FTCNJ Tuesday Newsday - October 18 2022 ... (Sent via Google Group)
Vince Frascella
Greetings Newsletter Subscribers and FTCNJ Coaches
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Remember that the updates are shown in blue bold text. If you are a weekly reader, you can just quickly scan the BLUE to see what is NEW.
The black text is included for completeness sake and for our new readers.
HEADLINES:
Enhanced Team (Pin) Map: Quick way to see what League you’re in … and who’s in it with you!
Last Call for Oct 23rd Practice Day : Two Practice Days held, to date. Super successful. Room for 2 more teams in the October 23rd Practice Day!
Extended Registration for Oct 29th Meet : Bonus Slots are Available at the Halloween Saturday Meet. Northeast Edge teams don’t miss out!
Quick Links:
LEAGUES & CONFERENCES, TEAMS & HUBS
MEET REGISTRATION, MEET CAPACITY, AM/PM MEETS
FIRST NEWS
FTCNJ NEWS – Captains Caucus, Coaches Caucus
OFF-SEASON ACTIVITIES
Raritan Valley Science & Technology Showcase (October 1st/2nd)
Thanks to our great volunteers – Randy G, Chris K, Narmada K, Leslie M, and Daniel H. Thanks also to our amazing coaches and their teams (below).
We thank all of participating team coaches and volunteers who have completed our post-event survey. Lots of great feedback and ideas!
We have flowed the FTCNJ feedback to the event organizer, who is held a review on Oct 15th. The Mall is already expressing interest in next year.
Feedback will also be reviewed by the FTCNJ Planning Committee.
Practice Days (October 2022)
Northern NJ Practice Day – October 15th
Thanks to Amir R and Payne Tech for hosting the 17-Team Practice Day, last Saturday in Newark.
Teams tinkered on their robots and received help, as requested, throughout the morning.
Coaches had an informative Forum which included an FTCNJ website tour and review of Event Registration.
By day’s end, teams were organized into 2-robot Alliances and played eight 4-robot PowerPlay matches!
Thanks to volunteers: Chris K, Ed R, Julia B, Ray K, Manisha S, Kai G, Matt A, and Ari K.
Southern NJ Practice Day – October 16th
Thanks to Tiffany L and the Toms River Teams for hosting the Southern NJ Practice Day, last Sunday.
In addition to a Coaches Forum, similar to the one in Newark, a Programmers Session was held.
FTA John M, assisted by Venkatesh, explored a myriad of software topics with ~20 students taking part.
Meanwhile, teams tinkered on their robots and made substantial progress throughout the day.
Similar to the Oct 15th event, multi-team PowerPlay Matches took place in the afternoon. Great experience!
Thanks to volunteers: John M, Venkatesh, Matt, Randy G, Pallavi J, Jim C, Richard M, Steve W and Deepak M.
Central NJ Practice Day – October 23rd
Last Chance to attend a Practice Day! There is room for ~2 more teams at the Highland Park event. If interested, we must hear from you by Thursday Noon!
Similar to Outreach Scrimmages, these are unofficial events at which students can “compete” in the afternoon and tinker on bots in a stress-free environment in the morning.
The event will feature an official PowerPlay field and teams wll shaking out the new year’s “PowerPlay” robots. Bring that robot, no matter what shape it is in.
Princeton STEM, who is co-hosting the event with the Highland Park OWLS, will reprise the STEM Girl presentations on Linear Slides and CAD.
In addition to the Coaches Forum (hosted by FTCNJ), FTA Narmada K will be hosting a Programmers Session, similar to the one held at Toms River!
Here’s the link for ~2 more teams to squeeze in:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd98FKnY-3OpWcnbw3SNl4iKA9Ax4l-OwG_Sk5JfKe8BJaZeA/viewform
LEAGUES & CONFERENCES, TEAMS & HUBS
Season Plan – Conferences
Once again there will be 4 Leagues in FTCNJ with each comprised of 2 Conferences of 20-25 teams, organized by county. (Shown on attachment)
Remember, all teams in a League may compete at any Meet within that League, regardless of Conference.
Only in February’s League Tournaments must teams play only at their Conferences season-ending tournament.
“Team (Pin) Map” Enhancement
FTCNJ continues to update the Team Map on the website. Team Map - FIRST Tech Challenge - New Jersey (newjerseyftc.com)
It not only shows the 164 teams but has been enhanced to show Team#, Team Name, AND League … in list form.
Users select the League of interest, then the icon in the upper right corner of the screen displays the listing of teams.
Tapping on a particular Team Pin on the Map will reveal Team #, Name, City, County, Conference and League!
POWERPLAY Season Team Registration OPEN
164 of the 167 have registered; while three more Rookie Registrations are currently pending.
152 of the 164 are returning teams … and 12 registered rookies.
As of this moment, 181 FTCNJ Teams have registered or confirmed their intent to do so for the upcoming season.
WELCOME Rookie Teams!
