FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the 2024 FIRST^® Robotics Competition Kickoff! 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.

And, a huge “Thank you” to teams 1678 and 3061 for their game design challenge submissions that inspired CRESCENDO^SM presented by Haas!

 

Translated Manuals

While the English version of the manual is the official version, unofficial French, Spanish, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese manuals are also available on the Translated Manuals page. Team Updates are published by FIRST^® in English only, and not typically incorporated in the translated manuals.

 

Field Tour Videos

We showed the Field Tour videos at the end of the Kickoff broadcast, and I’ll mention them again here. These videos are a great opportunity to learn some details about the field that teams will see at events.

 

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 25^th. After that, Team Updates continue to be posted on Tuesdays only and end on April 9^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 10, 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, we want to tell you that questions that are duplicates or nonsense 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!