FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

 

 

Holy moly! What a weekend! Whether you joined us in-person in Manchester, New Hampshire, at a local kickoff, with your team, or at your house, I hope you enjoyed the 2023 FIRST^® Robotics Competition Kickoff presented by Novelis. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to the entire team of staff, partners, and volunteers that make the worldwide start of each season possible.

Translated Manuals

While the English version of the manual is the official version, unofficial French, Spanish, Turkish, and Chinese manuals are also available on the Translated Manuals page. Team Updates are in English only, and those updates are not incorporated in the translated manuals.

Team Updates

Speaking of Team Updates, I wanted to remind everyone when team updates are posted. As mentioned in Section 1.9 of the Game Manual, Team Updates are posted on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning today through February 28^th. After that, Team Updates continue to be posted on Tuesdays only and end on April 7^th.

Team Updates are posted on the Season Materials webpage and anyone 18+ can sign up for email notifications as Team Updates are posted.

Questions & Answers

The official FIRST Robotics Competition Q&A opens Wednesday, January 11, at Noon Eastern Time. The Q&A is the place to ask your questions about the game and event rules, awards, drawings, inspection, and get official answers.

Anyone can make their own account in the Q&A system to subscribe to questions and be notified when answers are published. To get “asking” permissions with your account (limited to 1 account/team), you have to attach your team’s authorization code to your account. An account isn’t needed to just read and search existing questions/answers.

Team Authorization Codes for the Q&A System are available in the Team Registration System to lead mentors 1 and 2. To access, go to the ‘Team Options’ section on the left of your dashboard and click on ‘Payment & Product.’

Then click on ‘Passwords/Voucher Codes’ and you will find the code listed under FIRST^®/Q&A Key.

In the account you want asking questions, make sure it’s affiliated with your team:

Then, enter the authorization code retrieved from your team’s FIRST account:

Please don’t forget to search for your question first. You may find it’s already been asked and answered (and if it’s already been asked but not answered, you don’t need to ask it again – just follow that question, and you’ll see when the answer’s posted). For transparency sake, questions that are duplicates, nonsense, or overstandable are deleted.

 

Special shout-out to Blake Bourque, owner of Techplex Labs, who created our Q&A system. Blake is an alum of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 2648, Infinite Loop, from Oakland, Maine, USA and a current mentor of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 4909, Bionics. Thanks, Blake!