· A big WELCOME to our 12 brand new teams, below.
o 22348 (Minds of Steel) - Robbinsville
o 22261 (Hornet Blue) - Holmdel
o 22219 (MORT JR) – Budd Lake
o 22062 (Cyber-Tigers) - Tenafly
o 22050 (Pirate Robotics) – Egg Harbor City
o 21995 (Aquinas Trojans) - Edison
o 21807 (Incinerators) – Edison
o 21767 (Quadra) - Edison
o 21630 (Argonauts) - Somerset
o 21505 (HHS Robotics FTC Raiders) - Hillsborough
o 21480 (C3 Loco-Motors) - Elmer
o 21226 (RoboRaiders) - Hillsborough
Expansion Hubs for our Rookie Teams!
· We are hearing that REV is beginning to ship Control Hubs to Rookie teams. Yay!!!
· As our new folks receive their permanent hardware, FTCNJ will facilitate getting the loaned hubs back to their generous owners.
· Super kudos to the veteran teams who’ve stepped up to loan Expansion Hubs.
COMPETITION NEWS
World Championship Allocations
In case you have not heard, New Jersey has been allocated three advancements to the World Championships in April (Houston)
State Championship – March 12, 2023
The FTC New Jersey State Championship will be held on Sunday, March 12th
In-Person Judging is anticipated at the State Championship, as well as at League Tournaments.
It is also our goal to have “Practice Judging” at four of the Period #3 Meets; one for each League.
Meet Registration, Meet Capacity, AM/PM Meets
Have you submitted your Meet Request yet? …AT THIS POINT, your team should really have submitted the Meet Requests including any Bonus Event requests.
If you are a coach who has not submitted the request yet, please do it now …or let FTCNJ know the nature of your problem.
Here is the Registration link that coaches can use. : Event Registration and Acceptance Criteria - FIRST Tech Challenge - New Jersey (newjerseyftc.com)
· FTCNJ is again holding six Meet choices per League (3 Saturdays, 3 Sunday). Teams can pick three plus apply for bonus Meets.
The attached “Executive Summary” shows the sites and locations of the events. Thanks very much to all of our returning hosts and our many new hosts!
24 Team Capacity
As promised, capacity information has been added to the website for the season’s Meets.
The previous email explained that a handful of Meet will be AM/PM configuration in order to support 24-teams. Those Meets are ….
o Saturday, November 5th – Northern League Meet at Don Bosco Prep, Ramsey
o Sunday, November 20th – Upper Central League Meet at Dickerson School, Chester
o Saturday, November 26th – Upper Central League Meet at Grace Church Recreation Center, Randolph
o Sunday, November 27th – Southern League Meet at Girl Scouts Pgm Activity Center, Farmingdale
o Saturday, December 3rd – Essex County – West Caldwell Tech, West Caldwell
Further Notes:
§ Sometime shortly after an AM/PM site has >16 teams registered, FTCNJ will solicit AM or PM preference info from coaches.
§ As can be seen, some of those solicitations will be beginning very shortly.
§ For AM Events, Team Check-In Opens at 8:00am; AM Events end by 12:00pm
§ For PM Events, Team Check-In Opens at 12:30pm; PM Events end by 4:30pm
§ Finally, there were 3 sites mentioned in the previous Newsletter with some open status. Here’s an update:
· November 20th (shown above) will be an AM/PM event (assuming >16 teams). It’s capacity has been set to a maximum of 20 teams.
· The sister event to Nov 20th (above) is Dec 10th. It is full day event, with a 28 team cap .. to compensate for the 20 team cap on Nov 20th
· The Liberty Science Center (January 7th) event is now confirmed as a full-day event with a 24 team cap.
o More news to follow on the December 11th event. It is expected to be a full-day Meet supporting 24 teams. Site changing.
Period #1 Meets Begin!
The new season is off to a howling start with two brand new hosts supporting Halloween Weekend Meets.
Best of luck to the Highlanders (of Governor Livingston) and Crusader Robotics (Bergen Catholic HS) for their inaugural hosting endeavor.
Continuing our Halloween tradition, teams are encouraged to decorate themselves and their haunted pits. Teams often bring extra Spirit to these events.
- 10/29/22 Halloween Saturday – Meet (Northeast Edge League) – Governor Livingston High School, 175 Watchung Blvd, Berkeley Heights, NJ
- There are almost ten open slots at the October 29th Meet!!!
- If you are a Northeast Edge League team that have not tagged Oct 29th as a Bonus Meet, this is your big chance! Registration has been extended!!
- Attending October 29th as a Bonus, in addition to your normal Period #1 Meet, provides you with a total of 12 official Matches.
- This is a great start to your season and to building up your treasure of 10 Best Matches to carry into the February League Tournament.
- October 29th may feature low-scoring matches but a “Win is a Win” …and earns your team the same 2 RP’s as a high scoring match!
- 10/30/22 Halloween Sunday – Meet (Northern League) – Bergen Catholic HS, 1040 Oradell Avenue, Oradell, NJ
Period #1 Meets feature 6 MATCHES PER TEAM!
