January Updates
Ashley Harbert
Hi Teams,
Dean’s List Nominations
The deadline for submitting Dean's List nominations is January 15, 2025. Coaches can nominate up to two students who have demonstrated excellence in leadership, dedication to their team, and a strong commitment to the values of FIRST. Coaches can submit their nominations through their dashboard. To read more about what makes a good Dean’s List candidate click HERE.
Volunteer Opportunity: Dean’s List Volunteer Coordinator
We are currently seeking a Dean's List Volunteer Coordinator to help manage all things related to the Dean's List process. This role includes recruiting and scheduling interviewers, coordinating the interview schedule, and communicating directly with coaches about their student’s interview time slots. You CAN be affiliated with an FTC team to volunteer for this role. If you are interested in this volunteer opportunity or know someone who might be, please reach out to us as soon as possible.
All teams are eligible to submit for this award. The award will be given at our championship event. This is a video submission and needs to be submitted no later than Thursday, February 13th at 11:59pm PST. Guidelines for the videos can be found on the attachment in this email. Submissions should be emailed to ma...@playingatlearning.org and must include:
- Team Name
- Team Number
- Coach Name (who is being submitted for the Compass Award)
- A link to a shared video
- An email contact address (for any technical issues)
Sharing can be done by any method available to the team (ie. Box.com, Dropbox, Google Drive) but must have a hyperlink that allows us to download the videos. Do NOT email a YouTube link of your video.
We are still in the process of locating a site and pinning down a date for our regional championships. If you believe you will be interested in volunteering for the event regardless of the date, please register to volunteer HERE.
After signing up for the roles you might want, adults only will need to proceed to the screening system and request a background check. When successful, you'll get a confirmation email from Sterling Volunteers.
Champs Jotform
If your team already knows that they have qualified to participate at the Regional Championship event, please fill out our Jotform HERE to get the process started for what is required for champs. Be sure to list on the Jotform, your team's TWO ADULT volunteers.
If you are part of a school team and you think your team may need to have permission from the school to participate at the NorCal Regional FTC Championship event, please check in with your school to see if any special permission is needed. We don't want your team to run into any deadlines and miss out on being able to participate.
NorCal FLL Challenge is looking for hosts and organizers for their "off season" Spring League events in March / April (and into early May). This could be organized at our building in San Jose (The Play Space) or your site.
What is Spring League? It is a second season for FLL Challenge - similar to a qualifier tournament with 3 key differences:
1. Every team will receive a trophy - either an official trophy or a participation trophy
2. It is in the Spring - after our Championships - so no advancement and a strong focus on encouragement and celebration
3. We allow teams with incomplete online FIRST team rosters to participate (they will have to turn in paper consent forms instead)
Out of the ~600 NorCal FLL Challenge teams, Playing at Learning has about 250 teams that did not participate in the November Competitive Qualifier Season and a large percentage are interested in participating in Spring League events - so they really need your help.