In this weeks Blog-

Event Assignments for FLL Challenge posted with Update

FLL Explore Event Registration and Locations

Coaches Chat 11/18

Gracious Professionalism

FLL Challenge Participation Rules

Are you Ready?

Make sure you read the entire blog!

Event Assignments for FLL Challenge!

Event assignments are updated daily for teams that are fully registered and paid. If your assignment does not work for you- PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME. I will not be handling any team requests for movement by email. There are two form links on the assignment page, please use the appropriate one for the change you would like to make. I have extended the deadline for closing the form to Friday 11/7. That is the last day to request an event change. 

If you have not yet received your assignment, don’t panic! Please get your registration and payments completed asap!

All teams not registered with FIRST Washington and paid by 11/7 will be dropped and not assigned to an event.

There are 100 teams with unpaid FIRST Washington invoices!

FLL Challenge Events-

1st weekend:

Chimacum (Saturday) Chimacum SD– Cancelled

Issaquah (Saturday & Sunday) Beaver Lake MS

Spokane (Saturday & Sunday) Freeman

Wapato (Saturday & Sunday) Wapato HS

Tacoma 1 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

Seattle (Saturday & Sunday) Robert Eagle Staff MS

Everett (Saturday & Sunday) Heatherwood MS

2nd Weekend:

Federal Way (Saturday & Sunday)

Snohomish (Saturday & Sunday)

Issaquah (Sunday) Issaquah HS

Oak Harbor (Sunday) Oak Harbor HS

Olympia (Sunday) Jefferson MS

Tacoma 2 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

Shoreline CC (Saturday & Sunday)

Event Registration for FLL Explore!

The FLL Explore event registration form is posted on the FIRST Washington website. Teams are only confirmed in an event once they are fully registered and paid with both FIRST Inspires and FIRST Washington. If you have not already done so, and are planning to participate in December, please complete all necessary steps asap.

Snohomish –
Glacier Peak High School
December 6th: 12pm- 3pm

Spokane-
Freeman Middle School
December 6th: 12pm-2pm

Bellevue-
BSD  Steamnasium
December 6th: 9am-11am New!

Yelm- Coming Soon! 

Oak Harbor December 14th

Snohomish –
Glacier Peak High School
March 14th: 12pm- 3pm

Sammamish-
Sammamish High School
March (not confirmed)

Bonney Lake-
Bonney Lake High School
March 7th: 12:45pm-3pm

Cheney-
Eastern Washington University
April 11th

FLL Coaches Chat

Join us for the November Coaches Chat! We will be talking about the upcoming December Qualifier and Festival events! 

Please Keep Gracious Professionalism at Heart  

As your team prepares for their competition this season, take a moment to remind your students to keep the spirit of Gracious Professionalism and the FIRST Core Values at the core of everything they do. 

 This means competing with integrity, showing respect for others, and offering help when it’s needed, even to your opponents. Strive for excellence not just in your technical performance but also in how you collaborate, problem-solve, and treat every person participating in this competition. So, a few reminders – 

• All match results are final. ***no amount of arguing or pestering will change them 😉 

• There are no video replays of matches. 

• Only students should visit the question box. If a coach/mentor wants to accompany a student as emotional support, that is totally fine! But the student should be asking the questions, NOT the adult. This is a learning opportunity for them, not an opportunity for adults to question match results. 

 Remind your students and fellow adults that every single person running your competition is a VOLUNTEER. Maybe you’re running late and you get frustrated with the person running team check in; or the Referee makes a call you don’t personally agree with. Everyone running your competition is donating their time and talents to ensure your students have the best possible experience. 

 As Gracious Professionalism teaches us – that doesn’t always mean things will be easy or you will agree with the outcome. But every experience is an opportunity to learn, and it is the responsibility of coaches and mentors to set a strong example for their students. Your team will have a better experience competing if the event your attending is well staffed, by well-trained, enthusiastic volunteers. But it becomes difficult to retain volunteers if they are not treated with respect and kindness by students, or fellow adults.  So, please be intentional with your team and take a moment to remind them of these tenants.  

