Welcome to the UNEARTHED season & loads of updates
fll-ch...@playingatlearning.org
Hello NorCal FLL Challenge Community,
Welcome to the 2025-2026 UNEARTHED Season. This is a
long update with loads of good info. Please read carefully and
thoroughly.
1. Many of our coaches have asked about how to complete the Overall
California YPP Clearance that you likely see on your FIRST
dashboard. We have created a detailed
webpage to help everyone get through this California state
mandate!
2. All teams need to complete the online FIRST Team Roster to add mentors and team members to the team. We recommend to use the Express Enrollment Youth Registration to complete your Team Roster - Lead Coach Instructions and more info.
3. We will host an online Coach Season Town Hall on
Tuesday August 26 at 7pm - register
here. This will be recorded and posted on our Resources
page. This town hall will be a place to ask questions and learn
more about the program and how to access resources.
4. We have updated our season costs for this season - unfortunately with everything increasing in cost, we have had to increase both the qualifier/spring league event cost and the championship cost. We do expect to have team grants available this season but do not yet have these funds in hand. If you need financial help to participate, please do apply for a grant.
5. For those new to NorCal FLL Challenge, we have 2
league seasons and each team may choose to participate in
exactly 1 - either the Competitive League with Qualifiers in
November OR the Spring League (aka Rec League) with Tournaments in
the spring (generally between February - April).
6. Information regarding tournament registration will be provided no later than early September. We do need your help in finding venues (and organizing hosts) for in-person events. Event specification needs are in this document and covers both Competitive League Qualifiers in November and the Rec "Spring League" tournaments.
7. With regards to Tournament
Registration - we will (again) be using mylumi.playingatlearning.org
to manage tournament registration and will start uploading teams
for this season this weekend. Both Coach1 and Coach 2 must have
accounts. If you are a new user, you will receive an email
inviting you to create an account with an invite code (this email
will likely end up in a spam folder despite our best efforts). If
you use the same email address to register in mylumi that you use
to register the team with FIRST, the system will connect
you to the team directly and no need for an invite code.
8. Last season, we created a Systems Flowchart
to help visualize which website is used for what data - let me
know if you have suggestions on how to make this more useful to
you. One note is that the flowchart does not describe the preference
registration that we use for the November Competitive
League (aka Qualifier) tournaments.
9. We are HIRING for multiple part-time program
coordinators including for the FIRST LEGO League
Challenge program. Help us spread the message by sending this link
to anyone you know that might be interested. We have also
starting posting this out on our Playing At Learning social media
- LinkedIn,
Facebook,
Instagram
- so that can be shared as well.
10. Finally, we have been busy the past few months and rolled out
a new CRM database and donation form
and would love your feedback. There are new options including the
ability to set up a regular monthly donation, pay securely via
debit/credit card/direct bank information and more. This will
enable us to better track and communicate with supporters like
you. Many of you know that Playing At Learning is not funded by FIRST
- we rely on individual donations along with corporate and
foundation sponsors to support the program. If you have ideas on
how to help, please let me know!
Looking forward to an exciting Season.
Regards, Jill
fll-ch...@playingatlearning.org
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