October Team Blast
The CENTERSTAGE presented by RTX Season is here!  I know many teams have been hard at work on their robots for the last several weeks, and now it’s almost time to choose your events!  Event preferencing will take place earlier this year to help our staff and volunteers plan for their events.  We know that many teams are still awaiting grant funding and aren’t registered yet, so we are waiving the national registration requirement to sign up for events.
Event preferencing will take place October 23-27.

Please make sure your Coach 1 and Coach 2 are registered and cleared through YPP as soon as possible.  Youth Protection Best Practice:  Have all of your mentors register in the FIRST dashboard, and get cleared through YPP as well.

Our next Coaches Corner call is this Thursday, October 19 at 7:00pm ET.  Indiana’s Head Referee Logan Byers will be on hand to answer all of your game related questions.  Details are below.

As a reminder, if you missed a team blast, all of our emails are posted on our blog at: firstindianarobotics.org/blog/

If you have any questions or need assistance, please reach out to me anytime.  I can be reached via email at tthompson@firstindianarobotics.org or you can schedule a call with me using this link.

All the best,

Trisha
October Coaches Corner
Our next Coaches Corner will be Thursday, October 19 at 7:00 PM ET/6:00 PM CT. This month we have a can’t miss session with Head Referee Logan Byers.  Can’t make the call but have a question for Logan? Submit your question on this form and Logan will answer it during the meeting and you can listen to his answer when we post the recording.

If you have topics you would like to learn about or materials you want us to cover, please let us know!  Email Trisha at tthompson@firstindianarobotics.org with suggestions or questions.

FIRST Indiana Robotics is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: FTC October Coaches Corner
Time: Oct 19, 2023 07:00 PM Indiana (East)

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 835 0383 7246
Passcode: 855652

Qualifying Tournament Event Preferencing
Event preferencing will take place beginning at noon on Monday, October 23, and closing at noon on Friday, October 27.  Your team’s LC1 will receive an email with a link to a password protected google form to indicate your preferred events.  You may sign up for up to 3 events, making a first and second choice for each.  The first two events are $250 (total, not each), and your third event is an additional $100.  Teams can qualify for the State Championship at any of their 3 events.

Note:  The back-to-back events in South Bend and Greenwood are not two-day events, but separate Qualifying Tournaments.

After you choose your events, you can pay by credit card or generate an invoice at https://pay.firstindianarobotics.org/

1) Select “FTC Qualifying Tournament Registration”
2) Type in your team number
3) Click “Add to Cart” (If you have multiple teams, you can change the team number and add multiple registrations to your cart.)
4) From here you can checkout via credit card, or select “Print an Invoice” (You can also download a copy of our W-9 from this screen) You can print a paper copy of your invoice, or print to pdf to email a copy.

For more information about the events, visit our website at:  https://www.firstindianarobotics.org/ftc/events/

State Championship and Advancement News
The State Championship is scheduled a little later this year; it will be held Saturday, March 9 at the University of Indianapolis.  It is important to note that the payment deadline for World Championship teams is March 21st, and that registration amount is $2500.

We expect to learn how many teams from Indiana will advance to Houston in late December.  There were 196 FIRST Tech Challenge teams at the 2023 FIRST ENERGIZE Championship, that number will increase to 224 for the 2024 FIRST IN SHOW Championship, and will further increase to 256 for the 2025 Championship.
Purdue Forums scheduled for October 21st has been canceled.
Contact banerj59@purdue.edu or sszanti@purdue.edu with questions.

FIRST Mentor Network
Is your team in need of mentors?  Did you know that you can set up a FIRST Mentor Network profile in your dashboard and then your team will be visible to potential mentors in your area.

Visit the FIRST Mentor Network site – https://info.firstinspires.org/mentor-network

After setting up your profile, start posting links to it on social media.  Create a one-pager and share with your local chamber of commerce.  Share it with your local sponsors to encourage mentorship.  Take a flyer with you to local outreach events and hand out to adults.  Create a poster with a QR code encouraging people to sign up to be mentors.  Use – canva to create your poster- printing is inexpensive.

New Storefront Items

AndyMark Game Set Orders:
We’d like to share some exciting news on the options for teams to purchase FIRST® Tech Challenge game sets for the 2023-2024 season.

FIRST Tech Challenge Storefront

AndyMark game sets are available for purchase through the FIRST Tech Challenge storefront. This means that teams can use 2023-2024 season grant funding to purchase game sets!

Follow Us

You can find all FTC & FIN news at:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/FIRSTINRobotics
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/firstinrobotics/

We encourage coaches, parents, team members and fans to follow us on social media to keep up with all the latest information!