 Lets let this season be about more than just winning—make it about inspiring each other and having fun! 

FIRST Participation rule reminders for FLL Challenge-

• All work presented at an official event is the work of the children on the team.
• A competitive team consists of a minimum of two (2) and a maximum of ten (10) children. Proper adult supervision is required as described in the FIRST® Youth Protection Policy.
• A team must be registered and fully paid in their national registration system to sign up for official events. Additional regional/local event fees may apply.
• All team members attending an event are required to participate in the judging session and be present as a team at the Robot Game matches.
• If a student participates on more than one team, the student must choose which team they will participate on during an event. Students are not allowed to be part of more than one team at any given event.

Competitive Team Awards/Advancement

A competitive team must meet these additional criteria to be eligible for awards and/or advancement at an official event:

• Teams are only eligible for awards and advancement at their initial qualifying event within each tournament level.
  • For example, teams are only eligible for awards and advancement at the first qualifier they compete in each season.
• Team members’ work must conform to the parameters and rules outlined in the Challenge overview, Engineering Notebook and Robot Game Rulebook.

Consequences

FIRST® gives authority to volunteers staffing FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge official events to interpret and implement the Participation Rules, guided by global FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge training materials.

• Teams, coaches, and supporters at official events are expected to demonstrate the Core Values and Gracious Professionalism®.
  • Individuals interfering with, excessively instructing, prompting, or heckling a team or volunteer may be asked to leave.
  • Severe infractions of these rules may result in a team’s dismissal from the event. FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge official event volunteers are provided training to identify and respond to these situations (See FIRST® Youth Protection Policy).
• Individuals and/or teams who fail to abide by the Participation Rules may be ineligible for awards at a tournament.

Remember- Kids do the Work!

Washington State FLL Challenge Rules and Guidelines

Are you ready?

Check the links below to verify your teams registrations and payments! 

FLL Challenge?

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FLL Explore?

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Important Dates & Deadlines

• Open Now – FIRST Washington Registration
• November 18th- Coaches Chat
• December 6/7 – First weekend of Qualifiers
• December 13/14 – Second weekend of Qualifiers
• January 24/25 – Semifinals
• February  1st – Western WA State

More From FLL

In this weeks Blog-

Event Assignments for FLL Challenge posted

FLL Explore Event Registration

Invoices need to be secured ASAP!

Are you Ready?

Make sure you read the entire blog!

Event Assignments for FLL Challenge!

The first round of FLL Challenge event assignments were posted on Friday 10/24 for teams that are fully registered and paid. I am updating this list daily with new teams as I am updated by accounting. If your assignment does not work for you- PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME. I will not be handling any team requests for movement by email. There are two form links on the assignment page, please use the appropriate one for the change you would like to make. It is much easier and faster for me this way.

My goal is to close this form on Sunday 11/2 and post the first updates on 11/3. I realize this is only a few days. If you need a change, please fill out the form asap. If you have not yet received your assignment, don’t panic! Please get your registration and payments completed asap! The event locations are posted below. This is the final event list.

FLL Challenge Events-

1st weekend:

Chimacum (Saturday) Chimacum SD– Cancelled

Issaquah (Saturday & Sunday) Beaver Lake MS

Spokane (Saturday & Sunday) Freeman

Wapato (Saturday & Sunday) Wapato HS

Tacoma 1 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

Seattle (Saturday & Sunday) Robert Eagle Staff MS

Everett (Saturday & Sunday) Heatherwood MS

2nd Weekend:

Federal Way (Saturday & Sunday)

Snohomish (Saturday & Sunday)

Issaquah (Sunday) Issaquah HS

Oak Harbor (Sunday) Oak Harbor HS

Olympia (Sunday) Jefferson MS

Tacoma 2 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

Shoreline CC (Saturday & Sunday)

Event Registration for FLL Explore!

The FLL Explore event registration form is posted on the FIRST Washington website. Teams are only confirmed in an event once they are fully registered and paid with both FIRST Inspires and FIRST Washington. If you have not already done so, and are planning to participate in December, please complete all necessary steps asap.

FLL Challenge Teams- All teams wanting to participate in this seasons Qualifiers should be fully registered and paid at this time!

