Bag & Tag in brief and MAR demystified

Good Afternoon Teams,

This year ALL FRC Qualifying and Regional Events will be Bag & Tag.  (Teams attending Championship will still have to ship their robots to St Louis.)  Don’t know what Bag & Tag means?  On Stop Build Day - Feb 21^st teams must stop work on the robot and seal it in a giant bag (using a giant tag) that will be included in the 2012 Kit of Parts.  Teams then transport the robot to and from the event on their own.  Details will be included in the 2012 FRC Administrative Manual coming soon.  In the meantime, reading the Bag & Tag sections of the 2011 FRC Administrative Manual Section 5 - Robot Transportationwill give you a pretty good idea of what’s involved.  

In some cases, FRC will grant Bag & Tag exemptions for teams facing transportation hardships. (For instance, if you have to cross an ocean or a continent to reach the nearest event.)   Teams may apply for exemption by emailing frcteams@usfirst.org. Deadline  5PM EST 12/2/11.  Every exemption request should have the subject line: “Bag and Tag Exemption Request, Team XXXX”, with the team’s number in place of ‘XXXX’.  The body of the request should include a very detailed explanation of why the team would experience substantial hardship in bringing their robot to the event themselves.  The more detail a team is able to supply in their explanation, the more quickly FIRST HQ will be able to make their decision on the request. 

These exemptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis, and only if the team would experience substantial hardship in attending the event for which an exemption was requested.    We recognize teams attending second and additional events may need to travel some distance to attend those events and we will do our best to accommodate those requests.  Bag and Tag exemptions will not be granted to teams participating in FIRST in Michigan or Mid-Atlantic Robotics Qualifying Events or Championships, because of their local nature.

Register for your event first, then apply for exemption.  Do not wait for exemption approval from FIRST HQ before registering for events.  Be aware that not all exemptions will be approved.  If an exemption request is declined, FIRST will work with the team to help them resolve the issue.

Teams will be informed by reply email of acceptance or rejection of their request.  Teams who ship their robots to events without prior permission risk not being allowed to participate in the event.

Now, for those of you with questions about MAR.  The Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region Qualifying structure is based on the FIRST in Michigan (FiM) pilot.  Teams residing in New Jersey, Delaware or the Pennsylvania counties of Berks, Bradford, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Columbia, Dauphin, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Montour, Northampton,

Northumberland, Philadelphia, Pike, Schuylkill, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, and York

 (and only teams residing in New Jersey, Delaware or the Pennsylvania counties listed above will be eligible to participate in the MAR Qualifying events.   Like FiM teams, MAR teams may participate in Regional events outside the MAR system in addition to participating at MAR events.  Only MAR teams may register for MAR Qualifying events or the MAR Region Championship.

Teams can verify their MAR & FiM status by looking in FRC TIMS on the Team Summary page -> Team Profile section -> Team Information row -> Summary column -> “Event Structure” status.  MAR & FiM status is also displayed on the Team Information summary page in TIMS.

101 days until Kickoff

See you then!

Its official AND on our website

Good Afternoon Teams,

It’s been a long hard road that brought us right down to the wire, but the FRC Event Schedule is now live on the usfirst.org website.  Registration Payment Terms will be posted in the morning and Event Registration opens Thursday, September 29^th at noon Eastern time.  We had to bring a stunning number of details together and tie up innumerable loose ends so there are still a few TBDs in the schedule, but I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this season possible.  An email blast is about to go out to FRC teams.  Let the season begin!

102 days until Kickoff

See you then!

The List & a New Region

Good Afternoon Teams,

I’m back.  I was suitably impressed by the potential capability of the new technology I was shown and have high hopes for future FRC events.  Engineering will continue to look for new and exciting things to add to our ever evolving 5 year technology plan.  Unfortunately I can say no more. Except rest assured; our competition field will maintain a 27’x57’ footprint for the foreseeable future.

