FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

We are getting so close to the first week of official events for CHARGED UP^SM presented by Haas! We kick things off in New Hampshire with our official “Week 0” event on Saturday, February 18. This is our opportunity to put the field through the paces of a real event prior to Week 1. A huge thanks to Team 811 for hosting us this year!

There is a ton of great information available on our Event Experience page. Make sure you check it out before your first event.

Robot Inspection is one of the first things many teams will do at their event. It’s also the first time many teams will interact with event volunteers. To help you be prepared, we have a few resources available for you:

• First is the Inspection Checklist. This is the tool Robot Inspectors will use to help ensure each robot’s compliance with the robot rules. You can use it before your event to make sure your robot will pass.
• We also have a new Inspection playlist posted on our YouTube page. These videos cover all of the aspects of a robot inspection and are also included as part of the inspector training this season. A huge thanks to Al Skierkiewicz and Chuck Dickerson, FIRST® Robotics Competition Chief Robot Inspectors, for helping edit these scripts and to the Lead Robot Inspectors who helped us film these videos! (And, as a reminder, you can check out all of our other technical resource videos on this playlist.)

I’d like to extend a special “Thank you” to the team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for their help editing the videos!

Last, I’ll remind everyone of two blog posts from last season from Al and Chuck. The first blog post covers common issues they see at Inspection. The second post covers the process of Inspection. Remember that the Lead Robot Inspector has the final say on all Inspection issues, and you can ask for their input at any time.  Please remember that the Inspectors (and all the volunteers at FIRST^® events) are there to help ensure all teams can compete fairly and safely.

Speaking of volunteers, there’s still time to sign up to volunteer at events! As I said at Kickoff, volunteering gave me a new way to connect with and give back to the FIRST community. I’ve volunteered for all FIRST programs over the years and recommend it to everyone!