To participate in FIRST Washington Qualifier events:  

• You must be registered with FIRST HQ (firstinspires)   

• You must be registered with FIRST Washington – https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/c5f3e7b49ea6400b823696be6b954a59
•  Your FIRST Washington Invoice must be secured – As of this morning 534 invoices have been sent out and only 382 teams have secured their invoice. If I cancel events because of the 150 teams that have not paid, that is 5 events! I do not have room for 150 teams in the remaining events if 5 get cancelled!

• You can secure your FIRST Washington invoice with at check, credit card or PO from your school (if you are a school affiliated team)

Teams are only assigned to events once this invoice is secured! 

Are you ready?

Check the links below to verify your teams registrations and payments! 

FLL Challenge?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

FLL Explore?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

Important Dates & Deadlines

• Open Now – FIRST Washington Registration
• December 6/7 – First weekend of Qualifiers
• December 13/14 – Second weekend of Qualifiers
• January 24/25 – Semifinals
• February  1st – Western WA State

More From FLL

In this weeks Blog-

Invoices need to be secured!

Event Assignments- Are you Ready?

Event Update

Make sure you read the entire blog!

FLL Challenge Teams– FIRST Washington Invoices need to be secured this week! 

To participate in FIRST Washington Qualifier events:  

• You must be registered with FIRST HQ (firstinspires)   

• You must be registered with FIRST Washington – https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/c5f3e7b49ea6400b823696be6b954a59
•  Your FIRST Washington Invoice must be secured – As of this morning 522 invoices have been sent out and only 267 teams have secured their invoice. 

• You can secure your FIRST Washington invoice with at check, credit card or PO from your school (if you are a school affiliated team)

Teams are only assigned to events once this invoice is secured! 

I will need to cancel some events if teams are not paid or secured by the end of the week (10/24)

Event Assignments!

FLL Challenge– I am unable to assign teams that are not fully registered and paid or secured with both FIRST Inspires and FIRST Washington! If teams are not fully registered and secured by the end of the week I may be forced to cancel more events due to lack of teams. Once cancelled, I am unable to add them back, and late registrations will not be accepted due to lack of available space. Please get your team secured by the end of this week!

Are you ready?

Check the links below to verify your teams registrations and payments! 

FLL Challenge?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

FLL Explore?

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Event Update!

I still have a few locations I am waiting on confirmation. The schedule as it stands right now-

FLL Challenge-

1st weekend:

Chimacum (Saturday) Chimacum SD– Cancelled

Issaquah (Saturday & Sunday) Beaver Lake MS

Spokane (Saturday & Sunday) Freeman

Wapato (Saturday & Sunday) Wapato HS

Tacoma 1 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

2nd Weekend:

Federal Way (Saturday & Sunday)

Snohomish (Saturday & Sunday)

Issaquah (Sunday) Issaquah HS

Oak Harbor (Sunday) Oak Harbor HS

Olympia (Sunday) Jefferson MS

Tacoma 2 (Sunday) Bellarmine Prep

Still in progress: 

2-3 venues (Shoreline, Seattle and Everett)

FLL Explore-

Snohomish

Oak Harbor

Spokane

I hope to have the rest finalized by the end of this week. Fingers crossed! This is taking longer than usual!

Important Dates & Deadlines

• Open Now – FIRST Washington Registration
• December 6/7 – First weekend of Qualifiers
• December 13/14 – Second weekend of Qualifiers
• January 24/25 – Semifinals
• February  1st – Western WA State

More From FLL

In this weeks Blog-

Registration info!

Invoices

Are you Registered?

Reminder From Finance

Make sure you read the entire blog!

Are you registered?

Check the links below to verify your teams registrations and payments! 

FLL Challenge?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

FLL Explore?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

Invoices

Invoices for the FIRST Washington FLL Challenge ($350) and FLL Explore ($50) have started to go out.

The first round of FLL Challenge invoices went out on Friday, the first round of FLL Explore invoices should go out this week.