While I was out, an email blast was sent to team main and alternate contacts asking each team to take a survey regarding your FRC team’s experience with FTC.  This comes from the group who are building a 5-year strategic plan for all of FIRST.  Your team’s input will be very helpful, so if a representative for your team has not yet completed the survey, please encourage them to do so by Tuesday, Sept 27.

Not to confuse everyone, but FRC has a survey out to FRC teams at the same time asking about your team’s experience with FRC Awards.  For this survey I would like everyone’s individual input.  Please encourage everyone you know on an FRC team to take the survey by Wednesday, Sept 28th. 

As of this morning, there are 45 local kickoffs listed on our website.  Registration for Kickoffs opens Friday, Oct 7th.  Have you decided where you want to go?

New Jersey, Delaware and the eastern half of Pennsylvania have joined forces to create the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region and will be holding Qualifying Events leading up to a Region Championship in a new model based on lessons learned in the Michigan district pilot.  Welcome MAR!

TIMS is now scheduled to open for Event Registration on Thursday, September 29th.   As of this morning, 341 FRC teams have completed the pre-registration process in TIMS and are ready for Registration.  Are you ready?

Here’s the FRC event list as it stands today.  Not every event has a signed contract from the venue so there are a few TBDs listed below.  When the commitment is firm for each, the details will be added to TIMS.

As we add more double field events each year, I want to remind you: FRC reserves the right to ‘balance’ teams at any of the double event competitions.  For instance:  if every rookie team interested in playing in Minnesota registers for the 10,000 Lakes and there are no rookies at North Star, or if all the teams interested in playing in Dallas register for Dallas West leaving only four teams registered at Dallas East.  We haven’t had to ‘balance’ double events in the past, and won’t if things work out on their own, but be aware, we still reserve the right to level the playing field if need be.

Week One
March 1-March 3, 2012
Alamo Regional,  San Antonio, TX
BAE Systems/Granite State Regional,  Manchester, NH
Greater Kansas City Regional, Kansas City, MO
Smoky Mountains Regional,  Knoxville, TN

March 2-3, 2012
Hatboro-Horsham MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Horsham, PA
Kettering University MI FRC Qualifying Event,   Flint, MI

Date TBD
Northville MI FRC Qualifying Event TBD, MI

Week Two
March 5-7, 2012
Israel Regional. Tel Aviv, Israel

March 8-10, 2012
Autodesk Oregon Regional, Portland, OR
Chesapeake Regional, Baltimore, MD
Finger Lakes Regional, Rochester, NY
Greater Toronto East Regional,   Toronto, ON Canada
Lake Superior Regional,   Duluth, MN
Orlando Regional, Orlando, FL
Pittsburgh Regional, Pittsburgh, PA
San Diego Regional, San Diego, CA
WPI Regional , Worcester, MA

March 9-10, 2012
Chestnut Hill MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Philadelphia, PA
Traverse City MI FRC Qualifying Event, Traverse City, MI
Waterford MI FRC Qualifying Event, Waterford, MI

March 10-11, 2012
Rutgers MAR FRC Qualifying Event, New Brunswick, NJ

Week Three
March 15-17, 2012
Bayou Regional, Westwego, LA
Boilermaker Regional, West Lafayette, IN
Los Angeles Regional, Long Beach, CA
Peachtree Regional, Duluth, GA
Festival de Robotique FRC a Montreal Regional, Montreal, QC Canada
Sacramento Regional, Sacramento, CA
Utah Regional sponsored by NASA & Platt, Salt Lake City, UT
Virginia Regional, Richmond, VA

March 16-18, 2012
New York City Regional, New York City, NY

March 16-17, 2012
Detroit MI FRC Qualifying Event, Detroit, MI  
West Michigan MI FRC Qualifying Event, Allendale, MI  