The above Meets (Oct 29th and Oct 30th) and ALL Period #1 Meets will provide each participating team with 6 Matches, rather than 5 Matches on event day.
Consider that ‘extra match’ to be a perk for readying your robot early and coming out to participate in a Period #1 Meet.
Thanks to our nifty Lead Scorekeeper and generous supporting volunteers for helping to make this happen.
Robot not quite perfect? You now have a “throwaway match” during Period #1! Come out. Try! Learn! Iterate! Have fun!
“Bonus Meet Process”
As posted on the FTCNJ Website, 2 weeks prior to event date, teams on the Wait List are offered Bonus Slots until the event is best filled. [We also ask “accepted teams” for reconfirmation at that time.]
This is the timing of Wait List assessment (i.e., Bonus Slot disbursement) throughout the season. Don’t miss out!
FIRST NEWS!
SDK 8.0 Release
Programmers: The new FTC SDK version 8.0 has been released! This is the minimum version allowed for competition this season.
Get it here: https://github.com/FIRST-Tech-Challenge/FtcRobotController
Do read the Release Notes. You may have to change the way you initialize I2C devices.
There's also a warning about broken compatibility with the popular EasyOpenCV and FTC Dashboard libraries.
FTC SIM Grant
Rookie FTC teams who leverage the FTC SIM tool, developed in Canada, may want to check this out! https://www.firstroboticscanada.org/ftc/sim/grants/
Participants need to use the FTC SIM tool to do the exercises in this block-based (or Java) programming that's relevant to FTC, and earn "lightning bolts" that go towards the grant eligibility.
Though only (140) of these $1000 grants were available, we are hearing that many are unclaimed. FTCNJ Rookie teams should really consider this. $1000!
FTC SIM as Programmer Training Tool
Even if you are not a rookie team, you may want to take a serious look at FTC SIM as potential training tool for your programmers.
It was discussed at the recent Coaches Caucus and, after just a brief review, more than one coach commented on the high quality and potential usefulness of FTC SIM. Pretty impressive!
Here are some links for those potentially interested:
· Access to FTC SIM
· Overview Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AReLrefnN_tfnVjEDhB8fn27WKeeQ38TMlNm02PcP78/edit#slide=id.p1
FIRST TECH CHALLENGE New Jersey News
Captains Caucus (Oct 21st) ß 3rd Friday of the Month
Thanks to our Sept Breakout Facilitators: Eldrin B (Reboot), Michael D (FIRE), Vincent F (Clearview), Shruti M (Outer Galaxy), Kyle T (Enforcers) and Chase W (FIRE).
Coaches should encourage student leaders to attend. Notes are distributed to attendees and their coaches following the sessions.
A sample (i.e., the Meeting Notes from Sept 16th) was distributed to all coaches. High quality, valuable input. Did it raise more interest?
Oct 21st topics include: Season-start Experiences, …Discoveries & Challenges related to: Communication, Programming, Mechanical Design and Judging
Here’s the link to this Friday’s Captains Caucus. (Students only, please). https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMoc-qqqz8tHN0KDjMWCgyVDCg9_Xyh1x1K
Coaches Caucus (Nov 4th) ß 1st Friday of the Month
New and veteran coaches met at 8pm on October 7th to discuss Kick Off, Workshops, and other topics of mutual interest.
Thanks to all of the Coaches who attended and participated. Topics included Getting the Most out of Practice Days and your First Meet.
Our Coach Presenters included: Deepak M, Marie A, Rich M, Katherine R, Joe L. Thanks folks! Great job by all !!
Nov 4th proposed topics …the experiences at Oct Practice Days & first Meets on Halloween Weekend ... Team Management, Judging Topics, and Tech Topics.
Are you a coach who is missing out on these discussions? Join us for an hour on the 4th. See what it’s like!
The next Coaches Caucus is 8pm on 11/04/22. Here’s the Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApd-iurD0uHdIYZLNgCWUg-Ndm_MhrxMHb
Retired FTCNJ Team Selling Actobotics Hardware
Removing this item. It is now closed. The offered materials have been purchased.
VOLUNTEERS – “FTCNJ Tech Crew” Initiative
Thanks to the folks who attended the FTA Tech Crew Zoom on September 22nd
Attendees included representatives from: Princeton STEM Academy, Pope John, Dynabytes, Jdroids, and Cruise Control. Thanks for stepping up to help!
We appreciate the help by some of these folks at the Bridgewater Outreach and others have signed on now to help at various Practice Days. Pretty terrific!
Tech Crew help at Oct 15th/16th Practice Days included: Hillsborough, Pope John, Enforcers, and alumni from Titanium Knights and Jdroids!
This space will continue to cover the progress being made and to recognize the individuals/teams stepping up.
Our next newsletter will be on October 25, 2022.
If you have any questions, comments, or needs as you read this newsletter, simply write back and we’ll be happy to assist.
Making that comment here, rather than embedding it throughout the long newsletter above.
Thanks again for the interest in FIRST Tech Challenge New Jersey and being part of our community
Thanks much, Vince Frascella
FIRST Tech Challenge New Jersey
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