They will be emailed out to the person you listed on your FIRST Washington registration under “person who should receive FIRST Washington invoice”

Invoices are sent out once a week, and payments are updated daily. Check the link above to see your teams status. We have also included the date your invoices were sent- if you are unable to find it and you have a date it was sent, please check any spam or junk folders for an email from ‘accounting@firstwa.org’

Thanks for your patience!

A Reminder From the Finance Department :

Please make sure your team number is clearly included on ALL donations sent on behalf of your team. This includes checks, volunteer matches, and ACH deposits.

If for any reason a team number cannot be included, it’s essential that you communicate directly with the Finance Department to ensure proper allocation.(accounting@firstwa.org)

⚠️ Without a team number, we cannot guarantee that funds will be credited to your team’s booster account.

Thank you for helping us keep everything organized and accurate!

Important Dates & Deadlines

• Open Now – FIRST Washington Registration
• 10/3 – Invoices begin go out
• December 6/7 – First weekend of Qualifiers
• December 13/14 – Second weekend of Qualifiers
• January 24/25 – Semifinals
• February  1st – Western WA State

More From FLL

In this weeks Blog-

Registration info!

Invoices

Event Info

Coaches Chat Recording

Make sure you read the entire blog!

Are you registered?

If you have recently registered with FIRST Inspires (after 9/24) this will not reflect that. FIRST Inspires report we use to verify registration has been down since 9/24. They hope to have it fixed soon! 

FLL Challenge?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

FLL Explore?

↓↓↓↓↓↓

Invoices

Invoices for the FIRST Washington FLL Challenge ($350) and FLL Explore ($50) fees go out in early October. They will be emailed out to the person you listed on your FIRST Washington registration under “person who should receive FIRST Washington invoice”

Thanks for your patience!

Event Info

FLL Challenge- 

Overview-

• Teams are assigned events based on location.
• Once a team has paid their FIRST Washington fee and they have been assigned an event, if they would like to change events there will be an opt out form to fill out to request another event.
• Teams will then be placed on a waitlist and moved into that event after all teams have been placed or after a certain date, whichever comes first, if there is still space.
• If there is not space in the event they chose, they may move back into their original event, space permitting, or be assigned to an event with available space.

Challenge Registration- Details- Make sure you read!

• Teams will no longer be filling out a registration survey- YAY
• Teams will still need to be paid to see their placement- invoices will go out soon to those that filled out the FIRST Washington registration. If you did not fill it out, you will not receive an invoice and will not be placed or able to participate until you do.
• Teams will be assigned a home venue/event that is within 50 miles
• The 50 miles is point to point distance, not driving distance
• This is based on Venue Zipcode and Team Zipcode
• Teams have the ability to opt out of their home event using the opt out form and go on a waitlist. Teams may only ask to opt out by filling out the form- no email communication will be accepted.
• Waitlist teams are not guaranteed a spot in the event they choose, or a spot in the event they opted out of.
• Waitlist teams are placed on a first come first served basis in the event they choose if there is available space, and will be notified after the placement window closes if there is space in the event they chose.
• If there is not space- they can move back to their home event, space permitting, or move into an event with available space, but there is no guarantee an event with available space will be within 50 miles
• Teams requesting to change the day of the week only and not the venue they are competing at will have a seperate form to fill out. Make sure you pay attention to which form you need! 

FLL Explore- 

Overview-

• Teams fill out an event registration form
• You can choose 2 event preferences from a list. Please make sure both locations and dates work for you! 
• Once teams have-
  • Registered with FIRST
  • Registered with FIRST Washington
  • Paid the FIRST Washington invoice ($50)
  • Filled out the event registration
• Teams will be placed in one of their 2 event preferences.
• Events are in December and March, teams may choose 1.

Event Venues

I am still in the process of getting all the event venues secured. As soon as I have a schedule I will get it out to you all! 

FLL Coaches Chat

To view the recording and slides from last weeks coaches chat click here

Important Dates & Deadlines

• Open Now – FIRST Washington Registration
• Early October – Invoices go out
• December 6/7 – First weekend of Qualifiers
• December 13/14 – Second weekend of Qualifiers
• January 24/25 – Semifinals
• February  1st – Western WA State

More From FLL