Week Four
March 22-24, 2012
Arizona Regional, Chandler, AZ                              
Boston Regional, Boston, MA                              
Buckeye Regional,. Cleveland, OH                              
Colorado Regional, Denver, CO                               
Hawaii Regional sponsored by BAE Systems, Honolulu Hawaii                              
Midwest Regional, Chicago, IL                              
Seattle Cascade Regional, Seattle, WA                              
Seattle Olympic Regional, Seattle, WA                              
Palmetto Regional, TBD, SC                              
St Louis Regional, St. Louis, MO                              
Waterloo Regional, Waterloo, ON Canada                              
Wisconsin Regional, Milwaukee, WI  

March 23-24, 2012
Niles MI FRC Qualifying Event, Niles, MI  
Possible MI FRC Qualifying Event, City TBD, MI  

March 24-25, 2012Lenape MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Tabernacle, NJ  

Week Five      
March 29-31, 2012
Dallas East Regional sponsored by jcpenney, Dallas, TX                              
Dallas West Regional sponsored by jcpenney, Dallas, TX                               
Greater Toronto West Regional, Mississauga, ON Canada                              
Minnesota 10,000 Lakes Regional, Minneapolis, MN                              
Minnesota North Star Regional, Minneapolis, MN                              
Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut     Regional, Hartford, CT                          
Oklahoma Regional, Oklahoma City, OK                              
SBPLI Long Island Regional, Hempstead, NY                              
Silicon Valley Regional, San Jose, CA                              
South Florida Regional, Boca Raton, FL                               
Washington DC Regional, Washington, DC

March 30-31, 2012
Livonia MI FRC Qualifying Event, Livonia, MI  
Mount Olive MAR FRC Qualifying Event, Flanders, NJ  
Troy MI FRC Qualifying Event, Troy, MI                                                              

Week Six
April 5-7, 2011
Central Valley Regional, Madera, CA                              
Las Vegas Regional, Las Vegas, NV                              
Lone Star Regional, Houston, TX                              
North Carolina Regional, Raleigh. NC                              
Queen City Regional, Cincinnati, OH                              
Spokane Regional, Cheney, WA
                              
Week Seven
April 12-14, 2011
Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship Event, Philadelphia, PA                          
Michigan FRC Region Championship Event, Ypsilanti, MI                              

FIRST Championship, April 26-28, 2012 St. Louis, MO    

106 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Up up and away

Good Afternoon Teams,

I’m blogging early this week because I’m getting on an airplane this evening in my never ending quest to bring the latest technology to FRC.  Frank, Kate and I are heading out to explore new technology for 2015 and beyond.  If we come up with anything interesting, I probably won’t be able to tell you about it until the kit of part reveal in 2015.   Cross your fingers.  Things could get interesting.

The GDC met this past weekend and rocked the workshop.  It looks like we have the concept for the 2013 game.  Because of some monumental elements that you can’t see until January 5, 2013 we had a great deal of fun thinking up game names that you will never hear from me.  We have a ways to go before the game is ready, but that was the whole point of pushing so hard this year to get a year ahead.  The 2012 game is in the final stages and we now have almost a full year to test, tweak and tidy up loose ends on the 2013 game.  My thanks to the long suffering, hardworking, hysterically funny members of the GDC who got a little punchy after a full weekend locked in the basement workshop at headquarters.  I promise there will be more coffee ice cream at the October on site meeting.

Looking forward, now is as good a time as any to ask ourselves if the existing FRC award structure is supporting our mission and values.  To that end, I would like team member/mentor input.  Please encourage everyone you know in FRC to complete this survey by Wednesday, September 28th at noon Eastern time.

Marketing is looking for FRC team members who have repurposed items in constructive, unique or amazing ways to feature in an upcoming national publication.  Please send marketing@usfirst.org a photo and brief description of your creation by this Wednesday, September 21st and if we choose to include your design we’ll be in touch for more details.

