are getting geared up for the 2016 World Championship. My team and I are very glad to be able to tell you a little more about some of the changes we have made to our favorite event of the year. We�re excited about these changes, and we hope you are too! Today, I wanted to share with you a day-by-day breakdown of some of the things we�ve been working on. Before you arrive � Every invited team will receive a link to our Experient Badging and Hotel Reservation Site. Please make sure to go through the badging process for every member of your team. This will save you a TON of time at Registration. We thank you, and so will the people in line behind you. Tuesday, April 26, 2016 � Early Bird Check In will occur at the Registration Area in Union Station from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM. This line will move very quickly, because I know you all wil...

Dear FIRST Tech Challenge Community,  Super-Regional events were implemented in  FIRST  Tech Challenge starting with competitions held in 2014. Those hosts have done wonderful jobs creating an entirely new competition level within the program. This has allowed us to expand our capacity, provide teams more chances to compete, and continue to have a merit based path to World Championships . The success of Super-Regionals has cemented this competition level into the progression of  FIRST  Tech Challenge events. Our original four Super-Regional hosts agreed to three-years of hosting. This allowed them longer planning windows and leveraged the strong, cross-regional, organizing committees formed for this purpose. As we wind down the first three year cycle we've been working on the next three year cycle. The process to select the next series of Super-Regional hosts was lengthy, and covered most of 2015. We had hosting bids from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Iowa,...

Intelitek invites FIRST� Tech Challenge participants to be part of the beta launch of Coderz, an engaging online learning environment for robotics Coderz is an innovative, web-based platform for robotics education that serves as an ideal tool for anyone interested in a highly engaging and motivating robotics programming environment. Coderz is appropriate for beginners, as well as advanced programmers as it can be used with an intuitive GUI for Blockly and Java coding. FIRST� is working together with Intelitek to provide programming software for the Android, Qualcomm SnapDragon, called Coderz. Coderz is not yet an approved competition option and works only in autonomous control. We see FIRST � teams as a major part of our evolving Coderz community, which is why we would like to give 250 FIRST � members from across the U.S. the opportunity to be the first to experience the Coderz platform, helping to make this program the best it can be for our FIRST � teams. Whether you are a...