FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

Woodie Celebration, Religious Exemptions to Championship Assignment, Beta Testing

Nov 12, 2019 Written by Frank Merrick.

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Woodie’s Celebration of Life Reminder

As we said in this blog, teams are invited to participate in person in the Celebration of Life for Woodie on Monday, December 9. Lead Coach/Mentor 1 and 2 received emails last week with invitations to the event. We will not be accepting requests for tickets after midnight ET this Friday, November 15, so please get your requests in soon.

 

Religious Exemptions to Houston Championship Assignment

As we did last year, we are allowing FIRST Robotics Competition teams to request reassignment from Houston to Detroit if they have a significant religious conflict with the FIRST Championship Houston dates of April 15 – April 18. You may request reassignment to FIRST Championship Detroit in 2020 by sending an email outlining your case in detail to frcteamadvocate@firstinspires.org. We strongly prefer teams attend their assigned FIRST Championship event out of fairness and to keep assignments balanced. Because of this, teams requesting reassignment must make an extraordinarily compelling case, and few requests will be granted. Your case can be strengthened greatly by providing documentation from your school or other host organization, on letterhead, and with the signature of an official, indicating the entire team will not be allowed to travel to FIRST Championship Houston because of a religious conflict.

 

The deadline for submitting requests is January 27, 2020, at 5 PM Eastern Time. This is before all teams, except pre-qualified teams, know with certainty that they will be invited to the Championship. If your team will be unable to attend FIRST Houston Championship for religious reasons because of the dates, and your team wishes to request an exemption, your team must request to do so before the deadline of January 27. Late requests will not be accepted.

 

Beta Testing

Beta testing for the 2020 Control System is well underway. A huge thanks to the teams selected this year to participate!

 

C++

116

Epsilon Delta

Herndon

VA

USA

302

The Dragons

Lake Orion

MI

USA

900

The Zebracorns

Durham

NC

USA

971

Spartan Robotics

Mountain View

CA

USA

1511

Rolling Thunder

Penfield

NY

USA

1831

Screaming Eagles

Gilford

NH

USA

2135

Presentation Invasion

San Jose

CA

USA

2170

Titanium Tomahawks

Glastonbury

CT

USA

2367

Lancer Robotics

Mountain View

CA

USA

2481

Roboteers

Tremont

IL

USA

2714

BBQ

Plano

TX

USA

3229

Hawktimus Prime

Holly Springs

NC

USA

3538

RoboJackets

Auburn Hills

MI

USA

4118

Roaring Riptide

Gainesville

FL

USA

4143

MARS WARS

Metamora

IL

USA

7433

Iona Fusion

Port Macquarie

NSW

Australia

 

Java

11

MORT

Flanders

NJ

USA

217

ThunderChickens

Sterling Heights

MI

USA

538

Dragon Slayers

Arab

AL

USA

540

TALON 540

Henrico

VA

USA

604

Quixilver

San Jose

CA

USA

694

StuyPulse

New York

NY

USA

914

Flashpoint

Toronto

ON

Canada

1306

BadgerBOTS

Middleton

WI

USA

1519

Mechanical Mayhem

Milford

NH

USA

1912

Team Combustion

Slidell

LA

USA

2152

S*M*A*S*H

Volusia County

FL

USA

2177

The Robettes

Mendota Heights

MN

USA

2910

Jack in the Bot

Mill Creek

WA

USA

2974

Walton Robotics

Marietta

GA

USA

3128

Aluminum Narwhals

San Diego

CA

USA

3966

L&N STEMpunks

Knoxville

TN

USA

4414

HighTide

Ventura

CA

USA

4930

Electric Mayhem

Buffalo

NY

USA

4990

Gryphon Robotics

Hillsborough

CA

USA

5190

Green Hope Falcons

Cary

NC

USA

5940

BREAD

Belmont

CA

USA

6300

Northwood School Robotics

Lake Placid

NY

USA

7028

Binary Battalion

St. Michael

MN

USA

7068

Mechanical Masterminds

Saint Francis

MN

USA

8027

Not The Droids You Are Looking For

Pittsburgh/Sharon

PA

USA

 

Labview

56

R.O.B.B.E

Bound Brook

NJ

USA

358

Robotic Eagles

Hauppauge

NY

USA

585

Cyber Penguins

Tehachapi

CA

USA

624

Cryptonite

Katy

TX

USA

1108

Panther Robotics

Paola

KS

USA

1718

The Fighting Pi

Armada

MI

USA

2344

Saunders Droid Factory

Yonkers

NY

USA

2468

Team Appreciate

Austin

TX

USA

2614

Mountaineer Area Robotics (MARS)

Morgantown

WV

USA

4153

Project Y

Los Alamos

NM

USA

 

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Comments

Like many public schools in the US, we have a wide range of religious beliefs on our team. We have many Jewish and Christian members, but we also have Hindu and Muslim members. I don't think it is right to only allow religious exemptions for teams where the entire team is the same religion. That is extremely rare in the US. If you are saying that only private schools and schools from Israel are allowed to request exemptions, you should say that. It seems like you should actually deal with this problem by not scheduling during major holidays.

With an average team size of about 25 members or so, we will never be able to pick dates for Championship that do not interfere for individual team members for one personal reason or another. While we would love to avoid scheduling Championship during major holidays, that would mean either moving them earlier into April and so shortening the number of weeks we have to fit in all those regular-season events, or moving them into early May when many seniors are taking their AP exams. Moving them into late May or June would mean having them when some schools in the Northern Hemisphere are starting their summer breaks. Recognizing that any specific set of dates is going to be hard for some team members on individual teams, we felt it most practical and fair to say we will only consider exceptions for teams when the entire team can't participate. No solution to this problem is going to be perfect, but we will continue to keep our eyes open for new ideas.  

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