Does your team have new mentors this year, or do you know about an FRC team with rookie mentors?  Please let them know about the upcoming Senior Mentor call “FRC Mentor Orientation 101”.  Senior Mentor Mike Henry and expert Mike Siegel will answer questions about team organization, member recruitment and team registration this Thursday 9/22 at 7pm Eastern time. Call 1-866-951-1151 and use conference room number 7052714 that night to participate.

 The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is now accepting applications from young women in the US and Puerto Rico in grades 9-12 for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing, which recognizes young women at the high school level for their aspirations and achievements in technology and computing! .

109 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Announcing the Beta Test Teams

Good Afternoon Teams,

We’ve chosen the 2012 Beta Test teams.  Everyone who applied has been contacted, so I’m happy to announce the following teams will be helping us review the software libraries and build new code to share with all teams.  My thanks to everyone who offered to help with this project.  All FRC teams will be able to communicate with the Beta Test teams on the forums.

Testing C/C++:
108    SIGMAC@T
166    Chop Shop
234    Cyber Blue
294    Beach Cities Robotics
303    Panther Robotics
537    Charger Robotics
604    Quixilver
772    Sabre Bytes
781    Kinetic Knights
973    GRR
987    The High Rollers
1334    Red Devils
1511    Rolling Thunder
1519    Mechanical Mayhem
1671    Buchanan Bird Brains
1714    More Robotics
1758    Technomancers
1816    The Green Machine
2358    Bearbotics
2809    Kbotics
2903    NeoBots
3457    MacBotics
3481    Bronc Botz
3771    Da Yooper Troopers
3824    RoHawktics

Testing Java:
11    MORT
20    The Rocketeers
125    NUTRONS
175    Buzz Robotics
178    2nd Law Enforcers
228    Gus Robotics
341    Miss Daisy
610    The Coyotes
694    Stuypulse
1002    CircuitRunners
1014    Dublin Robotics
1160    Firebird Robotics
1279    ColdFusion
2177    The Robettes
2477    Rascal Robotics
2648    Infinite Loop
2846    FireBears
2967    Iron Devils
2977    Sir Lancer Bots
3309    Friarbots
3341    The Manhattan Project
3630    Stampede
3660    The Lightsabers
3780    Robot Unicorn Attack
3807    Blazerbots

Testing LabVIEW:
33    Killer Bees
45    TechnoKats
53    Area 53
75    RoboRaiders
357    Royal Assault
624    CRyptonite
836    RoboBees
1023    Bedford Express
1208    The MeTool Brigade
1718    The Fighting Pi
1764    Liberty Robotics
1847    Wyandotte H.S. Robodogs
1912    Team Combustion
2168    Aluminum Falcons
2169    KING TeC
2403    Team Plasma
2435    Soldiers of Technology
2530    Inconceivable
2579    The Robodogs
3158    TECBOT
3242    WILDCATS
3339    BumbleB
3558    FBR'botz
3572    Wavelength
3619    Blackhawks

113 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Good News

Good Afternoon Teams,

Since TIMS opened one week ago today, 301 teams have logged in and updated their team profile.  69 of those teams are 2012 rookies and 195 are now ready for event registration.

I’m happy to announce, registration fees will hold steady this year.  Registration for FRC Veteran teams who participated in 2011, 2010 or 2009 will be $5,000 and registration for Rookies and FRC teams that did not participate in 2011, 2010 or 2009 will be $6,500. Participation in each additional 2012 Regional Event will be $4,000. My thanks to everyone in the office, in the field and on the staff of our many suppliers and contractors who worked hard this year to hold costs down and keep these fees steady.  I’ll announce registration fees for the district qualification events as soon as the final decision is made.

I can’t share the final competition schedule yet, but I can tell you the two newest Regional events will be in Miami, FL and Fresno, CA.  In addition, Dallas, TX is hoping to host their first ever double field event which will bring the projected total number of FRC Regional Events to 54 this year (we still don’t have final contracts from some of the locations so that number is still tentative.)

The GDC will be onsite this weekend to work on the 2013 game.  The FRC staff on the first floor are busy today setting up field elements and cleaning up in preparation.  Yes, we do clean our room before the GDC arrives.  Wouldn’t you?

