Infinite Recharge Coach Email Volume 2 9/9/20
Greetings Coaches!
If you are new to this email this is the place where you will find all of the Washington specific FIRST Robotics Competition information. Coaches in the FIRST system for the INFINITE RECHARGE season will be added once teams are able to register for events. Every email from me will be numbered and that number lets you know which update it is, if you miss an update you can find it on our website.
Here is what I have for you today:
- What are your plans for this season?
- FRC Update and Q&A Thursday, August 27
What are your plans for this season?
If you missed the Q&A listed below, we gave a brief update at the beginning of the webinar talking about our plans. Here is a brief overview, keep in mind these plans are evolving, we are happy to share what we do know but there is still a lot for FRC that we don’t have answers to as of yet. Our hope is that we will have much more info by the end of Sept/beginning of Oct.
- FIRST is still looking at remote options for FRC, we haven’t been given any information yet as to what there plans are but I know they are working hard on a plan to provide teams a meaningful experience even if they can’t be at events.
- There will be some changes to in person events (we don’t have a lot of information and will certainly update you as we know more)
- FIRST is moving to one day events so that we can keep the total number of people at an event much lower. (Which will hopefully allow in person events)
- Events will be 18 team events.
- There will be a limited number of volunteers
- Teams will be limited as to the number of participants they can bring onsite to the competition.
I ‘m guessing most of you saw the email sent out by FIRST yesterday that talked about their plan to move Championships and are wondering how it will affect our play. Our current plan is to start event as normal the first weekend in March though we have shifted our District Championship event to the weekend of April 17. Flexibility will be the key as we all navigate this together. We will continue to monitor things and if it looks like it will benefit teams (and if we are able to secure venues) we may consider shifting the season but at this moment, we plan to keep the majority of the events as they are.
I know you all have a lot of questions and we will answer them as we get more information. When we send out info on our next coach/mentor chat, please plan to attend. We will always share the latest info we have at the beginning of that meeting.
Like everyone else, we are trying to make plans while hitting a moving target. It would help us know how to support you if we understand what your plans and your challenges are. If you could take a brief moment to fill out this survey we would be so grateful! I know several of you have sent me an email with your team status (Thank you!) Even though you emailed me, if you could just take a moment to fill this survey out, it will put all of the info in one place and help me with tracking. (We are surveying over 1000 teams so it can be hard to track if the info isn’t all in one place.)
Recording from FRC Update and Q&A Aug 27
For those of you who missed the webinar, you can view the recording here This is where we will put all recorded webinars/workshops. We do plan to hold these sessions monthly and will send more information in our blast next week. In the future, we plan to use Zoom for these sessions so they can be more collaborative. Most of them will have a similar format where we give a short update and then the rest of the hour will be an open discussion.
Thank you all for your patience, flexibility and grace during this time!
Adrienne Rime
Senior Program Manager