I just had a little question that needs confirmation:
The FTC 2007 challenge will be Hangin’ A Round, right?
please let me know
no, there will be a new challenge released in september
The FTC program 2007-2008 season is scheduled to run as follows:
July: team registration opens (It’s Open!)
mid-September: a new game challenge is released.
October: Any scrimmages, qualifying events and/or Championship Tournaments will be announced on the FIRST website hopefully between now and October; teams register with tournament organizers
November 2007 - February 2008 - Championship Tournaments will be held
April - World Championships in Atlanta for eligible teams
another question:
when does registration end?
Very, very late in the season. Perhaps as late as the day the world championship registration closes.
BUT… you must be a registered team before you can sign up to participate in one of the FIRST Championship tournaments (championships of regions). If you wait too long, the Championships near you might fill up and be unable to take more entries.
Blake
And that means that you must be registered in the Team Information Management System (TIMS) and have paid your registration fee to FIRST. Once that is done, you are free to select a regional competition and contact the organizers for details. Tournament fees vary.
but we can find out the rules of the new game if we haven’t paid, right?
Yes. The new game and manual will be released to the public mid-September on the FIRST website in the FTC section. It is to your benefit to have organized students and mentor(s) by then, registered your team with FIRST and paid your team registration fee, ordered your kit of parts. You can become familiar with the kit, do some teambuilding exercises, establish team organization items such as rules and consequences, etc., do some fundraising if necessary, create a meeting schedule and choose a location, and be ready to go once the game is announced. After the new game is released you can meet to talk about strategies that you think will be successful in playing the game and then brainstorm what features your robot would need in order to implement those game strategies. Then you would proceed with prototyping, building the robot, testing it, choosing a drive team and lots of practice and tweaking. If your area provides one, I suggest attending a scrimmage before attending your competition tournament.