We’re conducting interviews for the replacement Field Maintenance person this week and not a moment too soon.  We’re building two additional competition fields this year bringing the total number of fields on the road to 19 (if you include the one packaged and staged for emergency deployment if something should happen to one of the other fields as it travels between events).

Volunteer Coordinators held their first conference call for the 2012 season yesterday.  Yes, it takes almost 6 months to put on a Regional Event and these key volunteers are already working to make sure there are volunteers trained and at the ready for your first event.

Finally, I’ve been told there will be an ad for FIRST in the ‘Top Charities’ section of USA Today this week.  I haven’t seen it.  Have you?

114 days until Kickoff
See you then!

TIMS is now open

The Team Information Management System (TIMS) opened at 12:00 p.m. EST today.  https://my.usfirst.org/frc/tims/site.lasso

It’s raining again

Good Afternoon Teams,

I’d like to start today by introducing Kevin O’Connor our newest FRC Robotics Engineer.  Kevin was both a founding student member and an adult mentor for Team 2175 the Fighting Calculators.  He comes to us from GeckoSystems International Corporation where he was a Senior EE Roboticist developing software for the CareBot.  Welcome aboard!

We’re conducting interviews this week for the new FRC Program Coordinator position and for a replacement Field Groomer.  I’m hoping to get everyone in place soon so they have time to get up to speed.  There’s never really a good time to jump in the pool around here, but I’m hoping they can get their heads above water before the registration floodgates open.

My thanks to the 147 teams who applied to be Beta Testers.   Frank is reviewing the applications now and will contact all the applicants by next Friday, Sept 16th.  When we have a final list, I’ll let you know who near you will be helping the engineering staff prepare for 2012.

Thinking about Beta Testing the software for the new cRIO FRCII reminds me, the last day to purchase the original FRC cRIO is Friday, Sept 30th.  More details are available in my August 23rd blog. 

I know you’re curious, but we still don’t have a finalized 2012 Event List to share.  For those of you who are keeping track, we now have 21 contracted venues and just two locations left who aren’t in contract negotiations yet which is an improvement from August 12th.

The IT department is working like mad to get TIMS at least partially open so teams may begin updating their Team Profiles.  (Last week I explained that TIMS was unavoidably delayed.)  Watch this space.  I have big hopes they will be ready soon.

We’re moments away from determining the 2012 Game Name.  The GDC’s favorite choices were vetted by Marketing and the surviving choices are making the final lap.  When Legal gets back to me, we can start work on a game logo, swap out "NameTBD" in the 2012 Game Manual and stop referring to the game as “well, you know”.

Oh, and maybe you can help me.  This came up in the FRC staff meeting this morning.  How many people do you think watch the streaming video from FRC Regional Events?  Enquiring minds want to know.

122 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Odds and ends

Good Afternoon Teams,

Thank you for the input on the relationship between FRC and FTC teams.  I can’t remember now if I read it somewhere, or if someone brought it up in conversation, but if any of you are concerned that I’m trying to group source solutions to FRC issues, don’t worry.  What I’m trying to do is get FRC team’s voices heard as I participate in the discussions on issues facing FIRST. 

The opening date for TIMS has been delayed because we are still working out the details surrounding the new (as of yet unnamed) qualification structure.  It doesn’t make sense to open the system to collect data, then force teams to return to the system to re-enter data if our data needs change.  The minute the system is ready, I’ll let you know.

Attention Mentors: This year the J&J Mentor award is not limited exclusively to teams that are sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.  If you have a team mentor who is employed by J&J, contact rdoyle@its.jnj.com  for an application. Deadline September 16th.

Last call for Beta test teams.  The deadline to apply is noon EDT this Friday.

And last chance to vote for FIRST’s President Jon Dudas’ panel at the SXSW conference. 

128 days until Kickoff
See you then!